BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals, etc.
AUSAR ( LORD OF THE PERFECT BLACK )
BLACKNESS AND HUMAN IMAGES IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART
Eurocentric scholarship has generated controversy in more areas of
Egyptological study than one would care to enumerate. Scholarly
"interpretations" of color application to human images in ancient
Egyptian art have proven no exception.
William Hamilton, during the British invasion of Egypt in 1801, allowed
himself and his colleague Daniel Clark, acquire a great many antiquities
(among these spoils of war was the famous Rosetta Stone). Using these
works of art as a point of reference, Hamilton published in 1809 his
AEGYPTICA, a volume including information on Egyptian history and art.
Hamilton toured Egypt several years before Champollion the Younger and
was awe struck by several painted bas relief depicting "black figures."
Besides the famous "dark-red" color generally associated with
representations of the ancient Egyptians, no hue has caused more heated
debate in the depiction of images than the use of black. While there is
no doubt that during the important dynasties the ancient Egyptians were
primarily a black skinned people, the actual color Black held a
significant position in ancient Nile Valley spirituality.
Blackness as an ancient Egyptian concept, represented the "Lord of the
Hidden Treasure", guardian and divine consciousness which raises the
human spirit from obsurity to light.
Dr. Richard King states: "Black was used extensively by ancient Africans
to represent a host of concepts, all of them having in common the
concept of seed, archetype or doorway to the collective all, collective
unconscious mind."
Discoveries of mural paintings and life-sized standing statues
exhibiting a black-skinned representation of the Pharaoh as Ausar
(Osiris), have been more numerous during the New Kingdom. There are
mural works that support the idea that at one time, life-sized statues
painted in Black-skin, existed for those sovereigns.
A mural painting from the tomb of royal official Rekhmire (1504-1453
B.C.), contemporary with the reign of Thutmoses III, depicts royal
sculptors creating the Black statue of the Pharaoh.
Physical evidence of authentic--three dimensional statues, was recovered
from the tomb of the young boy, King Tutankhamen (1363-1352 B.C.).
Between 5'6" and 5'7" tall, "they were in the name of "the royal Ka of
Harakhti, the Osiris Tutankhamen."
There is detail of a Deified Thutmoses III which is a painted
representation of a Black-skinned, KA statue. Tomb of the Vizier
Amenmose. Dynasty XIX, 1300 B.C.
The list of wall bas-reliefs that are painted in Black-face are as
follows:
Egyptian nobelman and wife presenting offerings to Ausar (Osiris), New
Kingdom.
Funerary boat with Black-skinned figures underneath canopy Predynastic,
3400-3200 B.C.
The Black Pharaoh Ba-en-neter of Dynasty II seated in the Osirian pose,
Archaic period 3200-2860 B.C.
Nebhetepre Mentuhotep I, founder of Dynasty XI, Middle Kingdom,
2060-2010 B.C.
Black skinned KA statue of Thutmoses I, Tomb of Userhet, Dynasty XVIII,
1395 B.C.
Portrait of Queen Ashayet, royal wife of Mentuhotep I, painted in Black.
Middle Kingdom, Dynasty XI.
Thutmoses III, Black skinned statue. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII.
Portrait of Thutmoses II, as the God Min. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII.
Portrait of Amenhotep I, painted in Black. New Kingdom, Late Dynasty
XVIII.
Portrait of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, Dynasty XVIII, New Kingdom in Black
face.
The Black figures raise many questions, among them the question of
Ethnicity. Had the artistic canon of using "dark-red" to depict the
ancient Egyptians been established as early as the predynastic era? And,
did the tomb painting(s) belong to a ruler that conceived of himself as
Black-skinned?
If one accepts the theory that this tomb belonged to an individual who
conceived of himself as dark-red (i.e. Egyptian), why would the mortuary
shrine commemorate and honor some Black-skinned foreigner?
The evidence presented demonstrates the existence of Black-skinned
peoples in Egyptian art at the very beginnings of Nile Valley
pre-history and throughout Egyptian history. Art imitates life, the
literally Black-skinned type has become a symbol of itself.
In the first issue of the Journal of African Civilizations, Jules Taylor
wrote an article discussing the relationship between blackness and human
images. His critical point, is the attempt by scholars to disassociate
the blackness of cosmic and divine fertility from the "Blackness" of
African ethnicity.
Godfred Higgins in Anacalypsis writes:
...It seems rather an extraordinary circumstance that the statues of the
Gods of the ancients should be represented of a Black color; or that
they be made of a stone as nearly Black as could be obtained...I
continually found that my labors terminated with something Black.
AUSAR (Lord Of The Perfect Black)
au...@best.com
E.G. Land
In article <324C75...@best.com>,
AUSAR ( LORD OF THE PERFECT BLACK ) <au...@best.com> wrote:
>BLACKNESS AND HUMAN IMAGES IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART
>
>Eurocentric scholarship has generated controversy in more areas of
>Egyptological study than one would care to enumerate. Scholarly
>"interpretations" of color application to human images in ancient
>Egyptian art have proven no exception.
>AUSAR (Lord Of The Perfect Black)
>au...@best.com
Look man, this shit is getting silly. Since you started posting
your pabulum an army of scholars have contributed to this thread to
point out the many things you are flat wrong on. Katherine
Griffis, a legitimate scholar and member of "The American
Research Center in Egypt" has exhibited the patience of Job in
explaining to you point by point how and where your untutored
scholarship goes awry. These people have not only
provided you with a blizzard of cites to back up their assertions,
but have been as gentle and understanding of your unorthodox
approach to scholarly discourse as humanly possible.
But not longer me...
Your stupid, mule-headed regurgitation of your mindless "The
Egyptians were black" mantra has had it with me. I'll no longer
argue the point. Clearly, you are not at all interested in
engaging in rational discourse; rather, you have bricked around
yourself a self-made religion you feel necessary to defend with
all your feeble intellectual skills. You are a stupid man.
This much established, I'd like to shift the discussion to another
topic that although related to your comical ideas about
Egyptians, offers us perhaps a deeper insight to your need to
create worlds that never existed. Namely, what do Egyptians,
black, seal-skin brown, or hi-yalla, have to do with the people
you descend from?
Did you get that, Mr. Lord of Perfect Flack?
I repeat...
What do the Egyptians have to do with the Bushman, Bantu, and
Pygmy people you descend from?
Now, I'm not trying to put you down, bro'; but I'm sure the
readers are somewhat puzzled too. That's to say, since your
message is "black pride" and pride in your African heritage, why
don't we see you writing posts about your Bantu ancestors?
BARD
--
_______________________________________________________________________
BARD (aka Ed Garth Land)
Fly On-The-Wall, Inc.
Katherine Griffis
On Sep 27, 1996 17:48:45 in <soc.culture.african.american>, '"AUSAR ( LORD
>B.C.), contemporary with the reign of Thutmoses III, depicts royal
>sculptors creating the Black statue of the Pharaoh.
>
>Physical evidence of authentic--three dimensional statues, was recovered
>from the tomb of the young boy, King Tutankhamen (1363-1352 B.C.).
>Between 5'6" and 5'7" tall, "they were in the name of "the royal Ka of
>Harakhti, the Osiris Tutankhamen."
quote you give. See Wilkinson's discussions of these particular statues in
the post, THE HUES OF GODS AND MEN, which is posted here on SCAA.
>There is detail of a Deified Thutmoses III which is a painted
>representation of a Black-skinned, KA statue. Tomb of the Vizier
>Amenmose. Dynasty XIX, 1300 B.C.
-- therefore, an Osiride statue.
>The list of wall bas-reliefs that are painted in Black-face are as
>follows:
>
>Egyptian nobelman and wife presenting offerings to Ausar (Osiris), New
>Kingdom.
therefore, I would have *more surprised* had these figures *not* had black
faces. See Wilkinson's description of the phenomena of "black faces and
'other-colored' bodies" in the post, THE HUES OF GODS AND MEN, on SCAA.
>Funerary boat with Black-skinned figures underneath canopy Predynastic,
>3400-3200 B.C.
Djau-djau, who guide the Boat of Ra at night.....
>The Black Pharaoh Ba-en-neter of Dynasty II seated in the Osirian pose,
>Archaic period 3200-2860 B.C.
>Nebhetepre Mentuhotep I, founder of Dynasty XI, Middle Kingdom, >2060-2010
B.C.
>Black skinned KA statue of Thutmoses I, Tomb of Userhet, Dynasty XVIII,
>1395 B.C.
>Portrait of Queen Ashayet, royal wife of Mentuhotep I, painted in Black.
>Middle Kingdom, Dynasty XI.
>Thutmoses III, Black skinned statue. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII.
Osiride statues. Other statuary of these individuals (while alive) show
them colored as within the coloration scheme of Egypt art (red/red-brown
for males, yellow/yellow-orange for females).
>Portrait of Thutmoses II, as the God Min. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII.
figurines, due to his function as a god of fertility (which is similar to
Osiris, except that it also encompasses *human* fertility as well, while
Osiris is concerned more with *vegetative fertility*). Once a combination
of gods occur, depending upon function, the coloration of features reflects
their *function* of combined use (in this case, fertility and
resurrection).
>Portrait of Amenhotep I, painted in Black. New Kingdom, Late Dynasty
>XVIII.
>Portrait of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, Dynasty XVIII, New Kingdom in Black
>face.
statue, as Amenhotep I's living reign was in the early to mid-part of the
18th dynasty. As ancestor of part of the dynasty, such statues were very
common. The same is true of the Ahmose-Nefertari statue (that is, this is
an Osiride *deified* statue of her), which was used as an *intermediary*
with the gods due to her spectacular works on earth in the early part of
the 18th Dynasty. Figures of Ahmose-Nefertari were made well up to 200
years or better *after her death*, as she came to symbolize two things:
first of all, she was the *ancestress* of the Thutmosid/Amenhotep clans who
operated throughout most of the 18th Dynasty, and two, her reputation as a
wise female royal (she was instrumental, with her brothers, as well as her
mother, Aahotep, for example, in routing the Hyksos from Egypt), she became
a standard of *female leadership and intuition*, or a **symbol**, if you
will. Since she was *called upon* as a "wise woman", and she was
*deceased*, her statues reflect her "otherworldly" nature -- not quite a
primary god, but definitely an important figure (not unlike the
*intermediary nature* of the Virgin Mary).
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
HR57JazzandBlues.@worldnet.att.net
gri...@usa.pipeline.com(Katherine Griffis) wrote:
>On Sep 27, 1996 17:48:45 in <soc.culture.african.american>, '"AUSAR ( LORD
>OF THE PERFECT BLACK )" <au...@best.com>' wrote:
>>The list of wall bas-reliefs that are painted in Black-face are as
>>follows:
>>
>>Egyptian nobelman and wife presenting offerings to Ausar (Osiris), New
>>Kingdom.
Then Katherine wrote:
>
>In judgment scenes, the deceased is shown as *identified* with Osiris,
>therefore, I would have *more surprised* had these figures *not* had black
I am curious as to the Eqyptian's reasoning for choosing the color
black for a deified subject. Can you comment?
>Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
>Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
>
>http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
-Paloma
Don't worry about the changes in the key
just play within the range of the idea"
Charlie Parker
_________________________________________________
The opinions expressed herein are those of my own
Gabrielle T. Daniels
On 29 Sep 1996 HR57JazzandBlues.@worldnet.att.net wrote back, ostensibly
to Katherine Griffis:
> >In judgment scenes, the deceased is shown as *identified* with Osiris,
> >therefore, I would have *more surprised* had these figures *not* had black
>
> I am curious as to the Eqyptian's reasoning for choosing the color
> black for a deified subject. Can you comment?
She said that it had something to do with the color of earth. Dirt.
Mud. From which we all supposedly came and must return.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gabrielle T. Daniels-...@ea.oac.uci.edu-Gabrielle T. Daniels
I was born on March 19, which is also the feast day of
Elegba, the Vodun God of the Crossroads.
It is the day the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans march.
It is St. Joseph's Day.
'Elegba, open the door.'
M.F.A. Candidate in Creative Writing*University of California, Irvine
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
S. F. Thomas
Katherine Griffis wrote:
>
> On Sep 27, 1996 17:48:45 in <soc.culture.african.american>, '"AUSAR ( LORD
> OF THE PERFECT BLACK )" <au...@best.com>' wrote:
>
> >A mural painting from the tomb of royal official Rekhmire (1504-1453
> >B.C.), contemporary with the reign of Thutmoses III, depicts royal
> >sculptors creating the Black statue of the Pharaoh.
>
> An Osiride statue.
So? If we ask who was Osiris, or Ausar, we find:
"To Amelineau we owe the discovery of Osiris' tomb at Abydos,
thanks to which Osiris could no longer be considered a
mythical hero but an historic personage, an initial ancestor
of the Pharaohs, a Black ancestor, as was his sister, Isis.
Thus we can understand why the Egyptians always painted their
gods black as coal, in the image of their race, from the
beginning to the end of their history."
- Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, p. 75.
Again and again, we find eurocentric scholarship unable to
accept what is plain and obvious, preferring instead that which
is contrived and incredible, wherever the plain and the obvious
would credit the Black African. So the truth of the "Osiride"
statue still lies in the homage it gives to Osiris, the
most honored of the ancestors of the Pharaohs, and the coloring,
black, merely represents the skin color of Osiris, the Black
African. Or do you suggest that Osiris, the historical personage,
was other than Black?
(( cuts ))
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
AUSAR ( LORD OF THE PERFECT BLACK )
>From: gri...@usa.pipeline.com(Katherine Griffis)
>Subject: Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals, etc.
>A mural painting from the tomb of royal official Rekhmire (1504-1453
>B.C.), contemporary with the reign of Thutmoses III, depicts royal
>sculptors creating the Black statue of the Pharaoh.
>An Osiride statue.
**
**Which means what? It makes logical sense that a King venerated as such
would be depicted as BLACK to symbolize the divinity. Since BLACK is the
color which represents life, death, and rebirth---it seems they would
represent a venerated King in this fashion. To say it is an Osiride
statue is saying what? AUSAR was a Lord of Resurrection, similar to role
of Jesus.
>
>Physical evidence of authentic--three dimensional statues, was recovered
>from the tomb of the young boy, King Tutankhamen (1363-1352 B.C.).
>Between 5'6" and 5'7" tall, "they were in the name of "the royal Ka of
>Harakhti, the Osiris Tutankhamen."
**
**Yes, the style of this statue is Osiride in form, i.e. BLACK, but
other
than that, we still have the existence of a BLACK figure that means
something. Vegetative? I highly doubt it. Too simple. Since the color
BLACK is very significant in our Judeao-Christian religion, it seems
likely that the color BLACK is far more significant in Egyptian
Religion,
than our own.
>Also a set of Osiride statues....it's plainly written, AUSAR, in the very
quote you give. See Wilkinson's discussions of these particular statues
in
the post, THE HUES OF GODS AND MEN, which is posted here on SCAA.
>
>There is detail of a Deified Thutmoses III which is a painted
>representation of a Black-skinned, KA statue. Tomb of the Vizier
>Amenmose. Dynasty XIX, 1300 B.C.
>If the Thutmosid statue is *deified*, it means that Thutmosis III is *dead*
>-- therefore, an Osiride statue.
**
** But let's examine this for a moment. When we pass on, our bodies in
fact turn
BLACK, even White folks. So, is that the original color (BLACK) what we
should
be born with in the first place, and WHERE Christianity gained the
concept of
being "born-again" for the sub-conscious belief of that notion? The
concept of
"re-birth" is the same as "born-again" in which case the Egyptians used
the
color BLACK symbolizing the re-birth or regeneration.
But it seems logical that the Egyptians WOULD be a part of the BLACK
race,
KMT,i.e. BLACK land, BLACK people, otherwise, they would have
represented
THEIR DIVINE GODS in the same likeness of themselves...if that's the
WORD
they received from THE FATHER. Had the Egyptians believed they were
other
than BLACK folk, I doubt it very seriously that they would represent
their
Gods as BLACK, if THEY weren't.
So I stand firm on the notion of the Egyptians using the color BLACK to
represent their ETHNICITY along with and transforming INTO their
spirituality.
You see BARD, I'm not ashamed of my African Heritage as you think...
>Funerary boat with Black-skinned figures underneath canopy Predynastic,
>3400-3200 B.C.
>These would likely be the *genii* of the underworld, known as the
>Djau-djau, who guide the Boat of Ra at night.....
**
**O.K. but what does this mean? Being the "genii" of the underworld? Are
they
not still BLACK people? No, don't tell me...they're really WHITE, but
they were depicted as BLACK so that we could recognize them being
"people"
RIGHT? Good grief...
>The Black Pharaoh Ba-en-neter of Dynasty II seated in the Osirian pose,
>Archaic period 3200-2860 B.C.
>Nebhetepre Mentuhotep I, founder of Dynasty XI, Middle Kingdom, >2060-2010
>B.C.
>Black skinned KA statue of Thutmoses I, Tomb of Userhet, Dynasty XVIII,
>1395 B.C.
>Portrait of Queen Ashayet, royal wife of Mentuhotep I, painted in Black.
>Middle Kingdom, Dynasty XI.
>Thutmoses III, Black skinned statue. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII.
>All of these are funerary statues of deceased royalty, and are considered
>Osiride statues. Other statuary of these individuals (while alive) show
them colored as within the coloration scheme of Egypt art (red/red-brown
for males, yellow/yellow-orange for females).
**
**Oh yea, the rusette-red-brown and yellow-orange people. Well, tell us
all to what race of people do these "Colored" (hint-hint) people belong
to?
>Portrait of Thutmoses II, as the God Min. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII.
>The god Min is combined with Osiris in many 18th dynasty statues and
>figurines, due to his function as a god of fertility (which is similar to
Osiris, except that it also encompasses *human* fertility as well, while
Osiris is concerned more with *vegetative fertility*). Once a
combination
of gods occur, depending upon function, the coloration of features
reflects
their *function* of combined use (in this case, fertility and
resurrection).
**
**I'm sorry Ms. Egyptologist, this is another area where we differ in
opinion
regarding the role of AUSAR. I know you're gonna change your opinion on
this,
but where is it written that Osiris was a God of Fertility? I am
familiar with
AUSAR as the LORD OF RESURRECTION, LORD OF THE NETHERWORLD, OR LORD OF
THE
PERFECT BLACK. I know that Min was a pre-historic "god" originally
worshipped
in Nubia or Punt, and later brought to Akhim and Koptos, Upper Egypt,
during
the Predynastic epoch. His anthropomorphic and ithyphallic form, which
also
dates back to this period, depicts a man with one upraised hand holding
a
flail, and in the other, his erect phallus, which was associated with
fertility.
According to the description by Richard W. Wilkinson, Ph.D., says: black
signifying their relationship with the deceased -- who had "become one"
with Osiris -- and the general theme of life an resurrection...As the
color
of the rich, dark soil of the Nile Valley, black (*kem*) also symbolized
Egypt itself (*kemet*: the "black land") from the earliest of times.
**Drawn from the seminal and authoritative work in the field of Egyptian
art, "Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art", Richard W. Wilkinson, Ph.D.,
1994)**
**
**Thanks for the cite. I don't believe he is an AUTHORITY or in a
position
to say that BLACK symbolized the rich, dark soil of the Nile Valley
because
although that may be true in regards to the richness of the soil,
doesn't
speak of the people which I believe the Egyptians were letting us know
that
by portraying BLACK PEOPLE (instead) of other BLACK objects, things,
etc.
>Portrait of Amenhotep I, painted in Black. New Kingdom, Late Dynasty
>XVIII.
>Portrait of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, Dynasty XVIII, New Kingdom in Black
>face.
>The very *timing* of Amenhotep I's statue tells you that it is an Osiride
>statue, as Amenhotep I's living reign was in the early to mid-part of the
18th dynasty. As ancestor of part of the dynasty, such statues were very
common. The same is true of the Ahmose-Nefertari statue (that is, this
is
an Osiride *deified* statue of her), which was used as an *intermediary*
with the gods due to her spectacular works on earth in the early part of
the 18th Dynasty.
...sniped
**
**Bottom line...BLACK figures. Hard to explain your way outta this one
cause
the evidence is so clear, so clear. It is frustrating I KNOW, that you
have
to make up wild stories to explain away the reasons why the Egyptians
used
the color BLACK, of ALL colors, to represent themselves in the stones...
their GODS, and the great Pharaohs.
BLACK
BLACK-BLACK
JET BLACK.
>Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
>(Member) of the American Research Center in Egypt
**AUSAR (LORD OF THE PERFECT BLACK)
Katherine Griffis
On Oct 01, 1996 02:23:06 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals,
etc.>, '"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com>' wrote:
>If we ask who was Osiris, or Ausar, we find:
>
>"To Amelineau we owe the discovery of Osiris' tomb at Abydos,
>thanks to which Osiris could no longer be considered a
>mythical hero but an historic personage, an initial ancestor
>of the Pharaohs, a Black ancestor, as was his sister, Isis.
>Thus we can understand why the Egyptians always painted their
>gods black as coal, in the image of their race, from the
>beginning to the end of their history."
>- Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, p. 75.
Seti I of the New Kingdom (Empire Period) as a *cenotaph* to the presumed
"burial spot" of Osiris. It was part of "a mistaken belief in later
periods that the site had been the burial place of the god Osiris, a
concept inspired by the presence of archaic tombs, one of which - Djer -was
converted into a model of the tomb of the god."
*Early Egypt: The Rise of Civilization in the Nile Valley*, A.J. Spencer,
Oklahoma Press, 1995, p. 71.
There was no body found in Djer's tomb, which caused the Rammessids to
reconvert it to the Osireion, as a cenotaph of the tomb of Osiris.
"... Or do you suggest that Osiris, the historical personage,
was other than Black?"
I suggest that Seti I and Ramesses II came across an empty tomb from the
archaic period, with no body (mummy), presumed it was the tomb of Osiris,
and recreated it into a "cenotaph tomb", which were quite common in Abydos.
See also:
*Abydos, Holy City of Ancient Egypt*, O. Sety and H. El Zeini, L L
Publishing, 1981.
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
Tim D. Gilman
>
>Is this correct, or not? No evasions please.
Bias on any historian/archeologist's viewpoint is usually evident after
a short reading: they strain too hard to make the facts fit the theory,
much like a lawyer, and where facts do not fit, merely ignore them. I
got this impression from reading Bernal when he at the outset stated
"the political purpose of Black Athena is to lessen European cultural
arrogance." That did it for me. I might as well have laid the book
down rather than pretend I was reading unbiased historical
scholarship. (Oh, BTW, Bernal is the grandson of Sir Alan Gardiner,
the eminent Egyptologist. I have often wondered about that aspect of
his life to explain the ferociousness of his thesis. ("Let's make
grandaddy spin in his grave...") ;)
White historians (particularly of the 19th century) were quite guilty
of this, and thus makes their works pretty useless (some of the mental
games played to prove a "Christianity is destiny" view of history are,
in fact, so bad they are humorous).
Unfortunately, I see many of the same games (and the case of racial
theories, some of the same white supremecist arguments) played out
by supposed Afrocentric scholarship. When any fact they present begins
with "everybody knows that <insert diatribe>" or make claims of
conspiracies by archeologists to do such things as scratching off face
paint, my little hackles go up and I scan the page for real evidence to
be presented.
From what I've gathered over the past year or so of reading this group,
this type of thinking is not what I'd call mainstream. On the other
hand, I have seen a steady flow of it from a select few. When I read
posts like AUSAR's, I'm reminded of something I once read from Marcus
Garvey, "Things that may not be true can be made true if you repeat
them long and often enough. Therefore always repeat statements that
will give your race status and advantage."
Race is, IMHO, so much a boondoggle and a social/political issue of
contemporay (18-20th century) origin. No reasonable historian,
archeologist, or Egyptologist argues that Egypt was not part of Africa,
or even *totally independent* of African cultures of the sub-Saharan
Africa. In fact, it was influenced by immigration patterns from a
large cross section of different races. Perhaps the first great
meeting of the "races" of mankind joined to make a civilization. What
is argued is that they took some of these diverse facets and made a
*distinct* culture that split away from its prehistoric roots at about
7000 BC and prior to the establishment of the civilization in the
middle of the third millenium BC. That's a lot of time for determining
cultural traits that define one as different from say, the Nubians,
Libyans, Syrians and so on.
--
Tim D. Gilman <tdgi...@best.com> <tdgi...@bigbang.berkeley.edu>
http://www.best.com/~tdgilman
.fvwmrc archive: ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/tdgilman/Fvwmrcs
S. F. Thomas
Katherine Griffis wrote:
>
> On Oct 01, 1996 02:23:06 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals,
>
> >If we ask who was Osiris, or Ausar, we find:
> >
> >"To Amelineau we owe the discovery of Osiris' tomb at Abydos,
> >thanks to which Osiris could no longer be considered a
> >mythical hero but an historic personage, an initial ancestor
> >of the Pharaohs, a Black ancestor, as was his sister, Isis.
> >Thus we can understand why the Egyptians always painted their
> >gods black as coal, in the image of their race, from the
> >beginning to the end of their history."
> >- Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, p. 75.
>
> Actually, the Osireion, or tomb to which you refer in Abydos, was built by
> Seti I of the New Kingdom (Empire Period) as a *cenotaph* to the presumed
> "burial spot" of Osiris. It was part of "a mistaken belief in later
> periods that the site had been the burial place of the god Osiris, a
> concept inspired by the presence of archaic tombs, one of which - Djer -was
> converted into a model of the tomb of the god."
