BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals, etc. (REPOST)
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
In article <326B7B...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>,
Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>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.
>> >
>>
>> 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.
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...
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.
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!
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
Everett Battle
Napoleon most definitely was the perpetrator that shot the nose off of
the sphinx.
Paulo da Costa
In <326B0D7F...@decan.com> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> writes:
>Saida wrote:
[...]
>> > 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.
The famous bust of Nefertiti is olive-skinned. She looks the same as
the other royal family depicted on various statues and objects in the
same museum from the same period. Copies of the bust found for sale
all over the place are usually lighter-skinned. Blame that on the
modern copiers, not the Egyptians.
>Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
>Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
There should be. Nefertiti and the others there are clearly neither "white"
nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
[citiong Diop] 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 think anybody would do that today (maybe in the 19th century they
did, but then they also believed on counting bumps on people's heads).
Diop himself apparently tries to do that in reverse, and more's the pity.
--
Paulo M. Castello da Costa /\/\/\ Minha terra tem palmeiras /\/\/\
dac...@natlab.research.philips.com \/\/\/ Onde canta o sabia'... \/\/\/
Philips Research Labs, bldg WY8.011, / Tel +31 40 2744281 Fax +31 40 2744675 \
Prof Holstln 4, 5656 AA Eindhoven NL \_________ SERI: dacosta@prles2 _________/
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>But modern Egyptians--I have seen them with my own eyes--are
>hardly homogeneous. They range from dark black to blonde and
>blue-eyed.
>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.
Yes.
>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.
You are right, it is a "fair" question, not to be dismissed on
a-priori grounds. What I don't understand is how to match
this with your own words, later on:
>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.
I think you're not practising what you preach...
>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,
I believe this dates from the time when Egypt and Syria
merged in the UAR ("United Arab Republic"), as a first step
towards the unification of the whole Arab world. Nothing
came of it, but the name UAR was retained by the Egyptians.
>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.
There's the United Arab Emirates, of course...
In any case, there is no denying that Arabic is the language spoken in
Egypt these days. But it was not the language of the Ancient Egyptian
culture. Language is an important factor in determining ethnicity,
more than skin colour. And the facts of the Egyptian language speak
against a Nubian origin for Egyptian culture. The Ancient Egyptian
language is not related in any way to modern Nubian or the ancient
Meroitic language of Nubia (Kush). It is instead related to the
languages of the Semites in the Near East, of the Berbers in the North
African Maghreb, the Chadic peoples in North Nigeria (Hausaland) and
the Cushitic peoples in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia). This
language family is called Afro-Asiatic nowadays (to avoid the earlier
"racist" term Hamito-Semitic), and is indeed racially mixed: the
Chadics and the Cushites are predominantly "black", the Berbers,
Egyptians and Semites predominantly "white", despite racial mixture in
all groups. As the original "homeland" of the Afro-Asiatic language
family is still unknown, we don't know if they were "originally"
"black" or "white". In any case, it is likely that all modern humans
(and thus all human languages) originated in Sub-Saharan Africa, so
that we're all "black" originally, just gradually less so the longer
it has been since one has been "out of Africa" and in colder/dryer
climes. As to the Ancient Egyptians, the close ties with Semitic,
Berber and Beja that their language betrays, make a local North
African origin the most likely. If you have to put a racial tag to
it: "brown". But since the Nile valley is the gate between
Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world (since the drying up of
the Sahara desert), and the door to Nubia was always open both ways,
racial mixture was to be expected, and indeed occurred.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Katherine Griffis
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
>> >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...
Suit yourself: This IS and has been the view of Egyptian art LONG
before Afrocentrism reared his head, and will continue to be, in
relation to the religious views of the period. Even the Egyptians
themselves noted the change in their texts (SEE: Amarna Letters, and
in the Hymn to the Aten)
>(( 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.
Quite, and as I have pointed out several instances here, misquotes and
"out of context" quotes from authors to make them *say* what they
didn't say and mean somewhat establishes the *quality* of the
arguments of "Afrocentrism" . When I see some more solid evidence
than shown here, I will study it thoroughly, and likely agree with it.