>
> *Early Egypt: The Rise of Civilization in the Nile Valley*, A.J. Spencer,
> Oklahoma Press, 1995, p. 71.
Very interesting, but not relevant to addressing the question at issue.
> There was no body found in Djer's tomb, which caused the Rammessids to
> reconvert it to the Osireion, as a cenotaph of the tomb of Osiris.
You are a tricky one it would appear. Diop quotes Amelineau thusly:
"I myself have found other shrines during the preliminary excavations
which culminated in the royal necropolis, before unearthing the
shrine where the skull of the god I believed I had found was
preserved." (Diop, African Origin, p. 90.) Could you be saying there
was "no body found", while trickily omitting to say that there was
however a skull? In any case, you at least do not dispute the assertion
that Osiris was a historical personage. In which case, it is
reasonable to ask was he Black, or not.
> "... Or do you suggest that Osiris, the historical personage,
> was other than Black?"
>
> I suggest that Seti I and Ramesses II came across an empty tomb from the
> archaic period, with no body (mummy), presumed it was the tomb of Osiris,
> and recreated it into a "cenotaph tomb", which were quite common in Abydos.
Not surprisingly, you skillfully evade the question, continuing the
by now familiar eurocentric dance of distortion and denial. It takes
Diop, the Black African, to address the question plainly and forthrightly:
"What precisely are we taught by Egyptian tradition, if we consider it
from the most ancient epoch to which one can refer? This tradition,
expressed in "The Book of the Dead", whose doctrine is earlier than
any written history Egypt, teaches us that Isis is a Negro woman,
Osiris a Negro man, an Anu. Thus, in the oldest Egyptian texts his
name is accompanied by an ethnic designation to indicate his Nubian
origin."
Is this correct, or not? No evasions please.
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
> >
> >Is this correct, or not? No evasions please.
>
I think Tim, your own bias is showing by attempting to have it
both ways. You distance yourself from the outlandish
and indefensible nonsense perpetrated by eurocentric scholarship.
But you excoriate Bernal, who has documented it for all to
see. And you take swipe at afrocentrists, while attributing to
Marcus Garvey, without citation or reference, the sort of Big Lie
propaganda tactic that is better attributed to Goebbels, and to
Europe. The racist will ever attempt to label his opponent
racist-in-reverse; the propagandist will ever claim for himself
objectivity and dispassion, while claiming his opponent to be
the propagandist. Give it up. The days of the hoodwink and the
bamboozle are over. The afrocentrists do not disclaim bias. We
are all entitled to bias. What we must do is set aside those
biases when looking at the evidence. This is what eurocentric
scholarship has *not* done when it comes to Black Africa. Quite the
opposite. Eurocentric scholarship has been a propaganda machine
for white supremacy "feel-good" history. Hollywood and the popular
western press have been its handmaidens. Now, finally, we are
to believe that race does not matter. And, according to you,
notwithstanding the historical sources cited by Diop, which state
in so many words, that Osiris and Isis were of Nubian origin,
we are now to believe that, "in fact", according to you, they
were some sort of unspecified mix, no sources cited, no evidence
given. That is where the afrocentrists like Diop differ from
the eurocentrists he so easily demolishes. Diop distinguishes
fact from hypothesis, while admitting the biases that may color
his hypotheses. The eurocentrist asserts hypothesis as fact,
while disclaiming all bias, and cloaking himself in spurious
objectivity. It's time to give it a rest.
It was not Ms. Griffis this time attempting the evasion. Yours
was skillful also. But unavailing. The Nubians, still today,
are as black as any Black African. Do you deny the texts which
assert Osiris and Isis to be Nubian? No evasions please.
> Tim D. Gilman <tdgi...@best.com> <tdgi...@bigbang.berkeley.edu>
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Katherine Griffis
On Oct 02, 1996 01:07:59 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals,
etc.>, '"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com>' wrote:
>No evasions please.
Since I have never sought to evade any question you posed here, I have not
done so in the past, I will not do so in the future, nor will I do so here
today.
You asked if the Osirieon is the tomb of the historical personage known as
Osiris: I answered that. It is not. It is the *empty* tomb of Djer, a
predynastic king, and the only item found *near* the tomb was made by
Petrie in 1922, when a skeletal arm, covered with jewelry was found. No
record from that or Amelineau indicates any other body, *or body part* was
found as part of the tomb's mummy or funerary equipment (see below for the
explanation of the *pot with the head*).
What is *known* is that the XIXth Dynasty kings (Seti I, Rameses I) found
this tomb when excavating for the Temple of Seti I around 1250 BCE. Based
upon inscriptions, they recognized it as an *ancient tomb*, that Middle
Kingdom rulers had thought the same, and decided to use it as a cenotaph to
Osiris as it was empty (this is noted in the texts from the period and
inscribed within the walls of the Temple of Seti I at Abydos).
Amelineau excavated a *large* number of tombs in the Abydos region from
1894-98, after which Flinders Petrie got the archaeological concession from
the government. Of Amelineau's excavations, it is said:
"....the (archaic) tombs were first excavated by Emile Amelineau
between 1894 and 1898, as part of a large-scale project
which also included clearance of some Predynastic graves,
in addition to later monuments. The excavation could have been
better supervised, even by the standards of the time, but
nevertheless a mass of new material was discovered which
shed light on some of the earliest kings of Egypt. The task of
bringing material into some kind of order was undertaken by
Petrie, who was eventually permitted to excavate at Abydos
after the departure of Amelineau. The tombs were dug again
with greater attention to detail, and more objects, some of
great importance, were found. Many items bore names of
previously unknown kings, for which Petrie suggested a
chronological sequence..." (p. 12)
*Early Egypt: The Rise of Civilization of in the Nile Valley*,
A.J. Spencer, Oklahoma Press, 1995.
(Petrie's list):
"...This king [Narmer] was probably buried in Tomb 17/18
at Abydos, a double chamber tomb typical of the early
phase of the royal cemetery. The successors were named
Aha, Djer, Djet, Den, Anedjib, Semerkhet and Qa-a. In addition
there exists at Abydos a tomb for an individual named Merneith,
whose position has only recently been confirmed. Since names
compounded with the name of the goddess Neith (a Libyan
war-goddess) were generally those of females in the Early
Dynastic period, it was assumed that Merneith must have been
a queen who ruled independently and therefore qualified for
a burial in the royal necropolis. This theory has gained
substantial support from the discovery of the remarkable seal
impressions...in which she is given the title of "King's Mother"
and appears in the sequence of first dynasty rulers. She is
probably the mother of Den and may have acted as regent before
his accession." (Op.cit., p. 64)
"...As has been mentioned already, the tomb of Djer was in
later times converted into a cenotaph of the god Osiris, to
which offerings were brought [this explains the pot with a
head in the jar, which is, according to Egyptian tradition
a ways of presenting *an enemy's head* : See *Plutarch's
Lives* for how Pompey's head was delivered to Caesar. Use of
pots for the head is **not** a part of Egyptian mummification ritual
(see the tomb of Seneqare-Tao, when the head of the
king was separated from the body in battle) - KG).
When the tomb was excavated by Amelineau, it was found to
contain a stone image of the god, shown lying on a funerary
couch, when the Osiris cenotaph was refurbished." ( Op. cit., p. 80)
"... In any case, you at least do not dispute the assertion
reasonable to ask was he Black, or not."
*may* have contained the body of Osiris: we know now that they contained
the bodies of predynastic kings, none of which are identified as *Ausar*.
Every Egyptian city of any standing contained a *tomb to Osiris*, S.F.
Thomas. Based upon the mythology, the body of Osiris was dismembered into
14 pieces and there were 13 *holy cities* that contained each *member of
the body* (but one) buried there. Depending upon the mythology, either
the spinal column or the head of Osiris may have been buried at Abydos, and
the spinal column is the one usually referred to in texts I have seen.
As for Ausar's *ethnicity*, I have already described the various
colorations assigned to that god in the HUES OF GODS AND MEN. From the
quote of the Egyptians themselves, "...is was impossible to know the color
of the gods..." insofar as the knowledge of men can know the gods as
themselves. (Wilkinson, *Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art*, Toronto Press,
1994).
Your quote from Diop:
".... "What precisely are we taught by Egyptian tradition, if we consider
it
from the most ancient epoch to which one can refer? This tradition,
expressed in "The Book of the Dead", whose doctrine is earlier than
any written history Egypt, teaches us that Isis is a Negro woman,
Osiris a Negro man, an Anu. Thus, in the oldest Egyptian texts his
Is this correct, or not?"
*funerary* aspects. The gods of the Egyptians were described as being made
of **gold** (*tcham*), as well as green, white, yellow, red and black; all
artistic representations and texts refer to the characteristics and
features assigned to them. As their functions became more defined,
according to the iconography, Ausar, as a vegetative/fertility god, was
given green or black features, but Isis remained a golden goddess, even
within the tomb. Her identification symbolism as the "bringer of life" (to
Osiris and therefore, to ALL deceased) was stronger than her funerary
associations as the *weeper of Osiris* (along with her twin sister-goddess,
Nephthys).
Again: *Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art*, Richard W. Wilkinson, Ph.D.,
Toronto Press, 1994.
*A Dictionary of Egyptian Civilization*, G. Posener (trans. A
McFarlane) (Paris, 1962), pp. 49-50.
*Votive Offerings for Hathor*, Geraldine Pinch, (Griffith
Institute, Oxford, 1993). p. 251.
I am at a loss as to *what* Diop considers a "ethnic designation" in the
Book of the Dead, and as you gave no book citation, I cannot read his notes
as to this quote.
Regards --
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Katherine Griffis
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>S. F. Thomas wrote:
>>
>> Tim D. Gilman wrote:
>> >
>> > S. F. Thomas <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>> > > .... to indicate his Nubian origin."
>> > >
>> > >Is this correct, or not? No evasions please.
>> >
>(( cuts ))
>> It was not Ms. Griffis this time attempting the evasion. Yours
>> was skillful also. But unavailing. The Nubians, still today,
>> are as black as any Black African. Do you deny the texts which
>> assert Osiris and Isis to be Nubian? No evasions please.
>>
>> > Tim D. Gilman <tdgi...@best.com> <tdgi...@bigbang.berkeley.edu>
>>
>> Regards,
>> S. F. Thomas
>Tellingly, my opponents have fallen silent.
>The fog of evasion and deception,
>even outright lies, that have
>characterized eurocentric scholarship
>as it relates to Black African achievement,
>will no longer work. I for one will not sit
>back and let the eurocentric evaders perpetrate
>this kind of fraud and deception on groups
>such as this.
>Regards,
>S. F. Thomas
Then you need to update your files: all articles posted by you to ME
have been answered.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3257C146...@decan.com>,
>>
>> Tim D. Gilman wrote:
>> >
>> > S. F. Thomas <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>> > > .... to indicate his Nubian origin."
>> > >
>> > >Is this correct, or not? No evasions please.
>> >
>> It was not Ms. Griffis this time attempting the evasion. Yours
>> was skillful also. But unavailing. The Nubians, still today,
>> are as black as any Black African. Do you deny the texts which
>> assert Osiris and Isis to be Nubian? No evasions please.
>>
>> > Tim D. Gilman <tdgi...@best.com> <tdgi...@bigbang.berkeley.edu>
>>
>> Regards,
>> S. F. Thomas
>
>The fog of evasion and deception,
>even outright lies, that have
>characterized eurocentric scholarship
>as it relates to Black African achievement,
>will no longer work. I for one will not sit
>back and let the eurocentric evaders perpetrate
>this kind of fraud and deception on groups
>such as this.
>
>Regards,
>S. F. Thomas
I was surprised that no one used the preposterous "dark white" theory,
in which Nubians, Somalis and any other black African people who could
possibly be linked to Ancient Egypt are said to be black-skinned,
frizzy-haired "Caucasoids."
In ancient Egypt, no matriachal lines were preserved by requiring that the
Pharoah *must* have an Egyptian mother. The royal crown and "race" were
conveyed through the mother, so the Pharoah always sought out an Egyptian
woman to insure a direct heir to the throne.
Thus, in the ritual of the remarriage of the deity, it is interesting
that only women from Kush could participate. This indicates the place of
origin. Likewise, statues of deities, particularly Min, were routinely
carried toward the South for some time, in a symbolic return to the place
of origin, before being returned to their sanctuaries. (Diop, _Civilization
or Barbarism_, 1991, p. 108).
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Afrocentric Debate Homepage
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> Tim D. Gilman wrote:
> >
> > S. F. Thomas <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> > > .... to indicate his Nubian origin."
> > >
> > >Is this correct, or not? No evasions please.
> >
> It was not Ms. Griffis this time attempting the evasion. Yours
> was skillful also. But unavailing. The Nubians, still today,
> are as black as any Black African. Do you deny the texts which
> assert Osiris and Isis to be Nubian? No evasions please.
>
> > Tim D. Gilman <tdgi...@best.com> <tdgi...@bigbang.berkeley.edu>
>
> Regards,
> S. F. Thomas
Tellingly, my opponents have fallen silent.
S. F. Thomas
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> I was surprised that no one used the preposterous "dark white" theory,
> in which Nubians, Somalis and any other black African people who could
> possibly be linked to Ancient Egypt are said to be black-skinned,
> frizzy-haired "Caucasoids."
Hi Paul,
Good to see you. Stick around... who knows *what* nonsense
we'll see brought forward in the attempt to hold the
eurocentric line. We saw a lot of it in athena-discuss,
didn't we? But if they try it here, they'll be routed
even more badly than they were on athena-discuss.
> In ancient Egypt, no matriachal lines were preserved by requiring that the
> Pharoah *must* have an Egyptian mother. The royal crown and "race" were
> conveyed through the mother, so the Pharoah always sought out an Egyptian
> woman to insure a direct heir to the throne.
It is interesting that the throne fell to the foreigner when
this rule was disobeyed, albeit by accident. It was in this
way that Tadukhipa, a Mitanni (White) woman, became Queen of
Egypt. Her Egyptian name was Nefer-Neferu-Aten, or Nefertiti
for short. She is in part the reason why we have been (mis)led
into thinking that the ancient Egyptians were white. For
she became the most famous face associated with ancient Egypt,
although she was not born an Egyptian. By contrast, the far
more important personage say of Queen Hatshepsut, who became
Pharaoh in her own right, has never been similarly projected
as an Egyptian icon, although her funerary temple is of an
architectural style that is still used today to provide
an imposing facade for monuments and buildings. Queen H.
was unmistakably Black African, sort of in the "fat mama"
mould.
Equally Black African in appearance was the first Pharaoh,
Narmer. His image also has not found it into the history books
read by school children or in popularized accounts of
ancient Egypt, its people and history. Instead, we are treated
to stories of Cleopatra and the Ptolemies, who of course
were Greek, and Pharaohs of Egypt only by conquest, in the
very last years of the civilization which, if the truth finally
be told, came out of Black Africa.
> Thus, in the ritual of the remarriage of the deity, it is interesting
> that only women from Kush could participate. This indicates the place of
> origin. Likewise, statues of deities, particularly Min, were routinely
> carried toward the South for some time, in a symbolic return to the place
> of origin, before being returned to their sanctuaries. (Diop, _Civilization
> or Barbarism_, 1991, p. 108).
More evidence...
But I expect the eurocentric scholars have their far-fetched and
incredible explanations for what really should be quite plain.
Even the name Egypt is an artful dodge, considering that the "Egyptians"
called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which translates as the
land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on rendering as
the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather than of
the people. How they reach that conclusion is another example of
contorted logic straining not to reach the obvious conclusion staring
them in the face. But that's another story, though it belongs
also to the subject of this thread. And from what I recall, Paul,
you know more about it than I do.
> Paul Kekai Manansala
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
JOHN CLARKE
Paul and S.F.,
I am truly impressed with your resounding victory.
-John
Paul Kekai Manansala
S.F. Thomas wrote:
>More evidence...
But I expect the eurocentric scholars have their far-fetched and
incredible explanations for what really should be quite plain.
>Even the name Egypt is an artful dodge,
****
The word "Egypt" itself has somewhat interesting origins.
Aegyptos was the son of a king of "Libya," which was the
name given to the African continent in general. He conquered
Egypt from his father:
"Aegyptos conquered the country of the black-footed ones and
called it Egypt after himself" (Apollodorus, Book II, paras 3
and 4)
I believe "Aegyptos" itself means "black-footed" one, but I'll have
to recheck. Furthermore, the descendants of Aegyptos were described
in an interesting fashion:
Dialogue:
Danaos (describing the Aegyptiads): 'I can see the crew with
their black limbs and white tunics.' (Aeschylus, _The Suppliants_,
vv. 719-20, 745)
The idea of Egypt being a country of "blacks" can also be found in the
Bible where Mizraim, the progenitor of the Egyptians, is a son of Ham,
the original African of the Bible. Also, in Muslim writings, the Copts
were among the sons of Ham whose faces were blackened due to Ham's sin
against Noah. The Copts are the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt who
trace their descent back to the ancient Egyptians.
****
>considering that the "Egyptians"
called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which translates as the
land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on rendering as
the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather than of
the people. How they reach that conclusion is another example of
contorted logic straining not to reach the obvious conclusion staring
>them in the face.
****
Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga both strongly argued this point.
Both stressed the study of Egyptian language in their
arguments on Egyptian origins. There are webpages that examine
this issue as it was argued on athena-discuss. The URLs are http://www.
he.net/~skyeagle/kmt.htm, and http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/kmt2.htm.
The main point is the use of what is known as a determinative or
ideogram at the end of words in the Egyptian script. These ideograms,
which can also be used as normal hieroglyphs, convey the actual
meaning of words that can have more than one meaning. In the case
of Km.t, it appears with the an ideogram showing a male and female
seated side by side in a traditional African posture. The ideogram
literally stands for "people." Thus, Km.t, in this instance, means
"Black people." If the word was meant to describe the land of Egypt,
it would appear with another of two ideograms for "soil" or "earth."
However, when Km.t is used to describe the nation of Egypt as in "Rmt
Kmt," the word "kmt" occurs with the plural ideogram meaning
towns or cities. In other words, it means the "Black towns and cities,"
i.e., the "Black country," or the "Black nation," and does not
refer to the soil directly at all. Of course, the term "the Black
nation," could refer either to the people, the soil, or something
else entirely. However, from the use of Km.t with the ideogram
for "men and women," or "people," we know precisely what it is
referring to.
Cheers,
Katherine Griffis
On Oct 06, 1996 13:44:32 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals,
etc.>, 'pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala)' wrote:
>Thus, in the ritual of the remarriage of the deity, it is interesting
>that only women from Kush could participate. This indicates the place of
>origin. Likewise, statues of deities, particularly Min, were routinely
>carried toward the South for some time, in a symbolic return to the place
>of origin, before being returned to their sanctuaries. (Diop,
_Civilization >or Barbarism_, 1991, p. 108).
Egyptology, and one of the few scholarly areas for study of Egyptian
civilization and culture brought this response:
"...Another example of Diop distorting facts. I know of no references to
Min involved in any southward journeying. There was a Min feast, but from
its depictions, it was a localized harvest ritual. Only when Min was
associated with Amun did he make a southward voyage, and that was in the
Feast of Opet, when the Amon-Min image was taken from Karnak to Luxor. Yes,
a southward voyage, but one of a few kilometers at most. Diop has
distorted this into some grand southward voyage into Nubia, symbolizing
Egypt's origins in Nubia!!!..."
<<NOTE: The Amun-Min manifestation is associated with the Feast of Opet as
it was a *fertility* festival and was held during the Inundation period
(originally 11 days, later expanded by ramses II to 27 days), and the image
traveled down the Nile to Luxor (about 3 KM, tops), to "meet" the image of
Amunet/Mut, or the *female counterpart/consort* to Amun-Min. In theory, it
was a *marriage* that occurred between the two, and then Amun-Min return
(within 3-7 days) to his "holy of holies" at Karnak.>>
"Yes, Amun did have a southern Kushite manifestation, but it arose, when
Egyptians occupied the Kingdom of Kush in the early New Kingdom, and found
the Kushites worshipping a ram deity. As known from the ram-headed sphinxes
at Luxor-Karnak, Amon was
also associated with a ram manifestation. So, the Egyptians then assumed
that the Kushites too were worshiping Amun, and Thutmose III went on to
build a shrine to the ram-headed Amun at Gebel Barkal, in Upper Nubia. Thus
the Kushites came to worship Amun-Re, and they by the First Millennium
B.C., also were ardent devotees of Amun. That all hardly qualifies as a
case of the Egyptians acknowledging their Kushite origins!" (F. Yurco,
private e-mail, 10/8/96)
As for S.F. Thomas' allegation that *Nefertiti* was in fact, Tadukhipa, I
would need to see some *cites* other than Diop: so far, that author has
been guilty of misquoting several known authors (some of which have been
posted here, BTW, and which I posted the *full quotes* in response). It is
generally held that she was the daughter of Aye, via Tiy, and both were
*thoroughly Egyptian*. I have seen no *real evidence* thus far that she
was not, nor that Rahotep or Nofret statues (which precede the Hyksos by
about 400 years or more) are either "fake" or "foreign", as another poster
alleged.
"... the "Egyptians" called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which
translates as the land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on
rendering as the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather
than of the people."
Land", or the "fertile land, the desert land". Let's see a cite that says
that in fact, this referred **only** to the people. The Egyptians referred
to themselves as "renn't", and sometimes as "rom't'u", according to
Gardiner (*Egyptian Grammar*, Third Edition).
Resources and Cites:
*A History of Ancient Egypt*, Nicolas Grimal, Blackwell, 1994.
*A Dictionary of Ancient Egypt*, Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson (In
Association with the British Museum), Abrams, 1995.
*Life of the Ancient Egyptians*, Eugen Strouhal, University of Oklahoma
Press, 1992.
"A Dictionary of Ancient Egypt*, Margaret Bunson, Oxford University Press,
1991.
As for this comment by S F. Thomas:
"... We saw a lot of it in athena-discuss, didn't we? But if they try it
here, they'll be routed even more badly than they were on athena-discuss."
degenerated into a hodge-podge that had nothing to do with history or
archaeology. Not exactly a *focused forum*....so, I would not claim
victory for *that fiasco*, IMHO, were I you.
S. F. Thomas
> >>
> >> Tim D. Gilman wrote:
> >> >
> >> > S. F. Thomas <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> >> > > .... to indicate his Nubian origin."
> >> > >
>
> >Tellingly, my opponents have fallen silent.
(( cuts ))
> >Regards,
> >S. F. Thomas
>
> Then you need to update your files: all articles posted by you to ME
> have been answered.
Kindly repost your answers; they do not appear to have made it through to
my ISP.
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> The word "Egypt" itself has somewhat interesting origins.
> Aegyptos was the son of a king of "Libya," which was the
> name given to the African continent in general. He conquered
> Egypt from his father:
>
> "Aegyptos conquered the country of the black-footed ones and
> called it Egypt after himself" (Apollodorus, Book II, paras 3
> and 4)
>
> I believe "Aegyptos" itself means "black-footed" one, but I'll have
> to recheck. Furthermore, the descendants of Aegyptos were described
> in an interesting fashion:
>
> Dialogue:
>
> Danaos (describing the Aegyptiads): 'I can see the crew with
> their black limbs and white tunics.' (Aeschylus, _The Suppliants_,
> vv. 719-20, 745)
>
> The idea of Egypt being a country of "blacks" can also be found in the
> Bible where Mizraim, the progenitor of the Egyptians, is a son of Ham,
> the original African of the Bible. Also, in Muslim writings, the Copts
> were among the sons of Ham whose faces were blackened due to Ham's sin
> against Noah. The Copts are the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt who
> trace their descent back to the ancient Egyptians.
Seems we encounter the word "black" wherever we turn in relation
to ancient Egypt and its origins... We see a plethora of Black
African types staring us in the face when we look at the statuary
of the pharaohs, especially the earliest ones. For some reason,
though, itself denied but glaringly obvious, eurocentric scholarship
has sought to deny the essential Blackness of these people.
>
> >considering that the "Egyptians"
> called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which translates as the
> land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on rendering as
> the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather than of
> the people. How they reach that conclusion is another example of
> contorted logic straining not to reach the obvious conclusion staring
> >them in the face.
>
> ****
> Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga both strongly argued this point.
> Both stressed the study of Egyptian language in their
> arguments on Egyptian origins. There are webpages that examine
> this issue as it was argued on athena-discuss. The URLs are http://www
> he.net/~skyeagle/kmt.htm, and http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/kmt2.htm
>
> The main point is the use of what is known as a determinative or
> ideogram at the end of words in the Egyptian script. These ideograms,
> which can also be used as normal hieroglyphs, convey the actual
> meaning of words that can have more than one meaning. In the case
> of Km.t, it appears with the an ideogram showing a male and female
> seated side by side in a traditional African posture. The ideogram
> literally stands for "people." Thus, Km.t, in this instance, means
> "Black people." If the word was meant to describe the land of Egypt,
> it would appear with another of two ideograms for "soil" or "earth."