>(( 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.
I haven't made any statement that *any other Egyptologist* would have
made: it would be absurd to do otherwise. Egyptology's history shows
us that there were *bounders and cads* in this profession, as in **any
other**.
>> 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.
Your opinion, primarily. I find that the majority of the work today
in Egyptology attempts to be as objective and prejudice-free as
possible: unfortunately, this has not always been true of Afrocentric
works, with their tendency to say that "Egyptians today aren't REAL
Egyptians as of long ago", and that "the Jews are not REAL descendants
of Jewish peoples of old" (and by that, I mean, by birth: I am *well
aware* that Judaism is a religious belief, and the designation of
being a "Jew" is acquirable via conversion and intermarriage). This
constitutes *racism* in its crassest form, and causes the whole field
of Afrocentrism to be viewed with some apprehension and speculation.
>( 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.
I have yet to see any *clear evidence* as you suggest.
Here we can agree: however, there ARE adherents *****on both
sides***** that claim by being FIRST implies superiority: I hold to my
position of massive interaction AT THE BEGINNING of several peoples
because this is where the **evidence and artifacts** leads me to
conclude. I don't care *which* peoples these are: the results are the
same from the interaction and intermingling: Egyptian civilization.
You, IMHO, tend to weaken your argument, by implying that I have some
*prize* to win by saying this: I do not, nor should you. Actual TRUTH
should be our combined goals, no matter **where** the evidence leads.
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
Saida
Paulo da Costa wrote:
>
> In <326B0D7F...@decan.com> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> writes:
>
> >Saida wrote:
> [...]
> >> > 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.
>
> the other royal family depicted on various statues and objects in the
> same museum from the same period. Copies of the bust found for sale
> all over the place are usually lighter-skinned. Blame that on the
> modern copiers, not the Egyptians.
>
> >Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
>
> nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
> a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
I don't know about that, but I can buy the olive-skin or yellow-ish
cast. I have never seen the bust of Nefertiti in person, only color
photos, which are not necessarily reliable. Yet I wonder why you would
say that a person with an olive skin cannot be considered "white"?
>
> [citiong Diop] Nevertheless, in
> > current textbooks, the problem is suppressed; most often
> > they merely take it on themselves to assert categorically
S. F. Thomas
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.
> > >
> > 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!
Your third "valediction"...each one more insipid than the last.
Good riddance!
S. F. Thomas
Perhaps if you would quote also that which went before,
you would find the answer to your question...
(( cuts ))
> In any case, there is no denying that Arabic is the language spoken in
> Egypt these days. But it was not the language of the Ancient Egyptian
> culture. Language is an important factor in determining ethnicity,
> more than skin colour. And the facts of the Egyptian language speak
> against a Nubian origin for Egyptian culture.
Interesting hypothesis re *origin*. Let's see what you have to say...
> The Ancient Egyptian
> language is not related in any way to modern Nubian or the ancient
> Meroitic language of Nubia (Kush).
Hmmm... I am no linguist, and certainly not competent in
any of the languages referred to. But you make a surprisingly
categorical statement, the kind that is easy to rebut. I wonder
what linguistic scholars would make of it.
> It is instead related to the
> languages of the Semites in the Near East, of the Berbers in the North
> African Maghreb, the Chadic peoples in North Nigeria (Hausaland) and
> the Cushitic peoples in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia). This
> language family is called Afro-Asiatic nowadays (to avoid the earlier
> "racist" term Hamito-Semitic), and is indeed racially mixed: the
> Chadics and the Cushites are predominantly "black", the Berbers,
> Egyptians and Semites predominantly "white",
Here, you assert as fact that which is in question, viz.
that the *original* Egyptians were "predominantly white".
I know nothing about linguistics but I know a little about
logic. Here your logic breaks down. You commit the logical
fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question.
Somehow I now expect very little from the rest of your
linguistic exegesis.
> despite racial mixture in
> all groups. As the original "homeland" of the Afro-Asiatic language
> family is still unknown, we don't know if they were "originally"
> "black" or "white".
Now you return to *origin*, concluding lamely, ie. without
logical conclusion of any sort. You still don't know. And
your starting proposition is left undemonstrated. Your
exegesis has fallen flat as a logical exercise. But along
the way, in the clever fashion of the self-aware propagandist, you
have managed to slip in, cloaked as fact, that which you set
out to demonstrate. Surely, the afrocentrists have their
work cut out for them, cutting through all the crap that
passes for scholarship on the eurocentric side of the debate.
> In any case, it is likely that all modern humans
> (and thus all human languages) originated in Sub-Saharan Africa, so
> that we're all "black" originally, just gradually less so the longer
> it has been since one has been "out of Africa" and in colder/dryer
> climes.
Now you try to appear "reasonable", the better to appear
objective, and dispassionate.
> As to the Ancient Egyptians, the close ties with Semitic,
> Berber and Beja that their language betrays, make a local North
> African origin the most likely.
It is the conclusion you desire, but it remains undemonstrated.
Certainly, it fails my test of credibility when set against
the likenesses of Narmer, first pharaoh of Egypt, of Lord
Tera Neter, of the god Ausar, and of the sphinx. They all look
Black African to me. They are far more convincing proof of the
*origins* of the ancient Egyptians than a linguistic argument
that commits an elementary logical fallacy.
> If you have to put a racial tag to
> it: "brown".
I prefer Narmer, Lord Tera Neter, Ausar, and the sphinx:
all Black.
> But since the Nile valley is the gate between
> Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world (since the drying up of
> the Sahara desert), and the door to Nubia was always open both ways,
> racial mixture was to be expected, and indeed occurred.
No denying that. The question is when.
> ==
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
> Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
> m...@pi.net |_____________|||
>
> ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
> [citiong Diop] 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 think anybody would do that today (maybe in the 19th century they
> did, but then they also believed on counting bumps on people's heads).
> Diop himself apparently tries to do that in reverse, and more's the pity.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Show me.
> --
> Paulo M. Castello da Costa /\/\/\ Minha terra tem palmeiras /\/\/\
> dac...@natlab.research.philips.com \/\/\/ Onde canta o sabia'... \/\/\/
> Philips Research Labs, bldg WY8.011, / Tel +31 40 2744281 Fax +31 40 2744675 \
> Prof Holstln 4, 5656 AA Eindhoven NL \_________ SERI: dacosta@prles2 _________/
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326CEA0D...@decan.com>,
According to the Greenberg classification, Egyptian is not related,
except broadly, to any other language family. But no one has suggested
that Egyptians were isolated from impulses from all directions (mostly
from other areas of Africa though). Theophile Obenga, Diop and Fodor
are the main dissenting viewpoints. Ringe also attacks Greenberg's
methods in general.
Obenga, Theophile.
Ancient Egypt & Black Africa : a student's handbook for the study of
Ancient Egypt in philosophy, linguistics & gender relations / Th'eophile
Obenga ; edited by Amon Saba Saakana. London : Karnak House, c1992.
Series title: Frontline journal (London, England) ; no. 19.
Obenga, Theophile.
Origine commune de l'egyptien ancien, du copte et des langues
negro-africaines modernes : introduction a la linguistique historique
africaine / Theophile Obenga. Paris : L'Harmattan, c1993
Diop, Cheikh Anta.
Nouvelles recherches sur l'egyptien ancien et les langues
negro-africaines modernes : complements a Parente genetique de l'egyptien
pharaonique et des langues negro-africaines / Cheikh Anta Diop. Paris :
Presence africaine, c1988.
Diop, Cheikh Anta.
Parente genetique de l'egyptien pharaonique et des langues
negro-africaines : processus de semitisation / Cheikh Anta Diop. Ifan-
Dakar : Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1977.
Series title: Initiations et etudes africaines ; 32.
Fodor, Istvan.