Well stated, and simple enough to be obvious to any who would
sit humbly before truth. Yet eurocentric scholarship finds
something repugnant in this conclusion, and would assert not as
hypothesis but as fact, that /km.t/ really denotatively means
"Black Land", while denying even the plausibility of the alternative
"Black People", citing some vaguely rendered rule of Egyptian
grammar, the "nisbe" process, by which adjectives are transformed
into nouns, whereby /km/ the adjective can become /km.t/, Black
Land, but not Black People. I quote Frank Yurco who was
touted (to the athena-discuss board) as "expert" on the subject:
"We are dealing with the usual sleight of hand practiced by the
Afrocentrists. km, vocalized kem, is the adjective "black" in Egyptian. I
do agree with Diop that it represented a charred piece of wood. To get the
term to refer to the Egyptian people, in Egyptian Grammar, you have to
transform the adjective into a noun through the nisbe process Gardiner,
Grammar, sections 79-81. That is the normal way Egyptian transformed
adjectives into nouns and there's a plethora of examples citable. Now that
yields, again following Gardiner, "those of the black land" since actually
the nisbe is derived, from kmt, a noun, "The Black Land". Still the Nisbe
process was used even when extending the meaning of nouns. The form would
be kmtyw nisbe plural, and it could be tranformed thereby into another
noun, so "those of the black land", or "black landers" at most. No way can
this be equated with the Egyptians being described as black, at least not
through Egyptian grammar. Diop knew Egyptian grammar, so he was foisting a
fraud by pushing this notion."
It is all too absurd. Thanks for shedding some light on the
subject.
> Paul Kekai Manasala
> The Afrocentric Debate Homepage
> http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
On Oct 8, 1996, Katherine Griffis <gri...@usa.pipeline.com> wrote:
> On Oct 06, 1996 13:44:32 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals,
> etc.>, 'pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala)' wrote:
>
> >Thus, in the ritual of the remarriage of the deity, it is interesting
> >that only women from Kush could participate. This indicates the place of
> >origin. Likewise, statues of deities, particularly Min, were routinely
> >carried toward the South for some time, in a symbolic return to the place
> >of origin, before being returned to their sanctuaries. (Diop,
> _Civilization >or Barbarism_, 1991, p. 108).
>
>
> An inquiry to the Oriental Institute, the American Institute for
> Egyptology, and one of the few scholarly areas for study of Egyptian
> civilization and culture brought this response:
>
> "...Another example of Diop distorting facts. I know of no references to
> Min involved in any southward journeying. There was a Min feast, but from
> its depictions, it was a localized harvest ritual. Only when Min was
> associated with Amun did he make a southward voyage, and that was in the
> Feast of Opet, when the Amon-Min image was taken from Karnak to Luxor. Yes,
> a southward voyage, but one of a few kilometers at most. Diop has
> distorted this into some grand southward voyage into Nubia, symbolizing
> Egypt's origins in Nubia!!!..."
> (F. Yurco,
> private e-mail, 10/8/96)
I fail to see where Diop distorts the facts. It is rather
Yurco that ascribes more to Diop than Diop has said,
the better it would seem, to attempt to discredit him.
Here is the quote from Diop in full:
... Now we understand better why the Egyptian turns
toward the South, the heart of Africa, land of his
origins, land of his ancestors, "land of the Gods,"
*just as the Moslem today turns toward Mecca*....
The Egyptian gods themselves, the god Min in particular,
were making this symbolic return to the South: the
god was taken out and carried *for some time* toward
the South, and then he was returned to his sanctuary.
--Diop, Civilization or Barbarism, p. 108
Diop says nothing about some "grand southward voyage",
rather he speaks of a "symbolic return", "just as the
Moslem today turns toward Mecca", and of the god merely
being carried "for some time" toward the south. If
Yurco has a different hypothesis as to the symbolism
involved, then he is free to advance a competing hypothesis.
But it is clearly nonsense to suggest that Diop has
"distorted the facts".
> As for S.F. Thomas' allegation that *Nefertiti* was in fact, Tadukhipa, I
> would need to see some *cites* other than Diop: so far, that author has
> been guilty of misquoting several known authors (some of which have been
> posted here, BTW, and which I posted the *full quotes* in response).
No you have not, as I pointed out in my response.
If I cite Diop, it is because he has quite brilliantly
exposed the lies and deceptions wrought by eurocentric
scholarship and under which we all labor today; more than
that, Diop is scrupulous in separating fact from hypothesis,
leaving the reader to make up his own mind as to the
plausibility of his various claims. By contrast,
the eurocentric scholars against whom he does battle
have ever tried to set themselves up as experts, never
to be gainsaid. As Yurco, in that bold tradition, now
attempts, asserting as competing facts what are merely competing
hypotheses, while excoriating Diop for a distortion
where there is none, and leaving it to be inferred
that Yurco's hypothesis as to the matter is somehow
fact, when it clearly cannot be.
> It is generally held that she was the daughter of Aye, via Tiy, and both were
> *thoroughly Egyptian*.
Frankly, while I do not claim familiarity with the source
documents, I have to say I like my sources better than
yours.
> "... the "Egyptians" called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which
> translates as the land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on
> rendering as the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather
> than of the people."
>
> The actual name of the *land* was "Kem*t/Dsh'r't" -- the "Black Land, Red
> Land", or the "fertile land, the desert land". Let's see a cite that says
> that in fact, this referred **only** to the people. The Egyptians referred
> to themselves as "renn't", and sometimes as "rom't'u", according to
> Gardiner (*Egyptian Grammar*, Third Edition).
I'll let Paul speak to that one. But it seems to me
that "Kem*t/Dsh'r't" meaning "Black Land/Red Land" is
a cryptologism so ugly that I cannot imagine it
being a name any people would use to describe their
own country. Clearly it is not fact, otherwise the
matter would not be in dispute. (I do recall the
discussion on athena-discuss, and kem*t/dsh'r't didn't
figure as one of the candidates.) Therefore it must be
hypothesis. As hypothesis, it wouldn't get a very
high credibility quotient rating from me, purely on
aesthetic grounds, I'm sorry. But I'll hear what Paul
has to say.
> Resources and Cites:
>
> *A History of Ancient Egypt*, Nicolas Grimal, Blackwell, 1994.
>
> *A Dictionary of Ancient Egypt*, Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson (In
> Association with the British Museum), Abrams, 1995.
>
> *Life of the Ancient Egyptians*, Eugen Strouhal, University of Oklahoma
> Press, 1992.
>
> "A Dictionary of Ancient Egypt*, Margaret Bunson, Oxford University Press,
> 1991.
Not necessarily to be believed, especially when mere hypothesis is
presented as uncontrovertible fact.
> As for this comment by S F. Thomas:
>
> "... We saw a lot of it in athena-discuss, didn't we? But if they try it
> here, they'll be routed even more badly than they were on athena-discuss."
>
> I followed the ATHENA debate for some time, until in the end, it
> degenerated into a hodge-podge that had nothing to do with history or
> archaeology. Not exactly a *focused forum*....so, I would not claim
> victory for *that fiasco*, IMHO, were I you.
The "hodge-podge" into which it "degenerated" was the
spectacle of aspiring classics professors in full rout,
trying to defend the indefensible, relying on such
artful dodges as "source criticism" and the invocation of
superior scholarly authority. A "fiasco" it was, but only
because your side lost, and it was established beyond a
moral certainty that the ancient Egyptians were Black,
and that the Greeks borrowed not a little, but heavily,
even to the point of plagiarism, from those Black Egyptians.
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Katherine Griffis
>On Oct 06, 1996 13:44:32 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art,
Murals,
>etc.>, 'pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala)' wrote:
>
>>Thus, in the ritual of the remarriage of the deity, it is interesting
>>that only women from Kush could participate. This indicates the place of
>>origin. Likewise, statues of deities, particularly Min, were routinely
>>carried toward the South for some time, in a symbolic return to the place
>>of origin, before being returned to their sanctuaries. (Diop,
>_Civilization >or Barbarism_, 1991, p. 108).
>
>
>An inquiry to the Oriental Institute, the American Institute for
>Egyptology, and one of the few scholarly areas for study of Egyptian
>civilization and culture brought this response:
>
>"...Another example of Diop distorting facts. I know of no references to
>Min involved in any southward journeying. There was a Min feast, but from
>its depictions, it was a localized harvest ritual. Only when Min was
>associated with Amun did he make a southward voyage, and that was in the
>Feast of Opet, when the Amon-Min image was taken from Karnak to Luxor.
Yes,
>a southward voyage, but one of a few kilometers at most. Diop has
>distorted this into some grand southward voyage into Nubia, symbolizing
>Egypt's origins in Nubia!!!..."
>
><<NOTE: The Amun-Min manifestation is associated with the Feast of Opet as
>it was a *fertility* festival and was held during the Inundation period
>(originally 11 days, later expanded by Ramses II to 27 days), and the
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <325BEE78...@decan.com>,
I remember when Yurco made this argument on athena-discuss, and
the controversy that arose. The nisbe form of the word km =
"black", simply changes the adjective to a feminine plural
noun, km.t. Basically, in English we can do the same thing
when we change the adjective, "black," to a plural noun,
"Blacks." Except in English the plural has no gender.
Thus, km.t literally means only "The Blacks."
There is absolutely no reason to thing that km.t must be a
place name as suggested by some. The nisbe form can refer
to practically anything. There is no morpheme or grammatical
particle that in anyway refers to the land, soil, etc. This
idea was inserted by Western scholars. When used with the
ideogram of a seated man and woman above three vertical slashes
(the plural marker), it means "The Black Ones," with reference
to people. In the phrase, rmt kmt = "people of kmt" the latter
word appears with the ideogram for towns and cities. Thus,
here it means the "The Black Ones," with reference to the nation
(consisting of towns and cities) of Egypt. I am not aware
of a single instance when km.t is used with the ideogram for
land, earth, soil, etc., in describing the land of Egypt.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <53e8dh$3...@news2.h1.usa.pipeline.com>,
gri...@usa.pipeline.com(Katherine Griffis) wrote:
>On Oct 06, 1996 13:44:32 in article <Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals,
>etc.>, 'pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala)' wrote:
>
>>Thus, in the ritual of the remarriage of the deity, it is interesting
>>that only women from Kush could participate. This indicates the place of
>>origin. Likewise, statues of deities, particularly Min, were routinely
>>carried toward the South for some time, in a symbolic return to the place
>>of origin, before being returned to their sanctuaries. (Diop,
>_Civilization >or Barbarism_, 1991, p. 108).
>
>
>An inquiry to the Oriental Institute, the American Institute for
>Egyptology, and one of the few scholarly areas for study of Egyptian
>civilization and culture brought this response:
>
>"...Another example of Diop distorting facts. I know of no references to
>Min involved in any southward journeying. There was a Min feast, but from
>its depictions, it was a localized harvest ritual. Only when Min was
>associated with Amun did he make a southward voyage, and that was in the
>Feast of Opet, when the Amon-Min image was taken from Karnak to Luxor. Yes,
>a southward voyage, but one of a few kilometers at most. Diop has
>distorted this into some grand southward voyage into Nubia, symbolizing
>Egypt's origins in Nubia!!!..."
>
Wrong, Diop, in _Civilization or Barbarism_ mentions that the journey
toward the South was a symbolic one that only went for a short distance
before returning the image to its sanctuary (p. 108).
><<NOTE: The Amun-Min manifestation is associated with the Feast of Opet as
>it was a *fertility* festival and was held during the Inundation period
>(originally 11 days, later expanded by ramses II to 27 days), and the image
>traveled down the Nile to Luxor (about 3 KM, tops), to "meet" the image of
>Amunet/Mut, or the *female counterpart/consort* to Amun-Min. In theory, it
>was a *marriage* that occurred between the two, and then Amun-Min return
>(within 3-7 days) to his "holy of holies" at Karnak.>>
>
>"Yes, Amun did have a southern Kushite manifestation, but it arose, when
>Egyptians occupied the Kingdom of Kush in the early New Kingdom, and found
>the Kushites worshipping a ram deity. As known from the ram-headed sphinxes
>at Luxor-Karnak, Amon was
>also associated with a ram manifestation. So, the Egyptians then assumed
>that the Kushites too were worshiping Amun, and Thutmose III went on to
>build a shrine to the ram-headed Amun at Gebel Barkal, in Upper Nubia. Thus
>the Kushites came to worship Amun-Re, and they by the First Millennium
>B.C., also were ardent devotees of Amun. That all hardly qualifies as a
>case of the Egyptians acknowledging their Kushite origins!" (F. Yurco,
>private e-mail, 10/8/96)
>
This explanation is nonsense. Give a primary source that states this is the reason
for the divine marraige to the daughters of Kush. You seem to have trouble with the
southern origin of Egyptian deities and culture. However, the Egyptians themselves
called the South, the "land of the Gods." Punt, which was also to the south, was
known by the same name and also as "the land of the ancestors." The Egyptians
indicated the east with the left hand, showing their southern orientation. Also,
the Egyptian term designating royalty, nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
to the South." Do you deny the origins in Punt at least a great portion of
the Egyptian populace, and the Egyptians own traditions of the origin of the dynasties
from Ta-Seti (Nubia)?
>
>"... the "Egyptians" called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which
>translates as the land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on
>rendering as the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather
>than of the people."
>
>The actual name of the *land* was "Kem*t/Dsh'r't" -- the "Black Land, Red
>Land", or the "fertile land, the desert land".
Can you give a reference. Km.t usually appears as a separate word with its
own determinative.
Let's see a cite that says
>that in fact, this referred **only** to the people. The Egyptians referred
>to themselves as "renn't", and sometimes as "rom't'u", according to
>Gardiner (*Egyptian Grammar*, Third Edition).
>
Wrong, all the usage of km.t that as a single word occurs only with the
determinative/ideogram for "people." It never occurs (to my knowledge)
with the ideogram for "land," "ground," etc.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> The word "Egypt" itself has somewhat interesting origins.
> Aegyptos was the son of a king of "Libya," which was the
> name given to the African continent in general. He conquered
> Egypt from his father:
>
> "Aegyptos conquered the country of the black-footed ones and
> called it Egypt after himself" (Apollodorus, Book II, paras 3
> and 4)
>
> I believe "Aegyptos" itself means "black-footed" one, but I'll have
> to recheck.
The Greek term "aiguptos" comes from the Egyptian phrase /hwt k3 ptH/
(Hwt ka Ptah -- lit. 'house (ie temple) of the Ka of Ptah'), one of the
names of Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt. The Greek word is broken
down as "ai gu pto" (+s, a Greek suffix) -- the Egyptian of the time was
prob. pronounced something like "haw ko ptaH". The Coptic form of the
name is "ekeptia". It is incidently the origin of the word "Copt" as
well.
Troy Sagrillo
James Tibaras Kirk
Simplify...
African People live in Sudan (Now called the Sahara Desert)
Sudan dries up.
People move West, North, South, and *EAST.*
The Egyptians were among the people of Native African stock, culture, and
language that moved East.
Egypt establishes one of the first High Civilizations. And influence all
of human history to come with its innovations.
The African Group is of the same stock despite mixture of invaders from
Asia Minor, and Europe. The founders of Egypt would be consider the most
Negro of Negroes by racist "scholars." (Although the Europeans had not
invented the mythology of race yet)
All archeaology, linguistics, and physical science confirm the above as
the truth. whites have distorted history for racist purposes. They make up
history to portray whites as the inevitable rulers of the world
end of story.
James Tibaras Kirk
James Tibaras Kirk
James Tibaras Kirk
Paul Kekai Manansala
I'm not sure why Katherine Griffis reposted her old article. Possibly here
newsreader did not receive our responses. On the claims regarding Diop, S.F.
Thomas addressed thosed in his post. Diop claimed that the Egyptians marched
the statue of Min only a short distance toward in a *symbolic* journey to
the place of origin.
Furthermore, the god Min was often painted black (see St. Clair Drake, _
Black Folk Here and There_, 1987, Los Angeles, fig. 5) and anatomical
proportions highly suggestive of the black race ;).
The South was known as the "land of the gods," and the "land of the
spirits. Punt, a kingdom to the south, was also known as "God's
land," and the "land of the ancestors." Strangely, Toynbee in his
history of Egypt quoted V. Gordon Childe regarding a people of the
upper Nile (the Shilluk) of whom he stated: "On the upper Nile there dwell
today people allied to the oldest Egyptians in appearance, stature, cranial
proportions, language and dress." St. Clair Drake (p. 159) believed
that Toynbee, whose thesis was that "Negroes" were not present in ancient
Egypt, could never have seen the Shilluk but based his ideas solely
on anthropological reports and presumptions regarding race.
The Shilluk happen to be a *very* Africoid people. A good work with plenty
of photos of the Shilluk is E.E. Evans-Pritchard, "Shilluk-Sudan" in
_Africa from the Sahara to Zambesi_, Tom Stacey (ed.), New York, 1972.
In another work that seemed to be aimed at refuting Afrocentric claims
regarding Egypt, Paoli may have made a similar mistake (G. Paoli, in "ABO Typing
of Ancient Egyptians" IN _Population biologyof ancient Egyptians_, edited by D.R.
Brothwell and B.A. Chiarelli, London, New York, 1973)
Paoli found by comparing blood samples that the closest modern relatives of
ancient Egyptians were a Saharan people known as the Haratin. The idea that
Saharan origin somehow means "Caucasoid" is a very common feature in the
argument of many anti-Afrocentrists (like Yurco, for example). However,
the Haratin themselves turn out to be a very black African people. A photograph
of an Haratin family can be found at:
http://geogweb.berkeley.edu/GeoImages/Miller/maroc/family2.jpg
Some interesting images found by Lepsius also are revealing on how the
Egyptians viewed themselves. They can be found at the Image Gallery
to the Afrocentric Debate Homepage at:
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/egypt1.htm
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <53e8dh$3...@news2.h1.usa.pipeline.com>,
[snip]
> You seem to have trouble with the
> southern origin of Egyptian deities and culture. However, the Egyptians themselves
> called the South, the "land of the Gods."
The term /t3 nTr/ "land of god" *was* applied to Punt, but it also was
applied to parts of Western Asia at times as well (Sinai & Lebanon in
particular).
> Punt, which was also to the south, was
> known by the same name and also as "the land of the ancestors." The Egyptians
> indicated the east with the left hand, showing their southern orientation.
> Also,
> the Egyptian term designating royalty, nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
> to the South."
It most certainly does not! /nsw/ (/niswt/) means "(the person)
belonging to the /swt/ -plant" (the sedge plant, Juncus arabicus), a
"heraldic" symbol of Upper Egypt , as opposed to the /w3D/ plant
(papyrus) of Lower Egypt. See Gardiner's Grammar, pg. 50, note 1. The
word /swt/ does not have the direct meaning of "south" as you are
claiming, though the symbolic implication of Upper *Egypt* is obviously
present.
> Do you deny the origins in Punt at least a great portion of
> the Egyptian populace, and the Egyptians own traditions of the origin of the dynasties
> from Ta-Seti (Nubia)?
There is no direct textual evidence that the Egytians thought this.
> >"... the "Egyptians" called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which
> >translates as the land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on
> >rendering as the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather
> >than of the people."
> >
> >The actual name of the *land* was "Kem*t/Dsh'r't" -- the "Black Land, Red
> >Land", or the "fertile land, the desert land".
>
> Can you give a reference. Km.t usually appears as a separate word with its
> own determinative.
>
> Let's see a cite that says
> >that in fact, this referred **only** to the people. The Egyptians referred
> >to themselves as "renn't", and sometimes as "rom't'u", according to
> >Gardiner (*Egyptian Grammar*, Third Edition).
> >
>
> Wrong, all the usage of km.t that as a single word occurs only with the
> determinative/ideogram for "people." It never occurs (to my knowledge)
> with the ideogram for "land," "ground," etc.
/kmt/ w/determinative of man & woman + plural strokes = Egyptians
/kmt/ w/determative of a city (circle with an X in the middle) = Egypt
A similar usage may be seen in /THnw/ "Libya/Libyans":
/THnw/ w/determinative of man & woman + plural strokes = Libyans
/THnw/ w/determinative of hills (used with foreign places) = Libya
[BTW, there is also a nisbah (relative adjective) form /THnyw/ = "those
of Libya" (ie, Libyans)]
The hill country determinative normally only occurs for geological
features and the like, and with the names of (primarily) foreign locals.
I can't think of a single word with the determinative of the land [/t3/]
sign; not even in place names. Most "settled" *Egyptian* toponyms use
the city determinative.
However, the more common word for "Egyptians" in Egyptian is /rmT/
(remetj); which literally means "people" -- foreigners were *not*, at
least in the early periods, considered to be /rmT/ "people". THis is of
course known ethnographically in other cultures as well.
Regards,
Troy Sagrillo
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
[snip]
> "black", simply changes the adjective to a feminine plural
> noun, km.t. Basically, in English we can do the same thing
> when we change the adjective, "black," to a plural noun,
> "Blacks." Except in English the plural has no gender.
> Thus, km.t literally means only "The Blacks."
You have misunderstood what the nisbah (or "relative adjective") is. A
nisbah an adjective formed on a nominal form by adding a /-y/ suffix.
Most (if not all) Afroasiatic languages do this. "Kuwayti" from "Kuwayt"
is an example in Arabic. The nisbah form of /kmt/ is /kmty/ + /w/ for
the plural = /kmtyw/. This is also seen in /THnyw/ "those of
Tjejenu-land" (/THnw/ = Libya), in other words, "Libyans". /kmtyw/ would
be "those of kemet-land", in otherwords, "Egyptians".
> There is absolutely no reason to thing that km.t must be a
> place name as suggested by some.
When written with the city determinative, it is most certainly is a
toponym.
> The nisbe form can refer to practically anything.
Of course! as an adjective, why wouldn't it? But don't confuse the root
form (/kmt/) with the relative adjective (nisbah) formed on it.
> There is no morpheme or grammatical
> particle that in anyway refers to the land, soil, etc. This
> idea was inserted by Western scholars.
No, the city determinative gives this meaning, not Western (I assume you
mean European & European North Americans) scholars. The land glyph
(/t3/) was never used as a determinative, even in toponyms. Settled
*Egyptian* places, and some foreign cities, had the city determinative;
most foreign toponyms (including cities) used the hill country
determinative.
> When used with the
> ideogram of a seated man and woman above three vertical slashes
> (the plural marker), it means "The Black Ones," with reference
> to people. In the phrase, rmt kmt = "people of kmt" the latter
> word appears with the ideogram for towns and cities. Thus,
> here it means the "The Black Ones," with reference to the nation
> (consisting of towns and cities) of Egypt.
*anytime* /kmt/ means "Egypt" it is written with the city
derterminative. When /kmt/ is used to refer to the people, it used the
man + woman + plural strokes determinative.
/kmt/ w/determinative of man & woman + plural strokes = Egyptians
/kmt/ w/determative of a city (circle with an X in the middle) = Egypt
> I am not aware
> of a single instance when km.t is used with the ideogram for
> land, earth, soil, etc., in describing the land of Egypt.
See above.
Regards,
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <32629F...@utoronto.ca>,
Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>>
>> In article <53e8dh$3...@news2.h1.usa.pipeline.com>,
>
>[snip]
>
>> southern origin of Egyptian deities and culture. However, the Egyptians themselves
>> called the South, the "land of the Gods."
>
>applied to parts of Western Asia at times as well (Sinai & Lebanon in
>particular).
>
Could you provide references? Generally, the south was known as "God's
Land." I have never heard of this term applied to Lebanon. From what
date does this reference occur?
>> Punt, which was also to the south, was
>> known by the same name and also as "the land of the ancestors." The Egyptians
>> indicated the east with the left hand, showing their southern orientation.
>
>> Also,
>> the Egyptian term designating royalty, nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
>> to the South."
>
>It most certainly does not! /nsw/ (/niswt/) means "(the person)
>belonging to the /swt/ -plant" (the sedge plant, Juncus arabicus), a
>"heraldic" symbol of Upper Egypt , as opposed to the /w3D/ plant
>(papyrus) of Lower Egypt. See Gardiner's Grammar, pg. 50, note 1. The
>word /swt/ does not have the direct meaning of "south" as you are
>claiming, though the symbolic implication of Upper *Egypt* is obviously
>present.
Who is claiming that swt had a "direct meaning" of south, whatever that means.
It referred to the south, one way or another.
>
>> Do you deny the origins in Punt at least a great portion of
>> the Egyptian populace, and the Egyptians own traditions of the origin of the dynasties
>> from Ta-Seti (Nubia)?
>
>There is no direct textual evidence that the Egytians thought this.
>
There are the inscriptions at Edfu which I have already referred to before.
>> >"... the "Egyptians" called their country /km.t/, vocalized "Kemet", which
>> >translates as the land of Black people, but which eurocentrists insist on
>> >rendering as the Black Land, referring to the color of the soil, rather
>> >than of the people."
>> >
>> >The actual name of the *land* was "Kem*t/Dsh'r't" -- the "Black Land, Red
>> >Land", or the "fertile land, the desert land".
>>
>> Can you give a reference. Km.t usually appears as a separate word with its
>> own determinative.
>>
>> Let's see a cite that says
>> >that in fact, this referred **only** to the people. The Egyptians referred
>> >to themselves as "renn't", and sometimes as "rom't'u", according to
>> >Gardiner (*Egyptian Grammar*, Third Edition).
>> >
>>
>> Wrong, all the usage of km.t that as a single word occurs only with the
>> determinative/ideogram for "people." It never occurs (to my knowledge)
>> with the ideogram for "land," "ground," etc.
>
>/kmt/ w/determinative of man & woman + plural strokes = Egyptians
>/kmt/ w/determative of a city (circle with an X in the middle) = Egypt
>
>A similar usage may be seen in /THnw/ "Libya/Libyans":
>
>/THnw/ w/determinative of man & woman + plural strokes = Libyans
>/THnw/ w/determinative of hills (used with foreign places) = Libya
>
>[BTW, there is also a nisbah (relative adjective) form /THnyw/ = "those
>of Libya" (ie, Libyans)]
>
>The hill country determinative normally only occurs for geological
>features and the like, and with the names of (primarily) foreign locals.