The problems in the classification of the African languages;
methodological and theoretical conclusions concerning the classification
system of Joseph H. Greenberg. Budapest, Center for Afro-Asian Research of
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1966.
Series title: Studies on developing countries (Budapest, Hungary) ; no.
5.
Ringe, Donald A., 1954-
On calculating the factor of chance in language comparison / Donald A.
Ringe. Philadelphia, Pa. : American Philosophical Society, 1992.
Series title: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society ; v.
82, pt. 1.
S. F. Thomas
Katherine Griffis wrote:
>
> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>
> >Katherine M. Griffis wrote:
>
> >> >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...
>
> Suit yourself: This IS and has been the view of Egyptian art LONG
> before Afrocentrism reared his head, and will continue to be, in
> relation to the religious views of the period. Even the Egyptians
> themselves noted the change in their texts (SEE: Amarna Letters, and
> in the Hymn to the Aten)
Look, I do not dispute that there is such a thing as an
artistic canon. Take a walk around Washington, DC and
take a look at all the statues. They all tend to look
young, vigorous, and trim. I fully expect that in real life
many had become old and decrepit before their statues were
commissioned, but the "artistic canon" allowed them to
be represented as perhaps they looked at their physical
peak. I imagine it was the same with the ancient pharaohs.
The sculptors were somewhat liberal in their interpretation
of the truth, to make their patrons look good. Make-up
artists today achieve much the same objective, in Hollywood
and tv. (You wouldn't want to see Dan Rather without his
makeup, for example.) The artistic canon also constrained
the poses that were presented, or at least preferred. I
do not believe, however, that there was any rule of artistic
canon that required a caucasoid face to be rendered as
africoid, or pale skin to be rendered black. I refuse
to believe that the canon required such massive distortion.
> >(( 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.
>
> Quite, and as I have pointed out several instances here, misquotes and
> "out of context" quotes from authors to make them *say* what they
> didn't say and mean somewhat establishes the *quality* of the
> arguments of "Afrocentrism" . When I see some more solid evidence
> than shown here, I will study it thoroughly, and likely agree with it.
Look, there was exactly one quote discussed on this newsgroup
where you claimed that Diop falsely quoted Maspero (if I remember
correctly). You claimed to have given the "full" quotation, but
as I recall, your "full" quote did not match Diop's supposedly
partial quote in *any* phrase. Therefore I questioned whether
you had proven your point. To date you have not responded.
If you are wrong in this one particular, I fail to see how you
can generalize, either as to Diop, or as to *all* afrocentrists.
Diop is an honest scholar. He distinguishes
fact from hypothesis, cites his sources, and gives argumentation
to support his views. Anyone who would attack Diop has an
open book with which to start. Dispute his facts. Dispute
his premises. Dispute his argumentation. It is all there for
those who would challenge him. It is the eurocentrists who,
by contrast, are maddening in their obfuscation, and their
penchant for incestuous citing of "authority".
Consider this one example, drawn from a recent exchange within
this very thread: I cited Diop's "African Origins" in making
the claim that Pharaoh Thutmose III, the so-called "Napoleon
of antiquity", looked Black African in appearance. A picture
of his bust appears on the cover of "African Origins". One of
my detractors said that Thutmose III was the least Nubian
looking of pharaohs that one could conceive, or words to that
effect. I said, well, here is a chance to prove Diop wrong
on a question of pure FACT. Is that the bust of Thutmose III,
or not. Nothing more is heard from this detractor on the subject,
but he leaves in a pout, calling me a "troll", and vowing not
to respond any more to my "drivel". Good Lord Almighty, give
me strength!
So if you would tear down Diop, cite me specifics.
> >(( 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.
>
> I haven't made any statement that *any other Egyptologist* would have
> made: it would be absurd to do otherwise. Egyptology's history shows
> us that there were *bounders and cads* in this profession, as in **any
> other**.
So now the shock troops of White Supremacy--the writers and
re-writers of history--are "bounders and cads". Please.