>I can't think of a single word with the determinative of the land [/t3/]
>sign; not even in place names. Most "settled" *Egyptian* toponyms use
>the city determinative.
>
So how does one determine the meaning "black land," from Km.t? As I said
it simply means the "Black Ones" (referring to people).
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3262A6...@utoronto.ca>,
>> The nisbe form of the word km =
>> "black", simply changes the adjective to a feminine plural
>> noun, km.t. Basically, in English we can do the same thing
>> when we change the adjective, "black," to a plural noun,
>> "Blacks." Except in English the plural has no gender.
>> Thus, km.t literally means only "The Blacks."
>
>You have misunderstood what the nisbah (or "relative adjective") is. A
>nisbah an adjective formed on a nominal form by adding a /-y/ suffix.
>Most (if not all) Afroasiatic languages do this. "Kuwayti" from "Kuwayt"
>is an example in Arabic. The nisbah form of /kmt/ is /kmty/ + /w/ for
>the plural = /kmtyw/. This is also seen in /THnyw/ "those of
>Tjejenu-land" (/THnw/ = Libya), in other words, "Libyans". /kmtyw/ would
>be "those of kemet-land", in otherwords, "Egyptians".
No, again you have inserted "land" into your interpretation. Kmtyw simply
means "those of kmt," i.e., "those of the Egyptians," as it refers to
an exclusive group. Km.t means the "Black Ones," referring to people when
it has the proper ideogram, and is inclusive.
>
>> There is absolutely no reason to thing that km.t must be a
>> place name as suggested by some.
>
>When written with the city determinative, it is most certainly is a
>toponym.
>
>> The nisbe form can refer to practically anything.
>
>Of course! as an adjective, why wouldn't it? But don't confuse the root
>form (/kmt/) with the relative adjective (nisbah) formed on it.
>
The root is "km," and it is an adjective, the form "km.t" is a noun.
>> There is no morpheme or grammatical
>> particle that in anyway refers to the land, soil, etc. This
>> idea was inserted by Western scholars.
>
>No, the city determinative gives this meaning, not Western (I assume you
>mean European & European North Americans) scholars. The land glyph
>(/t3/) was never used as a determinative, even in toponyms. Settled
>*Egyptian* places, and some foreign cities, had the city determinative;
>most foreign toponyms (including cities) used the hill country
>determinative.
So are you saying whenever the ideogram for towns (an encircled "x") comes
after a word, then the word is descriptive of the local soil? Please?!
There is no linguistic justification for interpreting km.t as the "Black Land."
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
[snip]
> Some interesting images found by Lepsius also are revealing on how the
> Egyptians viewed themselves. They can be found at the Image Gallery
> to the Afrocentric Debate Homepage at:
>
> http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/egypt1.htm
Unfortunately there is **not** an Egyptian *in* this lithograph of
Lepsius', and there are a variety of other serious problems. What we
have are (left to right):
A. a figure wearing clothing *typical* of New Kingdom representations of
Nubians ***mislabeled*** as /rmTw/ ("Egyptians) -- see below for
discussion
B. a typical New Kingdom representation of a Libyan (ancestors of the
modern Berbers) ***mislabeled*** as /`3mw/ "Canaanites"/"Asiatics"!!!!
C. a typical New Kingdom representation of a Nubian *correctly* labeled
as /nHsyw/ "Nubians"
D. a typical New Kingdom representation of a Syro-Palestian
("Canaanite"/"Asiatic") **mislabeled** as /TmHw/ "tjemHu Libyans"!!!!
First of all, it needs to be pointed out that this is a **lithographic
drawing** of a scene from the Fifth Hour of the Book of Gates (a
Ramesside funerary text related to the Book of the Dead) found in the
tomb of Ramesses III -- it is **NOT** a photograph. This scene is known
from other Ramesside royal tombs, and depicts the "Cattle of Re`" (ie,
the "races" of Mankind) -- in every case the same four "races" are
mentioned in the text of the Fifth Hour and represented in pictorial
form (though sometimes generic people are used, rather than differently
dressed individuals).
The problem with this particular lithograph is that the **modern**
artist who drew the plate messed up -- he switched the labels to figures
"B" (the Libyan) with that of figure "D" (the Syro-Palestinian).
Moreover, he drew two Nubians, and mislabled one of them as /rmTw/
"Egyptians". This is known because there is a ***photograph*** of this
particular scene in the tomb of Ramesses III in: Hornung, Erik. 1990.
The Valley of the Kings: Horizon of Eternity. Translated by David
Warburton. New York: Timken Publishers, inc, page 148. Here we can see
that the Egyptian artist (as opposed to Lepsius') was correct: the
Nubian is labeled /nHsyw/; the Libyan as /TmHw/; the Syro-Palestinian as
/`3mw/ -- all as they should be. Moreover, there are in fact **two**
individuals of each "race" (and thus we can see how Lepsius' artist
might have accidently included 2 Nubians and left out the Egyptian (who
are themselves shown as typical reddish-toned Egyptians all in all other
representations of the period)).
Needless to say, relying on this 150-some yr old lithograph would be
rather misleading. Similar reperesentations of this genre in other royal
Ramesside are to be seen on pp. 139 and 147 of Hornungs' book for
comparison.
Cheers,
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3262DA...@utoronto.ca>,
>
>The problem with this particular lithograph is that the **modern**
>artist who drew the plate messed up -- he switched the labels to figures
>"B" (the Libyan) with that of figure "D" (the Syro-Palestinian).
>Moreover, he drew two Nubians, and mislabled one of them as /rmTw/
>"Egyptians". This is known because there is a ***photograph*** of this
>particular scene in the tomb of Ramesses III in: Hornung, Erik. 1990.
>The Valley of the Kings: Horizon of Eternity. Translated by David
>Warburton. New York: Timken Publishers, inc, page 148. Here we can see
>that the Egyptian artist (as opposed to Lepsius') was correct: the
>Nubian is labeled /nHsyw/; the Libyan as /TmHw/; the Syro-Palestinian as
>/`3mw/ -- all as they should be. Moreover, there are in fact **two**
>individuals of each "race" (and thus we can see how Lepsius' artist
>might have accidently included 2 Nubians and left out the Egyptian (who
>are themselves shown as typical reddish-toned Egyptians all in all other
>representations of the period)).
>
>Needless to say, relying on this 150-some yr old lithograph would be
>rather misleading. Similar reperesentations of this genre in other royal
>Ramesside are to be seen on pp. 139 and 147 of Hornungs' book for
>comparison.
>
>
I have heard this explanation from you before, but it doesn't wash. I would
much rather trust the old lithographs. In his work, Lepsius discussed his
discoveries in good detail. A quote from him states: "Where we expected to
see an Egyptian, we are presented with an authentic Negro."
However we don't have to depend on the drawers labeling because the hieroglyphs
are included in the lithograph. Also, the B figure in the lithograph is definitely
a Libyan, as evidenced by the dress an hair style. In the other image included
in the gallery, we find another lithograph in Lepsius work that is thought by
some to portray early Hebrews. In modern photographs of this work, the images
of two dark Egyptians is always edited out. So, I caution anyone who would consider
trusting modern Eurocentric scholarship. They will whatever the can get away
with to further their worldview on gullible folk.
Katherine Griffis
I find it *very odd* that you would trust a *lithograph* that is over
150 years old that does not correspond with *actual evidence*,
however, Mr. Manansala. I have seen the actual painting that Troy
refers to, and his analysis *IS* correct.
So, whether Eurcoentric scholars are right (and accusing Hornung of
such dishonesty is *really laughable*, IMHO, as he is one of the most
*meticulous* people I have met in the field), or not, the *actual
painting* remains.
*THAT* cannot be argued with, and the races are *distinctively* shown.
Regards --
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
Paul (Kekai) Manansala
Katherine Griffis (gri...@mindspring.com) wrote:
Sorry, I'm afraid that does not cut it either.
Paul Kekai Manansala
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <3262DA...@utoronto.ca>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> >The problem with this particular lithograph is that the **modern**
> >artist who drew the plate messed up -- he switched the labels to figures
> >"B" (the Libyan) with that of figure "D" (the Syro-Palestinian).
> >Moreover, he drew two Nubians, and mislabled one of them as /rmTw/
> >"Egyptians". This is known because there is a ***photograph*** of this
> >particular scene in the tomb of Ramesses III in: Hornung, Erik. 1990.
> >The Valley of the Kings: Horizon of Eternity. Translated by David
> >Warburton. New York: Timken Publishers, inc, page 148. Here we can see
> >that the Egyptian artist (as opposed to Lepsius') was correct: the
> >Nubian is labeled /nHsyw/; the Libyan as /TmHw/; the Syro-Palestinian as
> >/`3mw/ -- all as they should be. Moreover, there are in fact **two**
> >individuals of each "race" (and thus we can see how Lepsius' artist
> >might have accidently included 2 Nubians and left out the Egyptian (who
> >are themselves shown as typical reddish-toned Egyptians all in all other
> >representations of the period)).
> >
> >Needless to say, relying on this 150-some yr old lithograph would be
> >rather misleading. Similar reperesentations of this genre in other royal
> >Ramesside are to be seen on pp. 139 and 147 of Hornungs' book for
> >comparison.
> >
> >
>
> I have heard this explanation from you before, but it doesn't wash. I would
> much rather trust the old lithographs. In his work, Lepsius discussed his
> discoveries in good detail. A quote from him states: "Where we expected to
> see an Egyptian, we are presented with an authentic Negro."
Let me see if I have this straight: you would rather trust a *drawing*
with a number of errors (regardless of the question of Nubian/Egytian,
&c) rather than **photographs** of the actual tomb just because Lepsius,
who lived more than a hundred years ago, agrees with you?? Fabulous
methodology!! ;-)
> However we don't have to depend on the drawers labeling because the hieroglyphs
> are included in the lithograph.
And who do you suppose *put* the hieroglyphs on the lithograph???? Who
labeled the Libyan as /`3mw/ (Syro-Palestinian) and the Syro-Palestinian
as /THmw/ (Libyan)?? It certainly wasn't the Egyptians -- they got it
right in the tomb. BTW, the glyphs on the lithograph are in vertical
columns. In the actual tomb they are written horizontally and w i d
e l y spaced (unlike the lithograph wherein they are closely spaced).
> Also, the B figure in the lithograph is definitely
> a Libyan, as evidenced by the dress an hair style.
A question: if you accept that we can know that "the B figure in the
lithograph is definitely a Libyan, as evidenced by the dress an hair
style" (and I agree with you), then why can you not accept that we can
identify the Nubian figures "as evidenced by the dress an hair style"??
If you want to claim that the second Nubian is in fact Egyptian, it is
the **only** example of an Egyptian dressed as a Nubian "as evidenced by
the dress an hair style" in the entire Egyptian canon.
> In the other image included
> in the gallery, we find another lithograph in Lepsius work that is thought by
> some to portray early Hebrews. In modern photographs of this work, the images
> of two dark Egyptians is always edited out. So, I caution anyone who would consider
> trusting modern Eurocentric scholarship. They will whatever the can get away
> with to further their worldview on gullible folk.
No actually I expect people to trust their own eyes and make up their
own minds. All they need do is look at the photos or visit the tomb (and
being able to read hieroglyphs is useful too) to see that there are 2 of
each "race" not one, and that Lepsius' drawing is just plain wrong.
Regards,
Troy Sagrillo
Troy Sagrillo
> In article <32629F...@utoronto.ca>,
> >> southern origin of Egyptian deities and culture. However, the Egyptians themselves
> >> called the South, the "land of the Gods."
> >
> >applied to parts of Western Asia at times as well (Sinai & Lebanon in
> >particular).
> >
>
> Could you provide references? Generally, the south was known as "God's
> Land." I have never heard of this term applied to Lebanon. From what
> date does this reference occur?
>
[nb, I am using the MdC transliteration system described at
http://131.211.68.206/names/rules.html with minor modifications]
Most references to /t3 nTr/ "God's Land" *do* refer to Punt (and
possibly Yemen/south `Uman as well). However some also clearly refer to
Lebanon (ancient Phoenicia).
One is from Theban Tomb 99, that of the shipmaster, royal seal-bearer,
and hereditary prince Sen-nefer (it dates to the New Kingdom). A section
of his autobiography mentions how Sen-nefer was ordered by the king (who
is unfortunately not named), to bring back "millions of things" from
Lebanon (in particular the city of Jubayl (Byblos), which is mentioned
by name). The relevent text says:
(I) brought it (ie, timber) down to you (ie, the King) from the hills of
God's Land (/t3 nTr/) (ie, the Lebanon Mountains where cedars grow),
arriving at Lebanon (ie, the coastal strip where Byblos is located).
sh3i=(i) n=k st Hr H3st nw t3 nTr spr r -` xnti-S
Source: Urk. IV., 535 (text 173b, line 12)
Another important text is the Jabal Barkal stela of Thutmosis III. Here
the text describes how Thutmosis III ordered boats to be constructed in
order to ferry across the Euphrates to attack Nahrayn. The relevant text
reads:
Now My Majesty proceeded to the northern borders of Asia and I caused to
be constructed many boats of cedar on the mountains of God's Land (/t3
nTr/) in the neighbourhood of the Lady of Jubayl (Byblos)...They went
before My Majesty in order to cross that great stream (ie, the
Eurphates) which flows between this foreign land (ie, Lebanon) and
Nahrayn.
ist D3.n Hm=i r pHw nw sTt iw rdi.n=i mDh=tw `H` `S3w nw `S Hr Dww nw t3
nTr m h3w t3 nbt kpny...sqd=sn Xr H3t Hm=i r D3t itrw pf `3 ir r imywty
x3st Tn r nhrn
Source: Urk IV, 1237 lines 11-12 (among others)
There are also a number of instances in pHarris I (46, 2-3; 52a, 2; 70a,
2) where the term /t3 nTr/ is identified with the "East" in offering
lists. This has lead some scholars to suggest Sinai as well (Sinai was
often symbolic of the "East" in other texts, though not called t3 nTr).
Basically offering/tribute is described as being from various places
symbolising the 4 cardinal directions. Syria (x3r) for the North, Kush
(k3S) for the South, the oases (w3Ht) for the West, and God's Land (t3
nTr) for the East. For discussion of this issue see the Lexikon der
A"gyptologie "Gottesland" (it gives cites to more in depth discussions).
In conclusion I would like to say that while I can understand the
attraction of claiming that God's Land refers to some mythical original
home of the Egyptians, it more likely has to do with the fact that
Lebanon, Punt, and (possibly) Sinai all produced tribute/offerings for
the pharaonic state.
Cheers,
Troy Sagrillo
Troy Sagrillo
> In article <32629F...@utoronto.ca>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> >> Also,
> >> the Egyptian term designating royalty, nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
> >> to the South."
> >
> >It most certainly does not! /nsw/ (/niswt/) means "(the person)
> >belonging to the /swt/ -plant" (the sedge plant, Juncus arabicus), a
> >"heraldic" symbol of Upper Egypt , as opposed to the /w3D/ plant
> >(papyrus) of Lower Egypt. See Gardiner's Grammar, pg. 50, note 1. The
> >word /swt/ does not have the direct meaning of "south" as you are
> >claiming, though the symbolic implication of Upper *Egypt* is obviously
> >present.
>
>
> Who is claiming that swt had a "direct meaning" of south, whatever that means.
You actually. You wrote: "nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
to the South."
> It referred to the south, one way or another.
Well now; here's a pickel. You are constantly harping on "eurocentrists"
to justify the translation "Black Land" for /kmt/ since you feel "land"
is being read into the translation (despite the clear determinative for
a city). Fine. I'm going to hold you to the same standard of evidence
for this. The term /nsw swt/ does *not* contain any indication of the
notion "south" in it. There is not a single determinative for "south"
present -- you are reading the notion into the words yourself. It means
"he of the sedge plant".
[snip]
>
> So how does one determine the meaning "black land," from Km.t? As I said
> it simply means the "Black Ones" (referring to people).
Once again, /kmt/ when determined by a city hieroglyph is *not* refering
to people, it is referring to a *place*, just as when /kmt/ with a cow
determinative is refering to cattle, /kmt/ determined by a block of
stone is referring to stone, &c.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3265A0...@utoronto.ca>,>> In article <3262DA...@utoronto.ca>,
After reexamining the lithograph, my question is how do you determine
the lithograph was a drawing and not a photograph? As I have said,
Lepsius describes what he saw. I have not been able to get a hold
of your reference yet, but from your description it could not possibly
have been the same one used by Lepsius.
>> However we don't have to depend on the drawers labeling because the hieroglyphs
>> are included in the lithograph.
>
>And who do you suppose *put* the hieroglyphs on the lithograph???? Who
>labeled the Libyan as /`3mw/ (Syro-Palestinian) and the Syro-Palestinian
>as /THmw/ (Libyan)?? It certainly wasn't the Egyptians -- they got it
>right in the tomb. BTW, the glyphs on the lithograph are in vertical
>columns. In the actual tomb they are written horizontally and w i d
>e l y spaced (unlike the lithograph wherein they are closely spaced).
>
>> Also, the B figure in the lithograph is definitely
>> a Libyan, as evidenced by the dress an hair style.
>
>A question: if you accept that we can know that "the B figure in the
>lithograph is definitely a Libyan, as evidenced by the dress an hair
>style" (and I agree with you), then why can you not accept that we can
>identify the Nubian figures "as evidenced by the dress an hair style"??
>If you want to claim that the second Nubian is in fact Egyptian, it is
>the **only** example of an Egyptian dressed as a Nubian "as evidenced by
>the dress an hair style" in the entire Egyptian canon.
>
That's not correct. Egyptians appear quite often with black skin and
"Nubian" hair in Egyptian art. I've included a number of images on my
webpages that show this quite clearly. There are many more that are
not included. In fact, all studies of ancient Egyptian hair remains that
I'm aware of show great similarity to the the hair of modern Nubians.
The studies referred to involve detailed microscopic analysis and not just
looking at the treated hair of mummies that are thousands of years old.
Egyptians, and even Nubians, commonly plaited their hair though. Also,
the dress shown on the tomb is *very* similar to that found on Egyptians in
other murals. Of course, I've never suggested the Egyptians were homogenous.
There were many different ethnic types involved.
>
>> In the other image included
>> in the gallery, we find another lithograph in Lepsius work that is thought by
>> some to portray early Hebrews. In modern photographs of this work, the images
>> of two dark Egyptians is always edited out. So, I caution anyone who would consider
>> trusting modern Eurocentric scholarship. They will whatever the can get away
>> with to further their worldview on gullible folk.
>
>No actually I expect people to trust their own eyes and make up their
>own minds. All they need do is look at the photos or visit the tomb (and
>being able to read hieroglyphs is useful too) to see that there are 2 of
>each "race" not one, and that Lepsius' drawing is just plain wrong.
>
If you are suggesting that people see the tomb for themselves, then I am in
utter agreement. My visit to Egypt convinced me more than anything else about
the race of the ancient Egyptians. By the way, when did you see the tomb for
yourself?
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
S. F. Thomas
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
(( cuts ))
> My visit to Egypt convinced me more than anything else about
> the race of the ancient Egyptians.
It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
that by a large preponderance, they were Black people. Moreover,
the further back in history, the more obviously Black they
were. It therefore never ceases to irritate me when the
Hollywood depictions and those of the tv documentaries, would
have us believe that they were essentially White people. It
is wrong and dishonest. The apologists for the eurocentric
LIE taught in the history books do not hasten to correct these
mis-depictions, but they hasten to correct afrocentric scholars
on every minute, usually immaterial, point of scholarship.
The asymmetry of course reveals their partisanship in the
debate, and gives the lie to their claim of objective, dispassionate
scholarship. Nevertheless, let us by all means examine with
them the individual trees; but let us also keep always in mind
the forest, as those of us who have been to Egypt find very
easy to do.
> Regards,
>
> Paul Kekai Manansala
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Katherine M. Griffis
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
>which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>that by a large preponderance, they were Black people. Moreover,
>the further back in history, the more obviously Black they
>were. It therefore never ceases to irritate me when the
>Hollywood depictions and those of the tv documentaries, would
>have us believe that they were essentially White people. It
>is wrong and dishonest. The apologists for the eurocentric
>LIE taught in the history books do not hasten to correct these
>mis-depictions, but they hasten to correct afrocentric scholars
>on every minute, usually immaterial, point of scholarship.
>The asymmetry of course reveals their partisanship in the
>debate, and gives the lie to their claim of objective, dispassionate
>scholarship. Nevertheless, let us by all means examine with
>them the individual trees; but let us also keep always in mind
>the forest, as those of us who have been to Egypt find very
>easy to do.
Then, let us remember how *diverse* the African continent was, in its
groups of people and their so-called "racial make-up". I think it was
*best said* by Frank Yurco, when he said:
"This has been my stance ever since I became involved with this issue,
with the "Were the Ancient Egyptians 'Black' or 'White'?" article in
Biblical Archaeology Review, back in 1989, and I still stand by that
position, along with Trigger and Keita Shomarka, who both have noted
that the African population is highly diverse, something that the
Afrocentrists have found hard to swallow, with their claims that the
Africans are all "black". That is a nineteenth century American social
concept, that lumped all African people as "black" and so also, stated
that if one great grandparent of eight was African, then you were a
Negro, in American terminology regardless of what the person's
complexion might have been. To force this American concept onto the
African population of the whole continent flies in the face of the
anthropological facts, of the highly diverse African population."
<10/15/96>
As we enter the end of the 20th century, and into the new world of the
21st, let's NOT be dragged *kicking and screaming* into the old ways
of thinking of the *19th century* and the travesty **that** was.
Let's move on and discover the richness of the Egyptian civilization,
and celebrate its fascinating history of *how diverse peoples pull
together*, and created one of the most intriguing and powerful
cultures of all time.
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <3265A0...@utoronto.ca>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >Let me see if I have this straight: you would rather trust a *drawing*
> >with a number of errors (regardless of the question of Nubian/Egytian,
> >&c) rather than **photographs** of the actual tomb just because Lepsius,
> >who lived more than a hundred years ago, agrees with you?? Fabulous
> >methodology!! ;-)
> >
>
> After reexamining the lithograph, my question is how do you determine
> the lithograph was a drawing and not a photograph?
You cannot possibly be serious here. Lepsius' work was published about
1840; photolithography hadn't even been invented yet! Standard
lithography (where an artist *draws* on the stone) was used (as well as
wood cuts) because the technology to reproduce photographs didn't exist
(in fact, photography was pretty new then all together). Lithographic
prints are very easy to identify -- they have a quite distict look to
them.
And I suppose the artist's signature on the plate is *another* clue....
> As I have said,
> Lepsius describes what he saw. I have not been able to get a hold
> of your reference yet, but from your description it could not possibly
> have been the same one used by Lepsius.
OR Lepsius' plate is in serious error.........
Please let's see them.
> Of course, I've never suggested the Egyptians were homogenous.
> There were many different ethnic types involved.
Let me be very clear here. Irregardless of hair style or colour of the
skin, it is very possible to identify Syro-Palestinians and Libyans by
the style of their dress. You yourself have said such a thing. The same
goes for Egyptians and Nubians. Egyptians are **never** depicted being
dressed like the Nubian and "Egyptian" in Lepsius' work. Never. The
*only* people dressed like the Nubian and so-called "Egyptian" in this
work are Nubians. Egyptian art is VERY picky about iconography and the
representation of dress is certainly key to that iconography.
Take care,
Troy
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3266C6...@utoronto.ca>,
Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> In article <32629F...@utoronto.ca>,>> >> In article <53e8dh$3...@news2.h1.usa.pipeline.com>,
>> >
>
>In conclusion I would like to say that while I can understand the
>attraction of claiming that God's Land refers to some mythical original
>home of the Egyptians, it more likely has to do with the fact that
>Lebanon, Punt, and (possibly) Sinai all produced tribute/offerings for
>the pharaonic state.
>
I will check the sources you gave, but the general idea of the gods
originating in the South can be found from the texts (refs. to come).
Also, the south is specifically stated to be the "land of the ancestors,"
in the texts. Many scholars, who were not Afrocentrists, have stated
this suggests some area far to the south in Africa (including Budge and
Petrie). In modern times, Punt is mostly said to refer to the region
of modern Somalia. Also, anthopological evidence relates the earliest
pre-dynastic remains with skeletons found in Eastern Africa. (Shomarqa Keita,
"Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," _History in Africa_ 1993)
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3266B1...@utoronto.ca>,
Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> In article <32629F...@utoronto.ca>,
>> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
>> >> Also,
>> >> the Egyptian term designating royalty, nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
>> >> to the South."
>> >
>> >belonging to the /swt/ -plant" (the sedge plant, Juncus arabicus), a
>> >"heraldic" symbol of Upper Egypt , as opposed to the /w3D/ plant
>> >(papyrus) of Lower Egypt. See Gardiner's Grammar, pg. 50, note 1. The
>> >word /swt/ does not have the direct meaning of "south" as you are
>> >claiming, though the symbolic implication of Upper *Egypt* is obviously
>> >present.
>>
>>
>> Who is claiming that swt had a "direct meaning" of south, whatever that means.
>
>to the South."
And that is what it means (whether directly or indirectly). The term suten "royalty,"
also was connected with sutenu "the crown of Upper Egypt, i.e., 'the South." The
sut plant was also known as the "plant of the South."
>
>> It referred to the south, one way or another.
>
>Well now; here's a pickel. You are constantly harping on "eurocentrists"
>to justify the translation "Black Land" for /kmt/ since you feel "land"
>is being read into the translation (despite the clear determinative for
>a city). Fine. I'm going to hold you to the same standard of evidence
>for this. The term /nsw swt/ does *not* contain any indication of the
>notion "south" in it. There is not a single determinative for "south"
>present -- you are reading the notion into the words yourself. It means
>"he of the sedge plant".
>
And or course it would not as the phrase is referring to a person and
not to a direction. (while km.t is clearly referring to people.) The
determinative after |swt| should logically refer to a toponym (and not a
plant).
>[snip]
>>
>> So how does one determine the meaning "black land," from Km.t? As I said
>> it simply means the "Black Ones" (referring to people).
>
>Once again, /kmt/ when determined by a city hieroglyph is *not* refering
>to people, it is referring to a *place*, just as when /kmt/ with a cow
>determinative is refering to cattle, /kmt/ determined by a block of
>stone is referring to stone, &c.
>
First of all, your idea that all toponyms use the city determinative is incorrect.
Many use only the ideogram meaning "hill country, desert, foreign country, etc."
whic resembles a section of hilly land. The determinative for land, is a bar with
three dots beneath it (as used in the phrase "the two lands," where two of these
ideograms are stacked upon one another).
Also, you do not mention km.t being used with the ideogram of people refers to people.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <547kbl$86c...@dialin.csus.edu>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>> In article <32629F...@utoronto.ca>,
>>> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>> >> the Egyptian term designating royalty, nsw < n y swt means (the person) "who belongs
>>> >> to the South."
>>> >
>>> >belonging to the /swt/ -plant" (the sedge plant, Juncus arabicus), a
>>> >"heraldic" symbol of Upper Egypt , as opposed to the /w3D/ plant
>>> >(papyrus) of Lower Egypt. See Gardiner's Grammar, pg. 50, note 1. The
>>> >word /swt/ does not have the direct meaning of "south" as you are
>>> >claiming, though the symbolic implication of Upper *Egypt* is obviously
>>> >present.
>>>
>>>
>>> Who is claiming that swt had a "direct meaning" of south, whatever that means.
>>
>>to the South."
>
>And that is what it means (whether directly or indirectly). The term suten "royalty,"
>also was connected with sutenu "the crown of Upper Egypt, i.e., 'the South." The
>sut plant was also known as the "plant of the South."
>
I was in a hurry this morning when I wrote this so just a few more comments.
The hieroglyph for the the |su| syllable in "sut" is used as a ideogram
meaning "plant of the South," and "Crown of the South." ( E. A. Wallis Budge,
_An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary_, vol. 1, 1978, p. CXXII). Furthermore,
many of the other ideograms indicating the south were also in the form of
hieroglyphs representing various types of plants found in the South.
Furthermore, Budge has the word |suten| meaning literally "the south,"
in _Egyptian Language_, London, 1966, p. 71.
It appears that in ancient times "suten" was read "nesu (nsw)," meaning
simply "king." The meaning of "king of the south," is already included
lexically in this word. In order to get "king of the north and south, i.e.,
the king of all Egypt," one had to add the word |biti| "the north," which
had an insect as its symbol. Thus "nsw bt" breaks down to nsw = king of
the south, and bt = the north.
Also, another important word suggesting the Egyptians southern origin is
"Khenti," meaning the South in general and Nubia in particular. Khenti
also means "the first one(s); a master or lord; the forerunners; the model
(prototype), etc." By derivation, "khenti-" was compounded to form names,
usually alternative ones, of numerous Egyptian gods.
The related word, Khentiu, means "those of the South, i.e., the Nubians."
Khentiu-Nen-nefer meant "the people of Nubia and Egyptian Sudan. (Budge)"
Khentu referred to a place in heaven, the abode of the gods.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3267D4...@utoronto.ca>,
Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>>
>> In article <3265A0...@utoronto.ca>,
>> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> >Let me see if I have this straight: you would rather trust a *drawing*
>> >with a number of errors (regardless of the question of Nubian/Egytian,
>> >&c) rather than **photographs** of the actual tomb just because Lepsius,
>> >who lived more than a hundred years ago, agrees with you?? Fabulous
>> >methodology!! ;-)
>> >
>>
>> After reexamining the lithograph, my question is how do you determine
>> the lithograph was a drawing and not a photograph?
>
>1840; photolithography hadn't even been invented yet! Standard
>lithography (where an artist *draws* on the stone) was used (as well as
>wood cuts) because the technology to reproduce photographs didn't exist
>(in fact, photography was pretty new then all together). Lithographic
>prints are very easy to identify -- they have a quite distict look to
>them.
>
You are right, photography was in its early stages, but it was closely
connected with the need for making lithographic printing plates by the
action of light instead of drawing on stone. The Daguerrotype was
introduced in 1839 and caught on like wildfire as far as the United States
within a few years. Lepsius work was published after 1845. When
he started the expedition in 1842, the Daguerrotype was already popular
in Europe.
>And I suppose the artist's signature on the plate is *another* clue....
>
There is a name and city under the plate but I don't notice the signature.
Besides, if this was common practice in those days, it would not be surprising
that it carried over into early photography. Also, the lithograph was obviously
retouched, which was common until modern times, so you can't make much just from
the appearance. I'm not insisting that the lithograph was a photograph, just making
sure you know what you're talking about.
>> As I have said,
>> Lepsius describes what he saw. I have not been able to get a hold
>> of your reference yet, but from your description it could not possibly
>> have been the same one used by Lepsius.
>
>OR Lepsius' plate is in serious error.........
>
Again Lepsius describes the image on the tomb. Besides, the representation
you describe (with two figures for each race) is so different than the one
in Lepsius, that such an error would amount to outright fraud. Lepsius represents
plate 48 as a faithful representation of at least one drawing in Rameses
III's tomb.
>Please let's see them.
>
Browse the pages at http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm. Some of the links
have died out and need updating though.
>> Of course, I've never suggested the Egyptians were homogenous.
>> There were many different ethnic types involved.
>
>Let me be very clear here. Irregardless of hair style or colour of the
>skin, it is very possible to identify Syro-Palestinians and Libyans by
>the style of their dress. You yourself have said such a thing. The same
>goes for Egyptians and Nubians. Egyptians are **never** depicted being
>dressed like the Nubian and "Egyptian" in Lepsius' work. Never. The
>*only* people dressed like the Nubian and so-called "Egyptian" in this
>work are Nubians. Egyptian art is VERY picky about iconography and the
>representation of dress is certainly key to that iconography.
>
Actually, Nubians and Egyptians are portrayed in a wide range of dress that
often overlaps. Sometimes Libyans also are found in similar dress. I was
distinguishing between the Libyan and Syro-Palestinian who generally are
represented very differently. The clothing of the Egyptian in Lepsius' work
is actually not a very common form of dress for a Nubian. Also, Nubians
are more often portrayed with a braided style of hair. A good work showing
the range of Egyptian dress and also some excellent examples of Egyptian
painting is Unesco, _Egypt: paintings from tombs and temples_, [Greenwich,
Conn.] New York Graphic Society [1954], UNESCO world art series, 2.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <32679A18...@decan.com>,>(( cuts ))
>> My visit to Egypt convinced me more than anything else about
>> the race of the ancient Egyptians.
>
>which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>that by a large preponderance, they were Black people. Moreover,
>the further back in history, the more obviously Black they
>were. It therefore never ceases to irritate me when the
>Hollywood depictions and those of the tv documentaries, would
>have us believe that they were essentially White people. It
>is wrong and dishonest. The apologists for the eurocentric
>LIE taught in the history books do not hasten to correct these
>mis-depictions, but they hasten to correct afrocentric scholars
>on every minute, usually immaterial, point of scholarship.
>The asymmetry of course reveals their partisanship in the
>debate, and gives the lie to their claim of objective, dispassionate
>scholarship. Nevertheless, let us by all means examine with
>them the individual trees; but let us also keep always in mind
>the forest, as those of us who have been to Egypt find very
>easy to do.
>
>S. F. Thomas
Well said. Even early Europeans who visited Egypt often had the same
reaction. Volney, Denon and Lepsius are among many who were quite shaken
out of their preconceptions after visiting the Two Lands. I actually
think that in earlier days it was easier for Western scholars to admit
to the "blackness" of the Egyptians since there were few non-whites making
waves in those days. There are still, even today, some Euroamerican
scholars who can deal with the truth such as Martin Bernal, Basil Davidson
and Bruce Williams, to name a few.
However, we don't have leading orthodox Egyptologists like Volney, Denon,
Lepsius, Petrie and Budge claiming that that Egypt was founded, or at least
partly founded, by blacks.
I like Yosef Ben-Jochannan's _Abu Simbel to Ghizeh : a guide book and manual_,
because, despite its terrible printing quality, it describes a voyage of
discovery through Egypt from the black viewpoint. Ben-Jochannan, for those
who don't know, was a visiting professor of language at Al-Azhar University
in Egypt, the oldest living university in the world. His outspoken Afrocentric
views while at that university brought heat from both outside and inside Egypt.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <548j9a$v...@camel0.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com (Katherine M. Griffis) wrote:
>"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>
>>It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
>>which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>>me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>>there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>>but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>>that by a large preponderance, they were Black people. Moreover,
>>the further back in history, the more obviously Black they
>>were. It therefore never ceases to irritate me when the
>>Hollywood depictions and those of the tv documentaries, would
>>have us believe that they were essentially White people. It
>>is wrong and dishonest. The apologists for the eurocentric
>>LIE taught in the history books do not hasten to correct these
>>mis-depictions, but they hasten to correct afrocentric scholars
>>on every minute, usually immaterial, point of scholarship.
>>The asymmetry of course reveals their partisanship in the
>>debate, and gives the lie to their claim of objective, dispassionate
>>scholarship. Nevertheless, let us by all means examine with
>>them the individual trees; but let us also keep always in mind
>>the forest, as those of us who have been to Egypt find very
>>easy to do.
>
>groups of people and their so-called "racial make-up". I think it was
>*best said* by Frank Yurco, when he said:
>
>"This has been my stance ever since I became involved with this issue,
>with the "Were the Ancient Egyptians 'Black' or 'White'?" article in
>Biblical Archaeology Review, back in 1989, and I still stand by that
>position, along with Trigger and Keita Shomarka, who both have noted
>that the African population is highly diverse, something that the
>Afrocentrists have found hard to swallow, with their claims that the
>Africans are all "black".
What is Yurco talking about? Keita is one of the most widely quoted
scholars among Afrocentrists. He figures among those who get special
thanks in Bernal's works.
Also, the great Cheikh Anta Diop never suggested that ancient Egyptians
were all black. He only denied Eurocentric claims that Egyptians were
white. We can extend that in modern times to deny that Egyptians were
"Caucasoid." Diop's contention is that ancient Egypt was predominantly
black, and that the original cultural element was black African. Also,
the vast majority of ancient Egyptians were African, whether black, brown
or whatever color. They were not of European or W. Asian derivation.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
S. F. Thomas
Whoa! Stop right there! This Yurco is a tricky character.
He again misrepresents the position of his opponent--as we
saw not so long ago in the discussion re Diop and the god Min--
the better it would seem to discredit that opponent. This is
an old rhetorical trick, but it fools no one who is paying
attention; it therefore must fall into the category of cheap
propaganda, which works rather with the uninformed masses.
Nobody claims that the Africans are ALL Black. What is claimed
by such as Diop, is that ancient Egyptian civilization was
founded by Black Africans. And there is plenty of evidence
adduced to support this view, not least being the likenesses
of the pharaohs that have come down to us in statuary. There
is even evidence that ancient Egyptian high culture was preceded
by, and descended from, ancient Nubian high culture (ref: the
Qostul excavations). Nobody has ever asserted the non-blackness
of the Nubians, ancient or modern.
> That is a nineteenth century American social
> concept, that lumped all African people as "black" and so also, stated
> that if one great grandparent of eight was African, then you were a
> Negro, in American terminology regardless of what the person's
> complexion might have been. To force this American concept onto the
> African population of the whole continent flies in the face of the
> anthropological facts, of the highly diverse African population."
> <10/15/96>
More trickery from Yurco. It is clear that the "one-drop"
rule would destroy immediately any argument for a White
Egypt, whether modern or ancient. So, equally, it is
clear that if White credit is to be claimed for ancient
Egypt and its accomplishments--which Hollywood and the tv
documentaries continue to depict--the heterogeneity of the
ancient Egyptian peoples must be emphasized, and Blacks
must grudgingly be admitted as having been there alright,
but as menials, slaves, and servants. This latter is only
hinted at, because the evidence is clearly to the contrary,
but for propagandists, the hint is sufficient: the masses
would be fooled by it, as indeed we all were, until Black/
African scholars exploded the great LIE under which we all
have labored.
>
> As we enter the end of the 20th century, and into the new world of the
> 21st, let's NOT be dragged *kicking and screaming* into the old ways
> of thinking of the *19th century* and the travesty **that** was.
Very artful. But last-ditch propaganda nonetheless.
> Let's move on and discover the richness of the Egyptian civilization,
> and celebrate its fascinating history of *how diverse peoples pull
> together*, and created one of the most intriguing and powerful
> cultures of all time.
Yes. And let's start with the repudiation of all the eurocentric
LIES that we have all been taught.
> Regards --
>
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Jeffrey L. Jones
You might also notice that in that Joan Collins movie, The Land Of The
Pharaohs, all of royalty was white and all of the slaves were black --
except the genius slave who built the maze pyramid. He was white, and
referred to the blacks behind him as "his people." I can't think of more
blatant racism in casting -- except in the Alien Warrior movie, which
probably only I saw.
Saida
S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
> >
> > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> >
> > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
> > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
> > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
> > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
> > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
> > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
the time of the Nubian Conquest. Other than this assumption, there is
not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
been black as opposed to Caucasion. Certainly, the men of Egypt were
painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
Where a group of men were standing in a row, every other one was painted
yellow so the composition wouldn't look like a dark blob. Should we
deduce from that that fifty per cent of ancient Egyptian men were
dark-skinned and the other half light?
On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
refer to--not a negroid type among them. Although is now impossible to
see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot. At the time of the
18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
family ,itself, to a great extent. Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
The Hab
Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>S. F. Thomas wrote:
>>
>> Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
>> >
>> > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
>> > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>> > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>> > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>> > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>> > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
Wrong. They were predominently non-black (I assume "black" is non-Saharan
African).
>You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
>of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
>the time of the Nubian Conquest. Other than this assumption, there is
>not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
>been black as opposed to Caucasion.
Define Caucasian...they were North African in geographical ethnicity.
>Certainly, the men of Egypt were
>painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
Really? ever seen a modern Egyptian fellah in the sun for a few hours?
They certainly do turn a reddish-brown! It was more than just an artistic
canon.
>Where a group of men were standing in a row, every other one was painted
>yellow so the composition wouldn't look like a dark blob. Should we
>deduce from that that fifty per cent of ancient Egyptian men were
>dark-skinned and the other half light?
Yellow/beige was and is more to the actual colour of the Egyptians. In
the sun, many turn a reddish-brown.
>On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
>tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
>the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
>isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
>painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
>Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
>were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
>races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
Although the average Egyptian's skin color was and is a yellowish-beige
colour, some have lighter skin and some darker. Just like all human
populations.
>How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
>out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
>refer to--not a negroid type among them. Although is now impossible to
>see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
>still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
>Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
Try not to use the "Caucasian" terminology...unless you define what that
is. I would say that they are North African features (not here that it is
a geographical and not "racial" term).
>Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
>skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
>
>You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot. At the time of the
>18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
>of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
>family ,itself, to a great extent. Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
>sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
>termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
Egypt NEVER changed to an "Asiatic background". in 7 000 years, the
population remained North African.
Although I agree with the jist of your post, I would advise that you be
more carefull in terminology.
The Hab
Saida
> >> >
> >> > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
> >> > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
> >> > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
> >> > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
> >> > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
> >> > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
>
> African).
>
> >You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
> >of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
> >the time of the Nubian Conquest. Other than this assumption, there is
> >not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
> >been black as opposed to Caucasion.
>
> Define Caucasian...they were North African in geographical ethnicity.
Look it up in the dictionary. What word would you use to call a person
who is neither negroid nor oriental? Geography is not very helpful in
defining ethnicity unless all the people living in an area are of like
background.
>
> >Certainly, the men of Egypt were
> >painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
>
> Really? ever seen a modern Egyptian fellah in the sun for a few hours?
> They certainly do turn a reddish-brown! It was more than just an artistic
> canon.
I know what you are saying here. Yes, the sun is a big factor. I have
an olive-skinned daughter who got very dark this summer from all the
swimming, but she is already fading to being her natural pale ivory.
>
> >Where a group of men were standing in a row, every other one was painted
> >yellow so the composition wouldn't look like a dark blob. Should we
> >deduce from that that fifty per cent of ancient Egyptian men were
> >dark-skinned and the other half light?
>
> Yellow/beige was and is more to the actual colour of the Egyptians. In
> the sun, many turn a reddish-brown.
Yes, I am glad you pointed out the environmental factor. Yet I think
you will agree that there are a number of Egyptians who are naturally
darker due to living in Upper Egypt and having perhaps a Nubian ancestry
than those whose families have resided in the Delta for a long time.
>
> >On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
> >tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
> >the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
> >isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
> >painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
> >Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
> >were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
> >races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
>
> Although the average Egyptian's skin color was and is a yellowish-beige
> colour, some have lighter skin and some darker. Just like all human
> populations.
>
> >How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
> >out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
> >refer to--not a negroid type among them. Although is now impossible to
> >see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
> >still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
> >Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
>
> Try not to use the "Caucasian" terminology...unless you define what that
> is. I would say that they are North African features (not here that it is
> a geographical and not "racial" term).
I am not really so sure what you mean here.
>
> >Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
> >skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
> >
> >You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot. At the time of the
> >18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
> >of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
> >family ,itself, to a great extent. Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
> >sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
> >termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
>
> Egypt NEVER changed to an "Asiatic background". in 7 000 years, the
> population remained North African.
I never meant it to be taken that the entire populace of ancient Egypt
had become Asiatic. I do think, however, that the population did shift
ethnically from time to time. Remember, the Hyksos ruled the Delta for
an extended period and, although they were supposed to have been
expelled by King Ahmose, there was nothing to be done about those
foreigners who had long ago assimilated into the population. The same
goes for the Israelites and others. After the Nubian conquest, when
would have to assume the Nubian component increased appreciably as the
southern frontier opened up, there were the Persians and others to the
west. By and by, there were a great many Greeks( at least in the Delta)
and, lastly, the Arab takeover.
>
> Although I agree with the jist of your post, I would advise that you be
> more carefull in terminology.
Well, it is difficult to find correct terms, politically, ethnically,
etc. One wants to be fair, but I'm not sure lumping people
geographically does the trick. It is an interesting albeit touchy
subject. I just invested a wad in a gorgeous book called "The
Mysterious Fayum Portraits" by Euphrosyne Doxiades. The author is
evidently a Greek and an artist and she points out which portraits look
to her Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, etc., but, on the whole, the wonderful
paintings look to me like types one could find in any Sicilian village
and don't much resemble anybody I associate with dynastic Egypt from the
old portraiture or even the mummies I have studied to such a great
extent.
>
> The Hab
Saida
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <3266C6...@utoronto.ca>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >In conclusion I would like to say that while I can understand the
> >attraction of claiming that God's Land refers to some mythical original
> >home of the Egyptians, it more likely has to do with the fact that
> >Lebanon, Punt, and (possibly) Sinai all produced tribute/offerings for
> >the pharaonic state.
> >
>
> I will check the sources you gave, but the general idea of the gods
> originating in the South can be found from the texts (refs. to come).
> Also, the south is specifically stated to be the "land of the ancestors,"
> in the texts.
I'm not denying this. Only pointing out that "God's Land" referred to
other places *besides* Punt, and that to claim the use of "God's Land"
is good evidence for you possision is shakey as the term is not limited
to an African context. (And for the record, I *do* believe the Egyptians
**are** African)
> Many scholars, who were not Afrocentrists, have stated
> this suggests some area far to the south in Africa (including Budge and
> Petrie). In modern times, Punt is mostly said to refer to the region
> of modern Somalia.
Actually there are a number of serious problems with the Somolia
indentification (mainly having to do with the types of produce shipped
from Punt); most scholars like a more northerly location (and there are
still a few hold outs for Yemen, but this is unlikely). Rudolfo
Fattovich has been digging in the region of the Sudani-Eritrean border
and has been producing good, hard, archaeological evidence that this was
the prob. location of Punt. This area also happens to fit the textual
evidence as well.
Cheers,
Troy Sagrillo
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <3267D4...@utoronto.ca>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >> After reexamining the lithograph, my question is how do you determine
> >> the lithograph was a drawing and not a photograph?
> >
> >You cannot possibly be serious here. Lepsius' work was published about
> >1840; photolithography hadn't even been invented yet! Standard
> >lithography (where an artist *draws* on the stone) was used (as well as
> >wood cuts) because the technology to reproduce photographs didn't exist
> >(in fact, photography was pretty new then all together). Lithographic
> >prints are very easy to identify -- they have a quite distict look to
> >them.
> >
>
> You are right, photography was in its early stages, but it was closely
> connected with the need for making lithographic printing plates by the
> action of light instead of drawing on stone. The Daguerrotype was
> introduced in 1839 and caught on like wildfire as far as the United States
> within a few years. Lepsius work was published after 1845. When
> he started the expedition in 1842, the Daguerrotype was already popular
> in Europe.
However the technology for getting the photographic image onto the stone
didn't exist at that time. As far as I am aware, the 1st archaeological
publication to use photos was Schliemann's (sp) 1st ed. of Troy; it
included a 2nd vol. of tin-type photographs.
> I'm not insisting that the lithograph was a photograph, just making
> sure you know what you're talking about.
I took lithography as an undergraduate! It was great fun!!
> >> As I have said,
> >> Lepsius describes what he saw. I have not been able to get a hold
> >> of your reference yet, but from your description it could not possibly
> >> have been the same one used by Lepsius.
> >
> >OR Lepsius' plate is in serious error.........
> >
>
> Again Lepsius describes the image on the tomb. Besides, the representation
> you describe (with two figures for each race) is so different than the one
> in Lepsius, that such an error would amount to outright fraud.
Actually I don't think it is "outright fraud". I just think the artist
created a "synopsis" drawing rather than draw all the figures (this was
common in the 19th cent., and it certainly occurs in other plates in
Lepsius's DM). And unfortnately in the process he bungled the job (I
doubt he knew what he was looking at and with the number of plates in
DM, it was no doubt difficult for Lepsius to keep taps on the project
(assuming he was even present)).
Lepsius represents
> plate 48 as a faithful representation of at least one drawing in Rameses
> III's tomb.
> >Let me be very clear here. Irregardless of hair style or colour of the
> >skin, it is very possible to identify Syro-Palestinians and Libyans by
> >the style of their dress. You yourself have said such a thing. The same
> >goes for Egyptians and Nubians. Egyptians are **never** depicted being
> >dressed like the Nubian and "Egyptian" in Lepsius' work. Never. The
> >*only* people dressed like the Nubian and so-called "Egyptian" in this
> >work are Nubians. Egyptian art is VERY picky about iconography and the
> >representation of dress is certainly key to that iconography.
> >
>
> Actually, Nubians and Egyptians are portrayed in a wide range of dress that
> often overlaps. Sometimes Libyans also are found in similar dress. I was
> distinguishing between the Libyan and Syro-Palestinian who generally are
> represented very differently. The clothing of the Egyptian in Lepsius' work
> is actually not a very common form of dress for a Nubian.
Lepsius' "Egyptian" is stereotypical for New Kingdom representations of
Nubians. You will not find Egyptians wearing the leather shoulder/belt
sash, nor the leopard (?) skin apron with animal tails; the shoulder
covering and waist-wrap is also typical of New Kingdom Nubians. The
while linen cloth under all of this is of course Egyptian, and
represents the degree of acculturation that the Nubians in the NK had
undergone.
Also, Nubians
> are more often portrayed with a braided style of hair.
Hair plaiting is a wide-spread cultural feature. Libyans also plaited
their hair (though in a different style)
A good work showing
> the range of Egyptian dress and also some excellent examples of Egyptian
> painting is Unesco, _Egypt: paintings from tombs and temples_, [Greenwich,
> Conn.] New York Graphic Society [1954], UNESCO world art series, 2.
Troy
The Hab
Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
[snip]
>> >> > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
>>
>> Wrong. They were predominently non-black (I assume "black" is non-Saharan
>> African).
>>
>> >You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
>> >of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
>> >the time of the Nubian Conquest. Other than this assumption, there is
>> >not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
>> >been black as opposed to Caucasion.
>>
>> Define Caucasian...they were North African in geographical ethnicity.
>
>Look it up in the dictionary. What word would you use to call a person
>who is neither negroid nor oriental? Geography is not very helpful in
>defining ethnicity unless all the people living in an area are of like
>background.
"Caucasian" is not a very exact term. Studies done by population
geneticists tend to group by geography (to a large extent)...words like
"Caucasian" are not used very often. North Africa (as a region) is
considered different from West Asia and Europe as well as the Indian
sub-continent even though peoples in these regions are lumped in the
"Caucasian" category. And yes, North Africans are believed to have
originated in the central Saharan regions (and some parts of northern
Sudan), so "of like background" does come into play.