We are not talking here about love 'em and leave 'em
Romeos. We are talking about the perpetration of a massive
LIE to make white people feel good. By scholars. Who wear
about them the sanctimonious cloak of scientific dispassion
and objectivity. It is a fraud. And I for one am grateful
to Diop and others for exposing it.
> >> 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.
>
> Your opinion, primarily. I find that the majority of the work today
> in Egyptology attempts to be as objective and prejudice-free as
> possible: unfortunately, this has not always been true of Afrocentric
> works, with their tendency to say that "Egyptians today aren't REAL
> Egyptians as of long ago", and that "the Jews are not REAL descendants
> of Jewish peoples of old" (and by that, I mean, by birth: I am *well
> aware* that Judaism is a religious belief, and the designation of
> being a "Jew" is acquirable via conversion and intermarriage). This
> constitutes *racism* in its crassest form, and causes the whole field
> of Afrocentrism to be viewed with some apprehension and speculation.
Pot, kettle, black. Or should I say... cloud, snow, white.
> >( 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.
>
> I have yet to see any *clear evidence* as you suggest.
Take a look at the likenesses of Ausar, Lord Tera Neter,
Narmer, the sphinx.
What evidence? What artifacts? And please, if you cite authority,
I am not buying it. Summarize instead the known FACTS, the
hypotheses they or you advance, and the REASONING in support of
your hypothesis. Don't just say well so-and-so says so.
> I don't care *which* peoples these are: the results are the
> same from the interaction and intermingling: Egyptian civilization.
> You, IMHO, tend to weaken your argument, by implying that I have some
> *prize* to win by saying this:
Your eurocentric scholars have certainly behaved as if there
were.
> I do not, nor should you. Actual TRUTH
> should be our combined goals, no matter **where** the evidence leads.
Quite. I can stand the truth. As can the afrocentric
scholars. But the eurocentric scholars sure
do tend to squeal like pigs when pricked with it,
Lefkowitz being the latest example.
>
> Regards ---
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Saida
S. F. Thomas wrote:
> It is the eurocentrists who,
> by contrast, are maddening in their obfuscation, and their
> penchant for incestuous citing of "authority".
Same old song and dance. One excuse fits all.
>
> Consider this one example, drawn from a recent exchange within
> this very thread: I cited Diop's "African Origins" in making
> the claim that Pharaoh Thutmose III, the so-called "Napoleon
> of antiquity", looked Black African in appearance. A picture
> of his bust appears on the cover of "African Origins". One of
> my detractors said that Thutmose III was the least Nubian
> looking of pharaohs that one could conceive, or words to that
> effect. I said, well, here is a chance to prove Diop wrong
> on a question of pure FACT. Is that the bust of Thutmose III,
> or not. Nothing more is heard from this detractor on the subject,
> but he leaves in a pout, calling me a "troll", and vowing not
> to respond any more to my "drivel". Good Lord Almighty, give
> me strength!
Perhaps he could also arrange to give you a good case of jock-itch while
He was at it. Since you can't stop talking about me, I must assume you
miss me after all. First of all, I am not a "he", I am a woman. I am
not the pouting kind. The reasons I didn't bother to debate your claims
about Thutmose III are:
1. Your stock reply, your song and dance--see above.
2. I know you would discount everything I said, even though I am no
Eurocentrist.
3. You are a bloody creep
You offer the presence of a picture of Thothmose III on the cover of a
book by Diop as proof that this pharaoh was black, as some sort of
irrefutable FACT??? Oh, my goodness yes, that is the most convincing
piece of factual evidence ever known to science. Just being on the
cover of a book by Diop could send a man to jail faster than some of his
DNA being on the scene of a crime! By your reasoning, even a blue-eyed,
tow-headed Scandinavian could be called black by the sheer inarguable
actuality that he is on the cover, or the fly-leaf, or whatever of a
book by Diop!
Right now I am not looking at a book by Diop, myself, but at a book
about the royal mummies. I am looking at the face of Thutmose III. I
see his great, aquiline nose, now crushed, his thin lips, his small,
dimpled chin and his big, platycephalic head, shaved bald. Yet, does
Thutmose III look like Montel Williams (whom I love, BTW). NO! Does he
remind me of that hunk, Billy Dee Williams? Again, NOT! To be honest,
he looks more like my uncle, the one whose nose arrived in a room about
a second before he did.