>> >Certainly, the men of Egypt were
>> >painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
>>
>> Really? ever seen a modern Egyptian fellah in the sun for a few hours?
>> They certainly do turn a reddish-brown! It was more than just an artistic
>> canon.
>
>I know what you are saying here. Yes, the sun is a big factor. I have
>an olive-skinned daughter who got very dark this summer from all the
>swimming, but she is already fading to being her natural pale ivory.
When you work all day in the sun, like the fellahin, you tend to stay
red-brown for a long time and the colour tends to be associated with men
who are the ones working in the outdoors. Conversely, women were
associated with the natural yellow/beige colour because they were
indoors.
>> >Where a group of men were standing in a row, every other one was painted
>> >yellow so the composition wouldn't look like a dark blob. Should we
>> >deduce from that that fifty per cent of ancient Egyptian men were
>> >dark-skinned and the other half light?
>>
>> Yellow/beige was and is more to the actual colour of the Egyptians. In
>> the sun, many turn a reddish-brown.
>
>Yes, I am glad you pointed out the environmental factor. Yet I think
>you will agree that there are a number of Egyptians who are naturally
>darker due to living in Upper Egypt and having perhaps a Nubian ancestry
>than those whose families have resided in the Delta for a long time.
Of course, the Upper Egyptians even have a different blood group ratio
than the Lower Egyptians even though the two groups are the closest to
each other. (i.e., an Upper Egyptian is closer to a Lower Egyptian than
he is to a Nubian, etc...).
[snip]
>> Although the average Egyptian's skin color was and is a yellowish-beige
>> colour, some have lighter skin and some darker. Just like all human
>> populations.
>>
>> >How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
>> >out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
>> >refer to--not a negroid type among them. Although is now impossible to
>> >see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
>> >still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
>> >Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
>>
>> Try not to use the "Caucasian" terminology...unless you define what that
>> is. I would say that they are North African features (not here that it is
>> a geographical and not "racial" term).
>
>I am not really so sure what you mean here.
See above.
>> >Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
>> >skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
>> >
>> >You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot. At the time of the
>> >18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
>> >of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
>> >family ,itself, to a great extent. Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
>> >sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
>> >termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
>>
>> Egypt NEVER changed to an "Asiatic background". in 7 000 years, the
>> population remained North African.
>
>I never meant it to be taken that the entire populace of ancient Egypt
>had become Asiatic. I do think, however, that the population did shift
>ethnically from time to time.
"Shift" means that the genetic markers somehow were different. Not true.
There has never been a "shift".
>Remember, the Hyksos ruled the Delta for
>an extended period and, although they were supposed to have been
>expelled by King Ahmose, there was nothing to be done about those
>foreigners who had long ago assimilated into the population. The same
>goes for the Israelites and others. After the Nubian conquest, when
>would have to assume the Nubian component increased appreciably as the
>southern frontier opened up, there were the Persians and others to the
>west. By and by, there were a great many Greeks( at least in the Delta)
>and, lastly, the Arab takeover.
All these groups, although adding to the gene pool, were insignificant
genetically. They were like a drop in the ocean.
>> Although I agree with the jist of your post, I would advise that you be
>> more carefull in terminology.
>
>Well, it is difficult to find correct terms, politically, ethnically,
>etc. One wants to be fair, but I'm not sure lumping people
>geographically does the trick. It is an interesting albeit touchy
>subject. I just invested a wad in a gorgeous book called "The
>Mysterious Fayum Portraits" by Euphrosyne Doxiades. The author is
>evidently a Greek and an artist and she points out which portraits look
>to her Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, etc., but, on the whole, the wonderful
>paintings look to me like types one could find in any Sicilian village
>and don't much resemble anybody I associate with dynastic Egypt from the
>old portraiture or even the mummies I have studied to such a great
>extent.
Maybe it is because the paintings in the ancient times were of a differnt
style? One Japanese friend even told me the ancients looked oriental.;)
The Hab
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326933...@utoronto.ca>,>> In article <3266C6...@utoronto.ca>,
>> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
>> >In conclusion I would like to say that while I can understand the
>> >attraction of claiming that God's Land refers to some mythical original
>> >home of the Egyptians, it more likely has to do with the fact that
>> >Lebanon, Punt, and (possibly) Sinai all produced tribute/offerings for
>> >the pharaonic state.
>> >
>>
>> I will check the sources you gave, but the general idea of the gods
>> originating in the South can be found from the texts (refs. to come).
>> Also, the south is specifically stated to be the "land of the ancestors,"
>> in the texts.
>
>I'm not denying this. Only pointing out that "God's Land" referred to
>other places *besides* Punt, and that to claim the use of "God's Land"
>is good evidence for you possision is shakey as the term is not limited
>to an African context. (And for the record, I *do* believe the Egyptians
>**are** African)
>
>> Many scholars, who were not Afrocentrists, have stated
>> this suggests some area far to the south in Africa (including Budge and
>> Petrie). In modern times, Punt is mostly said to refer to the region
>> of modern Somalia.
>
>Actually there are a number of serious problems with the Somolia
>indentification (mainly having to do with the types of produce shipped
>from Punt); most scholars like a more northerly location (and there are
>still a few hold outs for Yemen, but this is unlikely).
That's interesting that you say "most scholars" as I've rarely
encountered this idea.
Rudolfo
>Fattovich has been digging in the region of the Sudani-Eritrean border
>and has been producing good, hard, archaeological evidence that this was
>the prob. location of Punt. This area also happens to fit the textual
>evidence as well.
>
I faintly remember reading something about a new identification of Punt, but it
didn't stick with me. Do you have the reference handy? Either way, the Sudani-
Eritrean location would not be unreasonable to me although the texts seem to indicate
somewhere farther away.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Stella Nemeth
1@2.3 (Hussein Essawy) wrote:
>When I was in Cairo this summer, I spent a good 45 minutes infront of the
>Fayum Portraits on the second floor of the Egyptian Museum, trying to
>judge for myself if any of the two dozen or so portraits on display had any
>similarity to the Joe Blow walking on the streets of Cairo. Well I could
>find a couple of portraits that fit this criterea, so I rationalized by
>saying that the ruling people (greeks/romans) were probably the ONLY ones
>that could afford to have these portraits done.
My own most recent experience with the Egyptian look was at my
daughter's wedding. One of the bridesmaids, born in Egypt, could have
stepped right off an 18th Dynasty wall. Except for the dress, of
course. I don't think Egyptians wore gold colored shot silk. <g>
The rest of it however was there. A warm light-brown skin. Hair that
naturally fell into long shoulder-length ringlets. And the face, of
course.
Stella Nemeth
s.ne...@ix.netcom.com
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326941...@utoronto.ca>,
Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>>
>> In article <3267D4...@utoronto.ca>,
>> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Actually, Nubians and Egyptians are portrayed in a wide range of dress that
>> often overlaps. Sometimes Libyans also are found in similar dress. I was
>> distinguishing between the Libyan and Syro-Palestinian who generally are
>> represented very differently. The clothing of the Egyptian in Lepsius' work
>> is actually not a very common form of dress for a Nubian.
>
>Lepsius' "Egyptian" is stereotypical for New Kingdom representations of
>Nubians. You will not find Egyptians wearing the leather shoulder/belt
>sash, nor the leopard (?) skin apron with animal tails; the shoulder
>covering and waist-wrap is also typical of New Kingdom Nubians. The
>while linen cloth under all of this is of course Egyptian, and
>represents the degree of acculturation that the Nubians in the NK had
>undergone.
>
>
I'll have to look at other New Kingdom representations, but just my
recollection of the images at Medinet Habu conjure up pictures of Nubians
in different types of dress and hairstyle. In the images at the tomb
of Huy, many of the Nubians are in very Egyptian looking dress, while others
have only leopard skin loin cloths. This seems to have been
the pattern through most time periods, and even today Nubians have a
wide range of dress. Shoulder coverings were commonly used by Egyptians.
I can't recall that particular type of shoulder covering used by either
Nubians or Egyptians. Leopard skins were worn by Egyptian priests, particularly
the high priest. Sashs and belts were worn. I have before me some photos
of belts worn in Tutankhamen's time. The animal tails are unusual, and often
worn by Nubians, however I don't think it would take long to find Egyptian
examples. I believe there is plenty of evidence that the Egyptians freely
borrowed from the Nubians, and vice a versa.
> Also, Nubians
>> are more often portrayed with a braided style of hair.
>
>Hair plaiting is a wide-spread cultural feature. Libyans also plaited
>their hair (though in a different style)
>
True, and Egyptians are mainly a fusion of Nubian/Sudanese and Saharans.
However, I would say that the hairstyles of Egypt and Nubia were much
more closely related.
> A good work showing
>> the range of Egyptian dress and also some excellent examples of Egyptian
>> painting is Unesco, _Egypt: paintings from tombs and temples_, [Greenwich,
>> Conn.] New York Graphic Society [1954], UNESCO world art series, 2.
>
>
>Troy
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
S. F. Thomas
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
> > > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
> > > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
> > > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
> > > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
> > > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
>
> of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
> the time of the Nubian Conquest.
The very first Pharaoh, Narmer, looks Black African in
appearance. In addition, there is evidence from the
Qostul excavations that Egyptian high culture was preceded
by, and descended from, Nubian high culture.
> Other than this assumption, there is
> not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
> been black as opposed to Caucasion.
Narmer. See above. Also Thutmose III, the so-called
"Napoleon of antiquity".
> Certainly, the men of Egypt were
> painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
<snip>
> On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
> tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
> the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
> isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
> painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
> Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
> were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
> races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
So, are you saying that when the skin tones are reddish
brown or black, it is due to "artistic canon", but when
it is "rosy pink" it is not? This is too absurd.
In any case, no one is denying that there were varied
infusions of non-Black-African into the Egyptian gene
pool. The most famous icon of ancient Egypt, Nefertiti,
is one such, being a White Mitanni woman who married into
Egyptian royalty.
> How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
> out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
> refer to--not a negroid type among them.
This is clear nonsense. Diop in particular has put the
lie to this particular fable.
> Although is now impossible to
> see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
> still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
> Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
> skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
I think the bubble that has been burst is the eurocentric
LIE to which we have all been subjected, and continues to
be depicted by Hollywood and the tv documentaries put on
from time to time concerning ancient Egypt, namely that the
ancient Egyptians were White. It is not so.
>
> You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot.
Quite so. The question is what was its provenance. And
the evidence--from the likeness of Narmer to the excavations
at Qostul, to the likeness of the proto-historic figure
Lord Tera Neter, also of the god Ausar, not to mention the
Sphinx--is clearly that
ancient Egyptian high culture was established by Black
African people coming north down the Nile. Caucasoid
admixtures came later: some came by inter-marriage, even
into the royal household; some came driven by hunger and
famine into the fertile Nile valley, as did the Jews;
some came as slaves; some came as conquerors; etc., etc.
(It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
The result is the heterogeneous mix of hues one sees
in Egypt today.
> At the time of the
> 18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
> of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
> family ,itself, to a great extent.
Yes there was inter-marriage.
> Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
> sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
> termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
This is clearly false. Take a look at Cheikh Anta Diop,
"The African Origin of Civilization", Lawrence Hill Books,
1974, in particular pages 1-22.
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <326933...@utoronto.ca>,> >> In article <3266C6...@utoronto.ca>,
I'm not trying to be coy about it. Yes, there is some disagreement.
Hezog's vol. on Punt made the strongest case for a Somali
identification. However Kitchen (in his Orientalia and LA articles)
noted that the overlap of certain flora and fauna as indicated in the
Dayr al-Bahri reliefs could only occur in a more northerly location (as
the Italian missions are seeming indicating as well); he also gives
specific textual reasons for this as well. Kitchen is the source most
*generally* followed in this regard.
> Rudolfo
> >Fattovich has been digging in the region of the Sudani-Eritrean border
> >and has been producing good, hard, archaeological evidence that this was
> >the prob. location of Punt. This area also happens to fit the textual
> >evidence as well.
> >
>
> I faintly remember reading something about a new identification of Punt, but it
> didn't stick with me. Do you have the reference handy? Either way, the Sudani-
> Eritrean location would not be unreasonable to me although the texts seem to indicate
> somewhere farther away.
Start with:
Cozzolino, Caterina. 1993. "The Land of Pwnt." In Sesto congresso
internazionale de egittologia: Atti. Vol. 2 of 2, edited by Gian Maria
Zaccone, and Tomaso Ricardi di Netro. Torino: [n.p.]. 391–398.
Fattovich, Rodolfo. 1993. "Punt: The Archaeological Perspective." (as
above). 399–405. (this article will give you cites to other works).
Pirelli, Rosanna. 1993. "Punt in Egyptian Myth and Trade." (as above).
383–390.
> Regards,
>
> Paul Kekai Manansala
S. F. Thomas
Here is a repost of mine on the same subject,
different thread. If it drew a response, I missed it.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Hab wrote:
(( cuts ))
> ...the people who have the
> closest physical affinities with the ancients in ALL PERIODS are modern
> Egyptians.
But modern Egyptians--I have seen them with my own eyes--are
hardly homogeneous. They range from dark black to blonde and
blue-eyed. So what bench-mark do you use for comparison?
It seems to me, coming from the Caribbean, where we have a
similar range of hues, and where the explanation is obvious,
ie. race-mixing, that the explanation in the case of Egypt
is the same. Certainly, we know as historical fact, that
Egypt has had inflows of people from Greece, Rome, Persia,
Arabia, Turkey, etc., etc. The question which interests those
of us who come to your country and see all the statuary of
what to us look very much like Black Africans, is whether
they were the *original* Egyptians who *founded* the civilization
whose wonders, including the pyramids, we still gaze upon
today. It is a fair question, not one to be dismissed as
a priori absurd.
As one born and raised in the Caribbean, and now resident
in the United States, I am used to the sickness of
racism and color prejudice. In the Caribbean at least, we
like to deny its existence, especially to foreigners. In
the United States, there is color prejudice even among Blacks:
light-skinned vs. dark-skinned, etc. That too is sometimes
denied, but increasingly less so as African-descended people
of all hues learn to free their minds from the idiocy and
of color prejudice that white racism actively sought to engender,
as part of its divide-and-conquer strategy.
So I was curious whether modern Egypt suffers from a similar
color psychosis. I cannot know for sure, but my guess is
yes, based on my observations and the Egyptians I have known
over the years. One give-away of course lies in what it
calls itself: The ARAB Republic of Egypt, almost defiantly,
as though one might be tempted to assume otherwise, probably
rightly. After all, such countries as Oman, or Kuwait, or
Iraq do not similarly have to pronounce their Arab-ness.
This may be a way of proudly asserting identity, in which
case who the hell am I to object. But I did detect an attempt
always to assert distance between Egypt and Africa, as though
it were not *of* the latter. That same distancing has been a
feature of eurocentric scholarship ever since at least Napoleon,
and Diop has exposed some sometimes amusing examples of the
idiocies and absurdities that have arisen as eurocentric
scholars have sought mightily to avoid or deny the obvious: the
Black origins of Egypt. I sense by your tone that you are
similarly embarked. And I venture that the same white-supremacist
dynamic and psychosis that has affected the entire planet is
likewise at work in Egypt.
I expect you to deny it of course. As you seek to deny the
essential Black African-ness of those who created ancient
Egyptian high culture. But I won't believe you. And I suspect
the black-skinned Egyptians of upper Egypt won't believe you
either.
> The Hab
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saida
S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> Saida wrote:
> >
> > S. F. Thomas wrote:
> > >
> > > Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
> > > > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
> > > > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
> > > > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
> > > > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
> > > > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
> >
> > You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
> > of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
> > the time of the Nubian Conquest.
>
> The very first Pharaoh, Narmer, looks Black African in
> appearance. In addition, there is evidence from the
> Qostul excavations that Egyptian high culture was preceded
> by, and descended from, Nubian high culture.
Where have you seen any portraits of Narmer except on the Narmer Palette
where it is virtually impossible to see what sort of person this was
racially?
>
> > Other than this assumption, there is
> > not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
> > been black as opposed to Caucasion.
>
> Narmer. See above. Also Thutmose III, the so-called
> "Napoleon of antiquity".
Thutmose III?? Thutmose III is one of the least "Nubian" looking
pharaohs one could ever conceive of! We even have his mummy and believe
me, there is NOTHING Nubian about him. You know, I think you are a
troll. You remind me of another Afrocentrist person who used to post in
this newsgroup. Among many other absurd claims, he said that those
Israelites who crossed the Red Sea at the time of the Exodus were really
black folks. I told him that, certainly, it was possible. It might be
that these people were pursued by Pharaoh's army of plastic surgeons who
gave them aquiline noses. Later on, that stuff that supposedly fell
from the sky, called Manna, was a prototype of whatever Michael Jackson
uses to lighten his skin and so the Jews forever after looked different
than before they tried to get out of Egypt. Maybe something along the
same lines happened to Thutmose III, as well.
>
> > Certainly, the men of Egypt were
> > painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
> <snip>
> > On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
> > tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
> > the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
> > isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
> > painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
> > Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
> > were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
> > races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
>
> So, are you saying that when the skin tones are reddish
> brown or black, it is due to "artistic canon", but when
> it is "rosy pink" it is not? This is too absurd.
> In any case, no one is denying that there were varied
> infusions of non-Black-African into the Egyptian gene
> pool. The most famous icon of ancient Egypt, Nefertiti,
> is one such, being a White Mitanni woman who married into
> Egyptian royalty.
Her famous bust is painted with pinkish skin tones, I believe, but there
is no evidence making her anything but a native Egyptian. No one knows
who Nefertiti was before she became Queen of Egypt.
>
> > How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
> > out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
> > refer to--not a negroid type among them.
>
> This is clear nonsense. Diop in particular has put the
> lie to this particular fable.
Please cite us what he has to say about these mummies in particular.
Better yet, look at them for yourself in a recent book called "Faces of
Pharaohs" by Robert Partridge.
>
> > Although is now impossible to
> > see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
> > still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
> > Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
> > Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
> > skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
>
> I think the bubble that has been burst is the eurocentric
> LIE to which we have all been subjected, and continues to
> be depicted by Hollywood and the tv documentaries put on
> from time to time concerning ancient Egypt, namely that the
> ancient Egyptians were White. It is not so.
Then give us some real proof to the contrary--and that doesn't include
Diop!
>
> >
> > You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot.
>
> Quite so. The question is what was its provenance. And
> the evidence--from the likeness of Narmer to the excavations
> at Qostul, to the likeness of the proto-historic figure
> Lord Tera Neter, also of the god Ausar, not to mention the
> Sphinx--is clearly that
> ancient Egyptian high culture was established by Black
> African people coming north down the Nile. Caucasoid
> admixtures came later: some came by inter-marriage, even
> into the royal household; some came driven by hunger and
> famine into the fertile Nile valley, as did the Jews;
> some came as slaves; some came as conquerors; etc., etc.
> (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
> sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
> sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
> The result is the heterogeneous mix of hues one sees
> in Egypt today.
Trolling down Absurdity Lane, tra la la, etc.
>
> > At the time of the
> > 18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
> > of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
> > family ,itself, to a great extent.
>
> Yes there was inter-marriage.
>
> > Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
> > sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
> > termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
>
> This is clearly false. Take a look at Cheikh Anta Diop,
> "The African Origin of Civilization", Lawrence Hill Books,
> 1974, in particular pages 1-22.
Oh, yes, indeed, that would surely be an objective reference book!
>
> Regards,
> S. F. Thomas
Saida
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3269FB...@utoronto.ca>,
Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>>
>> In article <326933...@utoronto.ca>,
>> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>> >>
>> >> In article <3266C6...@utoronto.ca>,
>> >> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> >
[clip]
>I'm not trying to be coy about it. Yes, there is some disagreement.
>Hezog's vol. on Punt made the strongest case for a Somali
>identification. However Kitchen (in his Orientalia and LA articles)
>noted that the overlap of certain flora and fauna as indicated in the
>Dayr al-Bahri reliefs could only occur in a more northerly location (as
>the Italian missions are seeming indicating as well); he also gives
>specific textual reasons for this as well. Kitchen is the source most
>*generally* followed in this regard.
>
What do they say about the existence of giraffes and baboons at Punt?
Were they found in the Eritrean area? I also remember that some of the
reliefs at Deir el-Bahri seem to portray something akin to a coconut palm
(definitely not a date palm).
Regards,
Paul
Troy Sagrillo
S. F. Thomas wrote:
[snip]
> (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
> sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
> sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
I hope you are not referring to the myth that Napoleon supposedly had
the nose shot off. It was mutilated in 708 AH/1378 CE for
**iconoclastic** reasons (having *nothing* to do with "Black Africans"),
an event recorded in al-Maqrizi's Khitat.
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326A87...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>,
Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>S. F. Thomas wrote:
>>
>> Saida wrote:
>> >
>> > S. F. Thomas wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
>> > > > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>> > > > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>> > > > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>> > > > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>> > > > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
>> >
>> > You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
>> > of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
>> > the time of the Nubian Conquest.
>>
>> The very first Pharaoh, Narmer, looks Black African in
>> appearance. In addition, there is evidence from the
>> Qostul excavations that Egyptian high culture was preceded
>> by, and descended from, Nubian high culture.
>
>Where have you seen any portraits of Narmer except on the Narmer Palette
>where it is virtually impossible to see what sort of person this was
>racially?
>>
There is a sculptured head of a First Dynasty pharoah that is thought
by many to be Narmer. To see it point your web-browser to:
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/egypt3.htm
There is also a representation of Tera-Neter, looking very Black African,
from the proto-historic period (Ivan Van Sertima (ed.), _Egypt Revisited_,
1989, plate 1).
A number of paintings on A-culture tombs found in Upper Egypt are also very
revealing, particularly the Tomb 100 mural. This mural shows a number
of black-skinned figures at Hierakonpolis at war with red-skinned figures.
Sir Flinders Petrie was the first to suggest this represented a victory
of Nubians over indigenous Egyptians, who he thought came originally from
the southeast (near the Red Sea). Petrie, by the way, was of the opinion
that the Old Kingdom dynasties were founded by Nubians (he was the excavator
of the Thebaid). It has been noted that a number of the black-skinned figures
beared iconographic traits later reserved for pharoahs including (_Egypt
Revisited, p. 73):
1. A "leader" (in hierarchic proportion) holding a mace threatens
a prisoner.
2. Another yields a mace.
3. A "foreign ship" with a "tented" black-skinned figure.
4. A black-skinned figure extend to a red-skinned figure a
leopard's skin.
The leopard's skin was a sign of priesthood in dynastic Egypt. The battle
scenes are thought to refer to the predynastic conflicts mentioned in Upper
Egypt in later Egyptian writings.
>> > Other than this assumption, there is
>> > not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
>> > been black as opposed to Caucasion.
>>
>> Narmer. See above. Also Thutmose III, the so-called
>> "Napoleon of antiquity".
>
>Thutmose III?? Thutmose III is one of the least "Nubian" looking
>pharaohs one could ever conceive of! We even have his mummy and believe
>me, there is NOTHING Nubian about him. You know, I think you are a
>troll. You remind me of another Afrocentrist person who used to post in
>this newsgroup. Among many other absurd claims, he said that those
>Israelites who crossed the Red Sea at the time of the Exodus were really
>black folks. I told him that, certainly, it was possible. It might be
>that these people were pursued by Pharaoh's army of plastic surgeons who
>gave them aquiline noses. Later on, that stuff that supposedly fell
>from the sky, called Manna, was a prototype of whatever Michael Jackson
>uses to lighten his skin and so the Jews forever after looked different
>than before they tried to get out of Egypt. Maybe something along the
>same lines happened to Thutmose III, as well.
>>
Yurco's strategy of having people look at mummified remains reminds
of how Heyerdahl did the same thing with South American mummies to
prove their Caucasoid affinities. One cannot not determine the
proper classification of hair from mummies that have been subjected
to herbal and other treatment (smoking?), wrapped in bandages and
dormant for thousands of years. Doesn't the curly or kinky hair tend
to straighten out after people die anyway?
A scientific approach would analyze the hair via microscopic analysis.
Studies of this kind have been made, one of the best being that of
Strouhal, and they show that most Egyptians had a type of "mulatto"
hair similar to that found among most modern Nubians and Southern
Egyptians.
The same thing can be said regarding facial features. These should
be measured metrically. In fact, if you study some of the photos
in _Egyptian Mummies_, a popular new book out on the subject, you
can see profiles of a number of pharoahs. From the profiles, anyone
with some anthropological knowledge can see many obvious "Negroid"
traits like very long heads, bulging occiputs, high skull, prognathism,
and low orbit. Most importanty, though, these traits have been confirmed
by anthropological studies.
Also, "aquiline noses" alone are not evidence of anything. These can
be found even among modern Watusi tribes, Eskimos, Plains Indians.
and some Papuan tribes, to name a few. Genetic studies have shown
that previous assumptions that long, narrow noses among Nilotic peoples
were due to Caucasoid admixture were invalid (Molnar, Stephen,
_Human Variation_, New York, 1991). Besides, chamaerrhine (very broad)
and mesorrhine (medium broad) noses were quite commonly found among Egyptian
remains including those of the Pharoahs.
>> > Certainly, the men of Egypt were
>> > painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
>> <snip>
>> > On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
>> > tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
>> > the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
>> > isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
>> > painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
>> > Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
>> > were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
>> > races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
>>
>> So, are you saying that when the skin tones are reddish
>> brown or black, it is due to "artistic canon", but when
>> it is "rosy pink" it is not? This is too absurd.
>> In any case, no one is denying that there were varied
>> infusions of non-Black-African into the Egyptian gene
>> pool. The most famous icon of ancient Egypt, Nefertiti,
>> is one such, being a White Mitanni woman who married into
>> Egyptian royalty.
>
>Her famous bust is painted with pinkish skin tones, I believe, but there
>is no evidence making her anything but a native Egyptian. No one knows
>who Nefertiti was before she became Queen of Egypt.
>>
If we go by "skin tones" of Egyptian paintings, most ancient Egyptians
would conform to modern Nubians and East Africans. Most Southern
Egyptians of today would fit into the same category. However, there
are plenty of people all over Egypt, and even into Arabia and the Syro-
Palestine who are as black as coal. I've been there and seen them.
Come now. After some two centuries of rampant Eurocentrism, why would
you expect anyone to trust any reference given by you or anyones else
written by someone of Euroamerican descent?
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <1-ya0231800020...@news.mindspring.com>,
1@2.3 (Hussein Essawy) wrote:
>In article <326A81...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>, Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>
>[.....]
>
>: If you have already made up your mind not to believe anything other
>: people say that don't agree with your viewpoint, why even bother
>: addressing us at all?
>
>The ONLY thing these guys believe... are the words of people like Diop,
>so I think Hab is right in asking us to IGNORE them.
>
Actually, the thread from which this one originated was posted
only on soc.culture.african.american. It was anti-Afrocentrist,
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg), who crossposted it to the rest.
Regards,
Paul
Aethe...@worldnet.att.net
Troy Sagrillo wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> > (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
> > sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
> > sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
>
> the nose shot off. It was mutilated in 708 AH/1378 CE for
> **iconoclastic** reasons (having *nothing* to do with "Black Africans"),
> an event recorded in al-Maqrizi's Khitat.
>
> Troy Sagrillo
No, You HAVE to be wrong: modern Afro-American political
correctness censors insist that Egypt WAS black, the same way they
insist that the Million Man March actually had a million men present (It
was a 'march' from where to where BTW?).
You can't win on this: try and you will be buried by a bunch of
public employees who got their jobs because of racist quotas and who
keep them because of Iron Plated Union Contracts.
Us mere humans can't compete any more with the marching morons
we have allowed to leech off our taxes until they own us and rule us.
Saida
S. F. Thomas wrote:
(snip)
> I expect you to deny it of course. As you seek to deny the
> essential Black African-ness of those who created ancient
> Egyptian high culture. But I won't believe you. And I suspect
> the black-skinned Egyptians of upper Egypt won't believe you
> either.
>
> Regards,
> S. F. Thomas
Richard Ottolini
The mummies are laughing their heads off about how their descendents are
so obsessed with skin color.
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <326941...@utoronto.ca>,
> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <3267D4...@utoronto.ca>,
> >> Troy Sagrillo <t.sag...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
> >>
> >> Actually, Nubians and Egyptians are portrayed in a wide range of dress that
> >> often overlaps. Sometimes Libyans also are found in similar dress. I was
> >> distinguishing between the Libyan and Syro-Palestinian who generally are
> >> represented very differently. The clothing of the Egyptian in Lepsius' work
> >> is actually not a very common form of dress for a Nubian.
> >
> >Lepsius' "Egyptian" is stereotypical for New Kingdom representations of
> >Nubians. You will not find Egyptians wearing the leather shoulder/belt
> >sash, nor the leopard (?) skin apron with animal tails; the shoulder
> >covering and waist-wrap is also typical of New Kingdom Nubians. The
> >while linen cloth under all of this is of course Egyptian, and
> >represents the degree of acculturation that the Nubians in the NK had
> >undergone.
> >
> >
>
> recollection of the images at Medinet Habu conjure up pictures of Nubians
> in different types of dress and hairstyle.
I apologise if I gave the impression that I think *all* Nubians look
like those in the Ram. III tomb. No, you are quite right, there is a
variety of dress, hair-style, etc. as would be expected (the same can be
said for other non-Egyptian groups as well). All I meant is that the
style of dress in the Ram. III depictions is used *only* for Nubians.
Similar examples can be found in tiles from Qantir and Madinah Habu (and
elsewhere).
In the images at the tomb
> of Huy, many of the Nubians are in very Egyptian looking dress, while others
> have only leopard skin loin cloths. This seems to have been
> the pattern through most time periods, and even today Nubians have a
> wide range of dress. Shoulder coverings were commonly used by Egyptians.
Not the decorated variety shown here.
> I can't recall that particular type of shoulder covering used by either
> Nubians or Egyptians. Leopard skins were worn by Egyptian priests, particularly
> the high priest.
Not the type worn here.
> Sashs and belts were worn.
Of course they were. But not the leather type shown here with the
rosette decorative elements
> I have before me some photos
> of belts worn in Tutankhamen's time. The animal tails are unusual, and often
> worn by Nubians, however I don't think it would take long to find Egyptian
> examples.
Good luck. They are one of the standard features of Nubian iconography
(much like the side-lock and penis-sheath is to the Libyans, or the
tassled kilt of the Syro-Palestinians).
> I believe there is plenty of evidence that the Egyptians freely
> borrowed from the Nubians, and vice a versa.
Nubians certianly borrowed from the Egypians (and can be seen here in
terms of the linen garments).
> > Also, Nubians
> >> are more often portrayed with a braided style of hair.
> >
> >Hair plaiting is a wide-spread cultural feature. Libyans also plaited
> >their hair (though in a different style)
> >
>
> True, and Egyptians are mainly a fusion of Nubian/Sudanese and Saharans.
> However, I would say that the hairstyles of Egypt and Nubia were much
> more closely related.
>
> > A good work showing
> >> the range of Egyptian dress and also some excellent examples of Egyptian
> >> painting is Unesco, _Egypt: paintings from tombs and temples_, [Greenwich,
> >> Conn.] New York Graphic Society [1954], UNESCO world art series, 2.
Troy Sagrillo
S. F. Thomas
Troy Sagrillo wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> > (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
> > sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
> > sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
>
> the nose shot off.
No, I meant no such implication. And it is the first I'm
hearing of this "myth". I had always heard that the Mamelukes
were the culprits.
> It was mutilated in 708 AH/1378 CE for
> **iconoclastic** reasons (having *nothing* to do with "Black Africans"),
> an event recorded in al-Maqrizi's Khitat.
Well that's one *hypothesis*, I suppose...
Either way, the deed was accomplished by *foreign* invader...
> Troy Sagrillo
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
The Hab
Aethe...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>Troy Sagrillo wrote:
>>
>> S. F. Thomas wrote:
>> > (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
>> > sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
>> > sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
>>
>> **iconoclastic** reasons (having *nothing* to do with "Black Africans"),
>> an event recorded in al-Maqrizi's Khitat.
>>
>
>
> No, You HAVE to be wrong: modern Afro-American political
>correctness censors insist that Egypt WAS black, the same way they
>insist that the Million Man March actually had a million men present (It
>was a 'march' from where to where BTW?).
> You can't win on this: try and you will be buried by a bunch of
>public employees who got their jobs because of racist quotas and who
>keep them because of Iron Plated Union Contracts.
> Us mere humans can't compete any more with the marching morons
>we have allowed to leech off our taxes until they own us and rule us.
Looks to me "SF Thomas" that these type of people are the ones that you
should be battling, not the Egyptians.
The Hab
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
Troy Sagrillo wrote:
>
> [clip]
>
> >I'm not trying to be coy about it. Yes, there is some disagreement.
> >Hezog's vol. on Punt made the strongest case for a Somali
> >identification. However Kitchen (in his Orientalia and LA articles)
> >noted that the overlap of certain flora and fauna as indicated in the
> >Dayr al-Bahri reliefs could only occur in a more northerly location (as
> >the Italian missions are seeming indicating as well); he also gives
> >specific textual reasons for this as well. Kitchen is the source most
> >*generally* followed in this regard.
> >
>
> What do they say about the existence of giraffes and baboons at Punt?
That they had them, and rhinos as well. (The giraffes are proof that
Punt was not South Arabia as had been suggested in the 19th and early
20th cent.)
> Were they found in the Eritrean area?
Yes
> I also remember that some of the
> reliefs at Deir el-Bahri seem to portray something akin to a coconut palm
> (definitely not a date palm).
It is called the dum-palm. They grow in Egypt as well, though I admit I
am not quite sure exactly what the fruit is like. Actually this tree is
why Somalia is not readily accepted as a likely canidate for Punt -- the
dum-palm and myrrh trees do *not* grow in the **same** region in Somalia
(as the Punt reliefs show), but **do** grow together in more northerly
locations (and again, the archaeology is adding to this argument as
well). BTW, the articles I mentioned are:
Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson. 1971. "Punt and How to Get There." Orientalia
(new series) 40:184–207.
Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson. 1980. "Punt." In Lexikon der A"gyptologie.
Vol. 4, edited by Hans Wolfgang Helck, and Wolfhart Westendorf.
Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. 1198–1201.
Take care,
Troy
S. F. Thomas
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> > I expect you to deny it of course. As you seek to deny the
> > essential Black African-ness of those who created ancient
> > Egyptian high culture. But I won't believe you. And I suspect
> > the black-skinned Egyptians of upper Egypt won't believe you
> > either.
> >
> > S. F. Thomas
>
> If you have already made up your mind not to believe anything other
> people say that don't agree with your viewpoint, why even bother
> addressing us at all?
You forget... I have been to Egypt and I've *seen* the
tombs, statuary, murals, etc. with my own eyes. I refuse to
deny the evidence of my senses. These, to a large preponderance,
were Black people. This is not hypothesis. This is observed
fact. Now, I am also aware that in a white-supremacist world,
ALL Black achievement was to be either disparaged or denied.
Hence the lies that we have been told by eurocentric
scholarship. Despite its Black origins, that dynamic has worked
also in Egypt, as it has all over the world. And it causes such
as you to deny the evidence of your senses.
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
Hussein Essawy wrote:
>
> In article <326A81...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>, Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>
> [.....]
>
> : people say that don't agree with your viewpoint, why even bother
> : addressing us at all?
>
> so I think Hab is right in asking us to IGNORE them.
That response does not surprise me. Such eurocentric apologists
as Mary Lefkowitz (Not out of Africa) are finding it very hard
to hold the line against the afrocentric onslaught. And the
reason is very simple: truth will out. Quite the opposite of
what the eurocentrists often charge... that afrocentrists are
pursuing false but "feel-good" scholarship... it is the eurocentrists
who it seems have been indulging themselves, for the last 200
years at least, in an orgy of self-congratulatory "feel-good"
scholarship, which it turns out has been one big LIE, that sought
to appropriate for White people credit for the very origins
of civilization. It is clear that the near-White folks of Egypt
have bought into the lie, no doubt because it is of benefit to
them under a global system of White supremacy. Certainly for
them it is better to side with the devil that they know--EuroAmerican
domination--than the devil they don't--a Black resurgence.
But they need not. Blacks do not seek world domination, rather
only to free their minds from White supremacy propaganda. The
near-Whites and off-Whites of Egypt would do well to do the same.
You IGNORE truth only ultimately at your own peril.
> Have a good day,
> Hussein
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Katherine M. Griffis
pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote:
>In article <1-ya0231800020...@news.mindspring.com>,
> 1@2.3 (Hussein Essawy) wrote:
>>In article <326A81...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>, Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>>
>>[.....]
>>
>>: If you have already made up your mind not to believe anything other
>>: people say that don't agree with your viewpoint, why even bother
>>: addressing us at all?
>>
>>The ONLY thing these guys believe... are the words of people like Diop,
>>so I think Hab is right in asking us to IGNORE them.
>>
>Actually, the thread from which this one originated was posted
>only on soc.culture.african.american. It was anti-Afrocentrist,
>Katherine Griffis (Greenberg), who crossposted it to the rest.
Actually, this type of thread shows up from time to time on ALL the
Egyptian-related newsgroups, and in fact, AUSAR started the
cross-posting , not I. Many of my responses to him became
cross-posted as part of it.
If you, Mr. Manansala, don't think it *proper* to post to
alt.culture.egyptian, soc.culture.egyptian, and so on, I have to ask
myself, "why doesn't he remove the headers from the post before he
sends it?" Surely you can do that!
As for me being "anti-Afrocentrist", I think I have made my point here
before: I am not against the statements made in these forums by what
the poster *is*, or the view he *takes*, but I DO hate "sloppy work".
Much of what Diop has said, stated and wrote is based on *misquotes*
and half-ideas, taken out of context. I posted the *full quotes* of
authors he has done this with. You respond in kind with more. Why
should WE trust your evidence, as you further denigrate ours with
*implausible and non-verifiable* statements, or cite references that
are woefully out of date, and quoted in error?
Saida, Sagrillo, and others have been *correct* in asking for evidence
from you and others that are **other than Diop and/or published within
the last 50 or so years** for this reason, for if we have learned
nothing else from the studies of ancient Egypt, it's knowing better
that to go off "half-cocked" with **bad information** or partial
information.
If *that* is your definition of being "anti-Afrocentrist", then YOU
are welcome to it.
You have made it clear that you *prefer* evidence that supports *only*
your viewpoint (RE: the Lepsius lithographs, for example). When more
recent evidence negates it, you tend to either a) ignore the findings
(although they are clear and in front of you), or b) begin an *ad
hominem* argument against the author of the works, the poster, etc.
This does not constitute discourse at all.
Note here that I am referring to what you had done here, and in the
past, as I have followed your posts for some time.
Regards --
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
The Hab
stg...@sugarland.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini) wrote:
>The mummies are laughing their heads off about how their descendents are
>so obsessed with skin color.
Looks to me, the only people that DO NOT ACCEpT the decendants as true
Egyptians are the ones obsessed, buddy.
The Hab
S. F. Thomas
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> >
> > Saida wrote:
> > >
> > > S. F. Thomas wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
> > > > > >which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
> > > > > >me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
> > > > > >there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
> > > > > >but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
> > > > > >that by a large preponderance, they were Black people.
> > >
> > > You must have had your dark glasses on the whole time. I am really sick
> > > of repeating this: Yes, there were black pharaohs--must have been at
> > > the time of the Nubian Conquest.
> >
> > The very first Pharaoh, Narmer, looks Black African in
> > appearance. In addition, there is evidence from the
> > Qostul excavations that Egyptian high culture was preceded
> > by, and descended from, Nubian high culture.
>
> Where have you seen any portraits of Narmer except on the Narmer Palette
> where it is virtually impossible to see what sort of person this was
> racially?
See Cheikh Anta Diop, African Origin of Civilization,
Lawrence Hill Books, 1974, Pl. 5.
> >
> > > Other than this assumption, there is
> > > not one single shred of evidence pointing to the kings of Egypt having
> > > been black as opposed to Caucasion.
> >
> > Narmer. See above. Also Thutmose III, the so-called
> > "Napoleon of antiquity".
>
> Thutmose III?? Thutmose III is one of the least "Nubian" looking
> pharaohs one could ever conceive of!
See Diop, op. cit. A photograph of the bust of Thutmose III is
reproduced on the front cover, and inside, Pl. 12.
> We even have his mummy and believe
> me, there is NOTHING Nubian about him. You know, I think you are a
> troll.
I have cited my source. If Diop is mistaken as to these
questions of FACT, it should be rather easy to establish.
Please cite your sources.
> You remind me of another Afrocentrist person who used to post in
> this newsgroup. Among many other absurd claims, he said that those
> Israelites who crossed the Red Sea at the time of the Exodus were really
> black folks. I told him that, certainly, it was possible. It might be
> that these people were pursued by Pharaoh's army of plastic surgeons who
> gave them aquiline noses. Later on, that stuff that supposedly fell
> from the sky, called Manna, was a prototype of whatever Michael Jackson
> uses to lighten his skin and so the Jews forever after looked different
> than before they tried to get out of Egypt. Maybe something along the
> same lines happened to Thutmose III, as well.
Your attempt at sarcasm fails. It certainly propels no
response from me. I have made no claims about the Jews or
what they looked like at the time of the Exodus. Nor do
I care. That is another thread.
> >
> > > Certainly, the men of Egypt were
> > > painted with a reddish-brown skin, but that was an artistic canon.
> > <snip>
> > > On your tomb-hopping excursions, did you perchance ever venture into the
> > > tombs of Queen Nefertari or Prince Montuhirkhopeshef? These are among
> > > the most beautifully painted sepulchers of Egypt. Nefertari's skin
> > > isn't even yellow in her tomb--it is rosy pink and the prince's skin is
> > > painted a cafe au lait. Their features look nothing like the way
> > > Egyptian artists usually depicted negroid persons. Yes, the Egyptians
> > > were very careful to show themselves as looking different from other
> > > races--although, of course, this was not always the case in reality.
> >
> > So, are you saying that when the skin tones are reddish
> > brown or black, it is due to "artistic canon", but when
> > it is "rosy pink" it is not? This is too absurd.
> > In any case, no one is denying that there were varied
> > infusions of non-Black-African into the Egyptian gene
> > pool. The most famous icon of ancient Egypt, Nefertiti,
> > is one such, being a White Mitanni woman who married into
> > Egyptian royalty.
>
> Her famous bust is painted with pinkish skin tones, I believe, but there
> is no evidence making her anything but a native Egyptian. No one knows
> who Nefertiti was before she became Queen of Egypt.
Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
> >
> > > How about an even more reliable kind of evidence than art? Ever check
> > > out the royal mummies? These ARE the kings and queens of Egypt you
> > > refer to--not a negroid type among them.
> >
> > This is clear nonsense. Diop in particular has put the
> > lie to this particular fable.
>
> Please cite us what he has to say about these mummies in particular.
> Better yet, look at them for yourself in a recent book called "Faces of
> Pharaohs" by Robert Partridge.
I wonder how many faces there are in that book, and what
the criteria were for selection. Considering that the
ancient Egyptian high culture existed for thousands of years
I imagine there exists much scope for selective sampling.
As to what Diop has to say, see p. 132, op. cit., where
he concludes as follows:
... we can see that anthropology has failed to establish
the existence of any white Egyptian race; if anything, it
would tend to establish the opposite. Nevertheless, in
current textbooks, the problem is suppressed; most often
they merely take it on themselves to assert categorically
that the Egyptians were Whites. All honest laymen then
get the impression that such an assertion must necessarily
be based on solid studies previously conducted. But that,
as we have seen, is simply not true. This is how the
minds of so many generations have been warped.
> >
> > > Although is now impossible to
> > > see the original skin color of the person, their features and hair are
> > > still admirably preserved. Where there is hair, it is of the fine
> > > Caucasian quality, straight, sometimes wavy, but not crisp or woolly.
> > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the truth. Even the lightest-
> > > skinned "black" people I have seen rarely have Caucasian hair.
> >
> > I think the bubble that has been burst is the eurocentric
> > LIE to which we have all been subjected, and continues to
> > be depicted by Hollywood and the tv documentaries put on
> > from time to time concerning ancient Egypt, namely that the
> > ancient Egyptians were White. It is not so.
>
> Then give us some real proof to the contrary--and that doesn't include
> Diop!
Diop cites fact where there are facts. He offers hypotheses
where facts do not present themselves. And he lays bare arguments
for the hypotheses he advances. Diop is an open book to his
critics, an honest scholar who lays bare his sources and his
arguments. By contrast, much eurocentric scholarship to
which I have been exposed asserts hypotheses as fact, and
claims authority as substitute for argument. I read such
scholarship with jaundiced eye nowadays. In any case, the Blackness
of ancient Egypt cannot seriously be denied. And a selective
sampling of mummies does not prove the contrary.
> >
> > >
> > > You've got to accept it--Egypt was a melting-pot.
> >
> > Quite so. The question is what was its provenance. And
> > the evidence--from the likeness of Narmer to the excavations
> > at Qostul, to the likeness of the proto-historic figure
> > Lord Tera Neter, also of the god Ausar, not to mention the
> > Sphinx--is clearly that
> > ancient Egyptian high culture was established by Black
> > African people coming north down the Nile. Caucasoid
> > admixtures came later: some came by inter-marriage, even
> > into the royal household; some came driven by hunger and
> > famine into the fertile Nile valley, as did the Jews;
> > some came as slaves; some came as conquerors; etc., etc.
> > (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
> > sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
> > sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
> > The result is the heterogeneous mix of hues one sees
> > in Egypt today.
>
> Trolling down Absurdity Lane, tra la la, etc.
Hardly an incisive rebuttal...
> >
> > > At the time of the
> > > 18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
> > > of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
> > > family ,itself, to a great extent.
> >
> > Yes there was inter-marriage.
> >
> > > Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
> > > sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
> > > termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
> >
> > This is clearly false. Take a look at Cheikh Anta Diop,
> > "The African Origin of Civilization", Lawrence Hill Books,
> > 1974, in particular pages 1-22.
>
> Oh, yes, indeed, that would surely be an objective reference book!
See above. Refute Diop if you can. He lays bare facts,
hypotheses and arguments. Quite unlike so many eurocentric
propagandists who assert dogma and lay claim to false
authority.
> >
> > Regards,
> > S. F. Thomas
>
> Saida
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Katherine M. Griffis
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>Saida wrote:
>>
>> Her famous bust is painted with pinkish skin tones, I believe, but there
>> is no evidence making her anything but a native Egyptian. No one knows
>> who Nefertiti was before she became Queen of Egypt.
>Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
>Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
For one, it's an Amarna Period art piece, S.F Thomas: during *that
period*, the Egyptian Canon was not adhered to as closely. the
artistic rule for the Amarna Period was *ankh em ma'at*, or "shown as
it appears". Since you point out that this *appears* to have been
Nefertiti's true skin color (and why you have her as Mitanni is a
*mystery to me), it is within keeping with the sentiment of the
artistic style.
She may have been a very pale woman: it has been theorised that she
was cousin or daughter within the family of Aye, who had an important
position within the Royal House, and later was Pharaoh after
Tutankhamen. Her name means, "a beautiful woman has arrived", but
there is little reason to believe that she is Mitanni, as most of the
*Mitanni wives* of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten tended to retain their
"foreign names" (such as Tadukhipa and Ghilukhipa), according to the
texts we still have. (SEE: Amarna Letters)
So, in other words, we have NO OTHER works to cite here but Diop?
Talking about your SELECTIVE use of references and evidence, sir.
I think YOU owe Saida an apology for the above statement you've made.
>> > > Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
>> > > sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
>> > > termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
>> >
>> > This is clearly false. Take a look at Cheikh Anta Diop,
>> > "The African Origin of Civilization", Lawrence Hill Books,
>> > 1974, in particular pages 1-22.
>>
>> Oh, yes, indeed, that would surely be an objective reference book!
>See above. Refute Diop if you can. He lays bare facts,
>hypotheses and arguments. Quite unlike so many eurocentric
>propagandists who assert dogma and lay claim to false
>authority.
Would Diop to quote the references and cites he gives *correctly*,
yes, I would buy into the fact that he has done the research without
having *seen the actual evidence*. Hardly convincing, and hardly what
I call *precise scholarship* here....
Diop has attempted to make points in *many areas* that are just
wrong; he attributes quotes to authors who have said *no such things*,
and he draws conclusions from the barest of statements and cites, and
usually with no evidence.
Yet, you believe HIS works stand against *ACTUAL evidence and work in
the field*, all because of some *perceived Eurocentric (READ: racist,
according to Thomas here and others) conspiracy* that, based upon the
last 30-40 years of research, is absurd. We *did have that problem*
in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. However, since about 1960,
there have been *massive re-thinks* and re-writes of Egyptian history
based on new evidence, new viewpoints, and aggressive scholars bent on
learning the *truth* about the people and culture that give us better
insight into the actual progression of the civilization.
However, much of it does not *support* your theory, and where it does,
it is more a commentary in *influences that Nubia and other cultures
had upon Egypt and vice versa*, and NOT a "who was here first" idea.
Say what you want about what Yurco has pointed out, for example (and
you have), but the issue of the massive *diversity* of the North
African peoples in the pre-dynastic and earlier phases of history IS
undeniable. It was not just ONE people who created Egypt, and they
weren't ALL one race either (other than likely being *homo sapiens
sapiens*).
It was *many groups*, passing in and out of the Levant area over the
period of thousands of years, settling, intermingling with several
other groups, and so on. Some of these people eventually moved on to
*other points in the Levant and Mediterranean*, and did final
settlement there. This accounts for many *similar features* within
cultures to that of Egypt, Mesopotamian, Dravidian, and even some
Asiatic groups of the era.
It is NOT
ONE GROUP (from Africa) --------->-------------> ALL OTHER GROUPS
AND CULTURES (Including the cultures of Egypt and so on)
but more like
SEVERAL DIFFERING GROUPS (traveling from various locations of the
globe) -------->(settled and then traverse from) CENTRAL LOCATION
(EGYPT, INDIA ETC.) -------> traveling and re-settling (permanently)
/ | | | | \
Europe (Medit) Africa Near East Black Sea and Asia
The issues are MORE complex than Diop presents, and can show the
possibilities that man may have progressed from parallel developments
all over the world , rather than a straight linear development. This
is something that *has to* be considered as well, as not everyone can
agree on the "Africa was first in everything" theory. There is
evidence *too strong* for **other development** that, IMHO, we cannot
ignore.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326B7B...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>,
>
>> >Saida, Sagrillo, and others have been *correct* in asking for evidence
>> >from you and others that are **other than Diop and/or published within
>> >the last 50 or so years** for this reason, for if we have learned
>> >nothing else from the studies of ancient Egypt, it's knowing better
>> >that to go off "half-cocked" with **bad information** or partial
>> >information.
>> >
>>
>> and that ancient Egyptians had close contact with White Russia?
>
>No, you jolly old Troll--you are wrong as usual, and wrong with a
>vengeance. Those were the claims of others and none of mine. I have
>seen nothing that would make me reach the former conclusion and know
>nothing about the latter. In short, I would lack E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E to
>make the assertions you ascribe to me. Try singing that word to the
>tune of R-E-S-P-E-C-T and perhaps it will begin to sink in that evidence
>is crucial to the sort of discussions we have in this group.
Respect? Is that what you call labeling people "trolls." Take a hike.
> Without
>it, no one takes you seriously. Science and Arachaeology--get the
>picture?
Yes, I get the picture, we should look at ancient mummies and deduce
that we should ignore the skin color (which obviously has changed over
time). OTOH, we should expect the natural curliness of the hair and the
soft tissues to remain the same!
Regards.
Paul Kekai Manansala
Saida
Richard Ottolini wrote:
>
> The mummies are laughing their heads off about how their descendents are
> so obsessed with skin color.
Hmmm...I have seen vengeful mummies, fortified with tanna leaves fed to
them by men in red hats, wreak havoc on the countryside. I have
witnessed mummies falling in love with "live ringers" for their
long-lost sweethearts and carrying them off to trysts in swamps. But I
must confess I have never come across a laughing mummy. It sounds
rather terrifying. I sure hope someone in Hollywood is reading this.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326ADA...@utoronto.ca>,>[snip]
>> A number of paintings on A-culture tombs found in Upper Egypt are also very
>> revealing, particularly the Tomb 100 mural. This mural shows a number
>> of black-skinned figures at Hierakonpolis at war with red-skinned figures.
>
>Hierankonpolis is anything other than Egyptian! There is absolutely
>nothing A-Group about it: the ceramics discovered in it were all
>Egyptian (with some Syro-Palestinian imports); there was not any A-Group
>ceramics at all.
Not true, this certainly has been suggested.
>
>In fact quite a few of the iconographic motifs of the painting have
>Mesopotamian prototypes (leading to a lot of nonsense about some sort of
>"Asiatic Dynastic race" which has been thankfully rejected).
>
The typical motifs like that of the ruler being represented much larger
than everyone else occur in Egypt (as in the Narmer Palette). Also, as
said before, the mural shows black-skinned individuals attacking
red-skinned individuals. It definitely agrees with Egyptian traditions
concerning the predynastic conflicts with southern invaders in Upper
Egypt.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Saida
S. F. Thomas wrote:
Saida Wrote:
> >
> > Please cite us what he has to say about these mummies in particular.
> > Better yet, look at them for yourself in a recent book called "Faces of
> > Pharaohs" by Robert Partridge.
>
> I wonder how many faces there are in that book, and what
> the criteria were for selection. Considering that the
> ancient Egyptian high culture existed for thousands of years
> I imagine there exists much scope for selective sampling.
> As to what Diop has to say, see p. 132, op. cit., where
> he concludes as follows:
For your information, this book contains photos and descriptions of
nearly ALL the royal mummies found in the two caches and in individual
tombs, including one ACTUAL negroid individual who apparently had been a
war hero. Given his titles and rather fancy burial, it is nice to see
that this Maihirpri was not discriminated against in his own time. To
me, that says something positive about the ancient Egyptians. Yet the
fact remains that he is unlike the other individuals in the book. There
were probably other black people who made significant contributions or
were held in esteem in the ancient Egyptian culture. We simply do not
have their mummies.
>
> ... we can see that anthropology has failed to establish
> the existence of any white Egyptian race; if anything, it
> would tend to establish the opposite. Nevertheless, in
> current textbooks, the problem is suppressed; most often
> they merely take it on themselves to assert categorically
> that the Egyptians were Whites.
I don't know what books you've been reading. I read books about ancient
Egypt, particularly, all the time. They all say the same--Egypt was a
melting-pot of racial types.
(snip)
The only "rebuttal" you have given is to cite Diop and the evidence of
your own prejudiced eyes. Diop is not considered a scientific source
BECAUSE HE HAS AN AGENDA. Not to mention the fact that he is hardly
qualified as an expert on ancient Egyptian anything.
>
> > >
> > > > At the time of the
> > > > 18th and 19th Dynasties from whence the royal mummies, a large per cent
> > > > of the population had become of Asiatic background, probably the royal
> > > > family ,itself, to a great extent.
> > >
> > > Yes there was inter-marriage.
> > >
> > > > Even in the Old Kingdom,however,the
> > > > sculptures of the pharaohs give no indication that these people could be
> > > > termed "black" as opposed to just plain Egyptian.
> > >
> > > This is clearly false. Take a look at Cheikh Anta Diop,
> > > "The African Origin of Civilization", Lawrence Hill Books,
> > > 1974, in particular pages 1-22.
> >
> > Oh, yes, indeed, that would surely be an objective reference book!
>
> See above. Refute Diop if you can. He lays bare facts,
> hypotheses and arguments. Quite unlike so many eurocentric
> propagandists who assert dogma and lay claim to false
> authority.
>
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > S. F. Thomas
See you under the bridge, Troll! Other than that valediction, your
drivel will get no more attention from me.
Saida
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
Katherine Griffis wrote:
> >Saida, Sagrillo, and others have been *correct* in asking for evidence
> >from you and others that are **other than Diop and/or published within
> >the last 50 or so years** for this reason, for if we have learned
> >nothing else from the studies of ancient Egypt, it's knowing better
> >that to go off "half-cocked" with **bad information** or partial
> >information.
> >
>
> Saida? Wasn't she claiming that the Egyptian royalty was of Turkish descent,
> and that ancient Egyptians had close contact with White Russia?
No, you jolly old Troll--you are wrong as usual, and wrong with a
vengeance. Those were the claims of others and none of mine. I have
seen nothing that would make me reach the former conclusion and know
nothing about the latter. In short, I would lack E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E to
make the assertions you ascribe to me. Try singing that word to the
tune of R-E-S-P-E-C-T and perhaps it will begin to sink in that evidence
is crucial to the sort of discussions we have in this group. Without
S. F. Thomas
Aethe...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> No, You HAVE to be wrong: modern Afro-American political
> correctness censors insist that Egypt WAS black, the same way they
> insist that the Million Man March actually had a million men present (It
> was a 'march' from where to where BTW?).
> You can't win on this: try and you will be buried by a bunch of
> public employees who got their jobs because of racist quotas and who
> keep them because of Iron Plated Union Contracts.
> Us mere humans can't compete any more with the marching morons
> we have allowed to leech off our taxes until they own us and rule us.
foul-smelling garbage that...
JOHN CLARKE
In article <548j9a$v...@camel0.mindspring.com> Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
>>It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
>>which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>>me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>>there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>>but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>>that by a large preponderance, they were Black people. Moreover,
>>the further back in history, the more obviously Black they
>>were. It therefore never ceases to irritate me when the
>>Hollywood depictions and those of the tv documentaries, would
>>have us believe that they were essentially White people. It
>>is wrong and dishonest. The apologists for the eurocentric
>>LIE taught in the history books do not hasten to correct these
>>mis-depictions, but they hasten to correct afrocentric scholars
>>on every minute, usually immaterial, point of scholarship.
>>The asymmetry of course reveals their partisanship in the
>>debate, and gives the lie to their claim of objective, dispassionate
>>scholarship. Nevertheless, let us by all means examine with
>>them the individual trees; but let us also keep always in mind
>>the forest, as those of us who have been to Egypt find very
>>easy to do.
>
>Then, let us remember how *diverse* the African continent was, in its
>groups of people and their so-called "racial make-up". I think it was
>*best said* by Frank Yurco, when he said:
>
>"This has been my stance ever since I became involved with this issue,
>with the "Were the Ancient Egyptians 'Black' or 'White'?" article in
>Biblical Archaeology Review, back in 1989, and I still stand by that
>position, along with Trigger and Keita Shomarka, who both have noted
>that the African population is highly diverse, something that the
>Afrocentrists have found hard to swallow, with their claims that the
>Africans are all "black". That is a nineteenth century American social
>concept, that lumped all African people as "black" and so also, stated
>that if one great grandparent of eight was African, then you were a
>Negro, in American terminology regardless of what the person's
>complexion might have been. To force this American concept onto the
>African population of the whole continent flies in the face of the
>anthropological facts, of the highly diverse African population."
><10/15/96>
>
>As we enter the end of the 20th century, and into the new world of the
>21st, let's NOT be dragged *kicking and screaming* into the old ways
>of thinking of the *19th century* and the travesty **that** was.
>
>Let's move on and discover the richness of the Egyptian civilization,
>and celebrate its fascinating history of *how diverse peoples pull
>together*, and created one of the most intriguing and powerful
>cultures of all time.
Appeals to new ways of thought should not be simply accepted
because of their novelty. Facts are important.
There has been no statement of behalf of the Afrocentrist that
state thar all of Africa was inhabited by only the Black.
As a matter of fact, such implication is not only a disrespect of
the intellectual integrity of the Afrocentric scholar but speaks
of the lack of thoughtfulness the non-Afrocentric scholar has
given to the Afrocentrist's arguments. The same goes for
the Afrocentrist with respect to the work of Europeans.
Now, continue to discuss your observations and interpretations.
S. F. Thomas
The Hab wrote:
>
> Aethe...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> >Troy Sagrillo wrote:
> >>
> >> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> >> > (It is, btw, revealing that some of those conquerors were
> >> > sufficiently offended by the Black African nose on the
> >> > sphinx to have blown it off with cannon fire.)
> >>
> >> the nose shot off. It was mutilated in 708 AH/1378 CE for
> >> **iconoclastic** reasons (having *nothing* to do with "Black Africans"),
> >> an event recorded in al-Maqrizi's Khitat.
> >>
> >> Troy Sagrillo
> >
> >
> should be battling, not the Egyptians.
Consider the base passions displayed by this...er, individual...
and you begin to understand the massive LIE that has been
perpetrated by eurocentric scholarship these last 200 years or so.
You would do well to dwell on that...
As to doing battle with Egyptians, that is far from the truth.
If it is that I'm doing battle, it is against the lies and
distortions that have emanated from those who have written the
story of Western Civilization and its provenance.
> The Hab
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
>
> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>
> >Saida wrote:
> >>
>
> >> Her famous bust is painted with pinkish skin tones, I believe, but there
> >> is no evidence making her anything but a native Egyptian. No one knows
> >> who Nefertiti was before she became Queen of Egypt.
>
> >Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
> >Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
>
> For one, it's an Amarna Period art piece, S.F Thomas: during *that
> period*, the Egyptian Canon was not adhered to as closely. the
> artistic rule for the Amarna Period was *ankh em ma'at*, or "shown as
> it appears".
Interesting hypothesis, which I take with a large grain of
salt...
(( cuts ))
> So, in other words, we have NO OTHER works to cite here but Diop?
The truth or falsity of an argument does not rest on the
number of "experts" cited in support, rather on the quality
of the argumentation.
(( cuts ))
> >See above. Refute Diop if you can. He lays bare facts,
> >hypotheses and arguments. Quite unlike so many eurocentric
> >propagandists who assert dogma and lay claim to false
> >authority.
>
> Would Diop to quote the references and cites he gives *correctly*,
> yes, I would buy into the fact that he has done the research without
> having *seen the actual evidence*. Hardly convincing, and hardly what
> I call *precise scholarship* here....
>
> Diop has attempted to make points in *many areas* that are just
> wrong; he attributes quotes to authors who have said *no such things*,
> and he draws conclusions from the barest of statements and cites, and
> usually with no evidence.
>
> Yet, you believe HIS works stand against *ACTUAL evidence and work in
> the field*, all because of some *perceived Eurocentric (READ: racist,
> according to Thomas here and others) conspiracy* that, based upon the
> last 30-40 years of research, is absurd. We *did have that problem*
> in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
Thank you for that confession, at least.
> However, since about 1960,
> there have been *massive re-thinks* and re-writes of Egyptian history
> based on new evidence, new viewpoints, and aggressive scholars bent on
> learning the *truth* about the people and culture that give us better
> insight into the actual progression of the civilization.
Evidently the rethinking is not massive enough, and still
colored by eurocentric prejudices.
( snip )
> Say what you want about what Yurco has pointed out, for example (and
> you have), but the issue of the massive *diversity* of the North
> African peoples in the pre-dynastic and earlier phases of history IS
> undeniable. It was not just ONE people who created Egypt, and they
> weren't ALL one race either (other than likely being *homo sapiens
> sapiens*).
>
> It was *many groups*, passing in and out of the Levant area over the
> period of thousands of years, settling, intermingling with several
> other groups, and so on. Some of these people eventually moved on to
> *other points in the Levant and Mediterranean*, and did final
> settlement there. This accounts for many *similar features* within
> cultures to that of Egypt, Mesopotamian, Dravidian, and even some
> Asiatic groups of the era.
This is an interesting (also ideological) *hypothesis*. As to the
unfolding of the Egyptian high culture, you have no argument from
me. There was clearly an intermingling of peoples. As to the
*origins*, however, I do not believe that there was intermingling
in the beginning. And in the beginning, the clear evidence it seems
to me supports a Black African provenance.
> It is NOT
>
> ONE GROUP (from Africa) --------->-------------> ALL OTHER GROUPS
> AND CULTURES (Including the cultures of Egypt and so on)
>
> but more like
>
>
> SEVERAL DIFFERING GROUPS (traveling from various locations of the
> globe) -------->(settled and then traverse from) CENTRAL LOCATION
> (EGYPT, INDIA ETC.) -------> traveling and re-settling (permanently)
>
> / | | | | \
>
> Europe (Medit) Africa Near East Black Sea and Asia
>
> The issues are MORE complex than Diop presents, and can show the
> possibilities that man may have progressed from parallel developments
> all over the world , rather than a straight linear development. This
> is something that *has to* be considered as well, as not everyone can
> agree on the "Africa was first in everything" theory.
Yes, the eurocentric mind would naturally balk at that kind of
conclusion even if all the facts pointed in that direction. I have
my views as to why that is, which I think has to do with
the eurocentric mind inferring an assertion of Black superiority
in such a finding. Where no such inference is warranted. But
Whites have for so long labored under a delusion as to their own
superiority, manifest destiny, and so forth, that they can't stand
to have their really quite stupid bubble burst. It is a delusion,
in fact a psychosis, that has wrought great damange to people all
over the world. And it is time to give it a rest. Let us move on...
not based on ideology, feel-good or otherwise, but on truth. That
is what will set us ALL free.
( snip )
> Regards --
>
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> Saida Wrote:
(( cuts ))
> The only "rebuttal" you have given is to cite Diop and the evidence of
> your own prejudiced eyes. Diop is not considered a scientific source
> BECAUSE HE HAS AN AGENDA. Not to mention the fact that he is hardly
> qualified as an expert on ancient Egyptian anything.
No one is free from bias. The self-styled "experts" and
"authorities" are the ones to worry about, for they claim
scientific dispassion and objectivity when in fact they,
more than Diop, have an unspoken agenda. You allow yourself
to be deceived.
(( cuts ))
> See you under the bridge, Troll! Other than that valediction, your
> drivel will get no more attention from me.
Sounds more like a malediction than a valediction...
In any case, fare thee well. I do not think I'll miss
your less than incisive contributions.
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Saida
S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> Saida wrote:
> >
> > S. F. Thomas wrote:Saida:
>
> > See you under the bridge, Troll! Other than that valediction, your
> > drivel will get no more attention from me.
Thomas:
> Sounds more like a malediction than a valediction...
> In any case, fare thee well. I do not think I'll miss
> your less than incisive contributions.
He is right about the malediction part, at least. I don't know about
the rest of you guys, but I resent being labelled as a Eurocentrist
(maybe because I am an Asiatic-American ;-^) or being pigeon-holed in
this fashion. This guy, with his numerous posts (and complete disregard
of everyone else's) is threatening to take over this group. I would
like to remind you of one Peter Bromfield and of how it became
impossible to discuss any topic without him introducing a racist element
into it. This one won't go away until nobody responds to him any
longer. In his eyes, we are all misguided idiots, anyway, and the only
"incisive" one (sounds more like "derisive" to me) is himself.
Personally, I am allergic to trolls...nast little devils. Kerchoo!
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <54f0mp$7...@camel2.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com (Katherine M. Griffis) wrote:
>pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote:
>
>>In article <1-ya0231800020...@news.mindspring.com>,
>> 1@2.3 (Hussein Essawy) wrote:
>>>In article <326A81...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>, Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>[.....]
>>>
>>>: If you have already made up your mind not to believe anything other
>>>: people say that don't agree with your viewpoint, why even bother
>>>: addressing us at all?
>>>
>>>The ONLY thing these guys believe... are the words of people like Diop,
>>>so I think Hab is right in asking us to IGNORE them.
>>>
>
>>Actually, the thread from which this one originated was posted
>>only on soc.culture.african.american. It was anti-Afrocentrist,
>>Katherine Griffis (Greenberg), who crossposted it to the rest.
>
>Actually, this type of thread shows up from time to time on ALL the
>Egyptian-related newsgroups, and in fact, AUSAR started the
>cross-posting , not I. Many of my responses to him became
>cross-posted as part of it.
>
Unless I missed a post this thread was going on entirely in soc.culture.
african.american until one of your responses crossposted to the
other groups in the headers.
>If you, Mr. Manansala, don't think it *proper* to post to
>alt.culture.egyptian, soc.culture.egyptian, and so on, I have to ask
>myself, "why doesn't he remove the headers from the post before he
>sends it?" Surely you can do that!
>
I have nothing against discussing this in any relevant groups. My point
is that we were not seeking attention from other ngs in the original discussion.
I could care less if others (who don't agree) ignore this thread.
>As for me being "anti-Afrocentrist", I think I have made my point here
>before: I am not against the statements made in these forums by what
>the poster *is*, or the view he *takes*, but I DO hate "sloppy work".
>
>Much of what Diop has said, stated and wrote is based on *misquotes*
>and half-ideas, taken out of context. I posted the *full quotes* of
>authors he has done this with. You respond in kind with more. Why
>should WE trust your evidence, as you further denigrate ours with
>*implausible and non-verifiable* statements, or cite references that
>are woefully out of date, and quoted in error?
>
This is nonsense. You don't enter threads posted in African groups
because you hate "sloppy work." I think you can't stand to see others
not under the control of your Western "scholarship." Well, the world is
continuing to reject the guarded gate establishment of the West, and they are
setting out on their own course. Wave goodbye to the good ole days
of Western neocolonial influence!
>Saida, Sagrillo, and others have been *correct* in asking for evidence
>from you and others that are **other than Diop and/or published within
>the last 50 or so years** for this reason, for if we have learned
>nothing else from the studies of ancient Egypt, it's knowing better
>that to go off "half-cocked" with **bad information** or partial
>information.
>
Saida? Wasn't she claiming that the Egyptian royalty was of Turkish descent,
and that ancient Egyptians had close contact with White Russia?
>If *that* is your definition of being "anti-Afrocentrist", then YOU
>are welcome to it.
>
>You have made it clear that you *prefer* evidence that supports *only*
>your viewpoint (RE: the Lepsius lithographs, for example). When more
>recent evidence negates it, you tend to either a) ignore the findings
>(although they are clear and in front of you), or b) begin an *ad
>hominem* argument against the author of the works, the poster, etc.
>
I've posted many modern references. Just because a reference is new
does not mean it is not non-Eurocentric. Just look at most of the
references posted by yourself and many others on Egypt. How many of the
scholars were non-Euroamerican, not to mention Egyptian? I've posted
the opinions of scholars from East Africa: Ben-Jochanan, Ayele Bekerie;
North Africa: Hassan; West Africa: Diop, Obenga, Keita; Asia: Chamla,
Kumar; and also from Europe/America. However, the overwhelming number of
Egyptologists who enjoy any repute in the West are nearly all of white
Euroamerican descent. Unfortunately, neither side has posted anything
from an Egyptian scholar.
Modern Western Egyptologists have not hidden their fierce opposition to
non-Eurocentric viewpoints. So why not use the old references when they
are still valid. The fact that some of the greatest Western Egyptologists and
Africanists of the past thought Egypt was a Black African culture is totally
relevant. The main thesis that most of us here are arguing is that *modern*
Western scholarship is *still* Eurocentric and biased. So, claiming the
authority of modern "general opinion" (read: exclusive group of Euroamericans)
does not carry much weight with many of us.
Non-eurocentrically yours,
Paul Kekai Manansala
S. F. Thomas
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > S. F. Thomas wrote:Saida:
> >
> > > See you under the bridge, Troll! Other than that valediction, your
> > > drivel will get no more attention from me.
>
>
> > Sounds more like a malediction than a valediction...
> > In any case, fare thee well. I do not think I'll miss
> > your less than incisive contributions.
>
> He is right about the malediction part, at least. I don't know about
> the rest of you guys, but I resent being labelled as a Eurocentrist
> (maybe because I am an Asiatic-American ;-^) or being pigeon-holed in
> this fashion.
I don't recall labelling *you* eurocentrist. I speak of
eurocentric scholars and eurocentric scholarship. What books
have you written? OTOH, if you think the shoe fits, and
you obviously do, by all means wear it.
> This guy, with his numerous posts (and complete disregard
> of everyone else's) is threatening to take over this group.
I am posting from soc.culture.african.american. My server
reports that there are 2406 messages in this group. I don't
think I'm about to take over this group. I don't know from
where you post, but if my few posts threaten to take it over,
then blame those who started the cross-posting. I did not.
> I would
> like to remind you of one Peter Bromfield and of how it became
> impossible to discuss any topic without him introducing a racist element
> into it. This one won't go away until nobody responds to him any
> longer.
I welcomed your valediction...er, malediction... and still
look forward to not hearing from you anymore...
> In his eyes, we are all misguided idiots, anyway, and the only
> "incisive" one (sounds more like "derisive" to me) is himself.
Please... I can speak for myself; don't put words in my mouth.
If I reciprocated, and welcomed, your valediction, that hardly
counts as a blanket condemnation of some group the identity
of which I do not even know. I do hope they are not ALL like
you... because you, sir or madam, second person singular, are
a fool, not even worthy of derision. Again, I welcome, and
heartily reciprocate your valediction/malediction. If I engage
in disputation with a fool, who then is the fool?
> Personally, I am allergic to trolls...nast little devils. Kerchoo!
And my mother did not raise a fool...
Goodbye.
Saida
> > > > S. F. Thomas wrote:Saida:
> > >
> > > > See you under the bridge, Troll! Other than that valediction, your
> > > > drivel will get no more attention from me.
> >
> look forward to not hearing from you anymore...
>
> > In his eyes, we are all misguided idiots, anyway, and the only
> > "incisive" one (sounds more like "derisive" to me) is himself.
>
> Please... I can speak for myself; don't put words in my mouth.
> If I reciprocated, and welcomed, your valediction, that hardly
> counts as a blanket condemnation of some group the identity
> of which I do not even know. I do hope they are not ALL like
> you... because you, sir or madam, second person singular, are
> a fool, not even worthy of derision. Again, I welcome, and
> heartily reciprocate your valediction/malediction. If I engage
> in disputation with a fool, who then is the fool?
>
> > Personally, I am allergic to trolls...nast little devils. Kerchoo!
>
> And my mother did not raise a fool...
>
> Goodbye.
Hey, could have FOOLED us! Ta, ta Rumpelstilskin!
Troy Sagrillo
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
[snip]
> A number of paintings on A-culture tombs found in Upper Egypt are also very
> revealing, particularly the Tomb 100 mural. This mural shows a number
> of black-skinned figures at Hierakonpolis at war with red-skinned figures.
Oh come now! *NO ONE* has ever suggested that the famous painted tomb at
Hierankonpolis is anything other than Egyptian! There is absolutely
nothing A-Group about it: the ceramics discovered in it were all
Egyptian (with some Syro-Palestinian imports); there was not any A-Group
ceramics at all.
In fact quite a few of the iconographic motifs of the painting have
Mesopotamian prototypes (leading to a lot of nonsense about some sort of
"Asiatic Dynastic race" which has been thankfully rejected).
[snip]
Regards,
Troy Sagrillo
August Matthusen
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > S. F. Thomas wrote:Saida:
> >
> > > See you under the bridge, Troll! Other than that valediction, your
> > > drivel will get no more attention from me.
>
>
> > Sounds more like a malediction than a valediction...
> > In any case, fare thee well. I do not think I'll miss
> > your less than incisive contributions.
>
> He is right about the malediction part, at least. I don't know about
> the rest of you guys, but I resent being labelled as a Eurocentrist
> (maybe because I am an Asiatic-American ;-^) or being pigeon-holed in
> this fashion.
[snip]
I did notice that Katherine's comments about Diop's
scholarship got skipped over without response. Some kind
of new affirmative action program for publications and
scholarship, perhaps? Request refutation and then ignore it?
At least S.F. appears to be ascribing ancient Egyptian
achievements to humans. Given the mind set of this
type of ad hominem attack (i.e., discarding arguments not
by logic but rather by claiming some type of -centrism),
how long before von Daniken starts claiming his critics
are anthropocentric? Or how long until West, Bauval, and
Hancock start claiming their critics are Kmtocentric (or
Aegyptocentric, maybe)?
Regards,
August Matthusen