What, can you tell us, is there about Thutmose III that looks Nubian to
you??? Which features are so outstandingly black? Which features of
Napoleon Buonaparte look black to you, since you compare the two men?
They were both great military types, yes, and, Napoleon, from his
portraits, even shares the general facial makeup of Thutmose III.
Except Thutmose wasn't short. The early Egyptologists measured him from
stem to stern and forgot to tell us that the mummy has no feet, which
took off about five inches.
You, however, probably still have your feet. Use them and get gone,
because I pegged you right from the start. You are a TROLL because
trolls come into newsgroups to aggrevate and insult everyone. They
never give an inch (they don't have many inches to spare, probably) and
all they can say is "You are wrong", "You are prejudiced", "The
establishment is hiding the Truth", blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum.
BTW, can you tell me who in the hell besides people like you actually
cares what Diop thinks about ancient Egypt? Who is he to argue with
Egyptologists or tell actual Egyptians what race they belong to?
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <dacosta.845969616@bach>,
dac...@natlab.research.philips.com (Paulo da Costa) wrote:
>In <326B0D7F...@decan.com> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> writes:
>
>[...]
>I don't think anybody would do that today (maybe in the 19th century they
>did, but then they also believed on counting bumps on people's heads).
>Diop himself apparently tries to do that in reverse, and more's the pity.
You seem to be reacting to a common misrepresentation of Diop's views.
Diop always contended that Egyptians were a hetergenous lot. His main
beef was against arguments of Toynbee and others that Africans were the
only race of people who never contributed toward civilization. He argued
that Egyptian civilization, one of the earliest great civilizations, could
be considered a Black civilization using the standards current
*at the time.* Diop believed that Egyptian civilization, starting from
Badari times was a result mostly of continous impulses of Nubian and
South Saharan origin coming northward through the Nubian corridor.
Many modern specialists including Keita, Hassan, Rashidi, Arkell, Williams,
Hoffman and others agree with these views. Many of the "grand old"
Egyptologists like Lepsius, Petrie and Budge also supported this theory.
See J.D. Walker, "The Misrepresentation of Diop's Views," _Journal of Black
Studies_, Vol.26, No. 1, Sept. 1995, 77-85.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
S. F. Thomas wrote:
> > >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.
> >
> > You are right, it is a "fair" question, not to be dismissed on
> > a-priori grounds. What I don't understand is how to match
> > this with your own words, later on:
> >
> > >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.
> >
> > I think you're not practising what you preach...
>
> Perhaps if you would quote also that which went before,
> you would find the answer to your question...
Why you don't practice what you preach?
> > The Ancient Egyptian
> > language is not related in any way to modern Nubian or the ancient
> > Meroitic language of Nubia (Kush).
>
> Hmmm... I am no linguist, and certainly not competent in
> any of the languages referred to. But you make a surprisingly
> categorical statement, the kind that is easy to rebut. I wonder
> what linguistic scholars would make of it.
The kind of categorical statement a linguistic scholar makes when he's
pretty sure of what he's taling about...
> > It is instead related to the
> > languages of the Semites in the Near East, of the Berbers in the North
> > African Maghreb, the Chadic peoples in North Nigeria (Hausaland) and
> > the Cushitic peoples in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia). This
> > language family is called Afro-Asiatic nowadays (to avoid the earlier
> > "racist" term Hamito-Semitic), and is indeed racially mixed: the
> > Chadics and the Cushites are predominantly "black", the Berbers,
> > Egyptians and Semites predominantly "white",
>
> Here, you assert as fact that which is in question, viz.
> that the *original* Egyptians were "predominantly white".
Where do I say "original"?
> > despite racial mixture in
> > all groups. As the original "homeland" of the Afro-Asiatic language
> > family is still unknown, we don't know if they were "originally"
> > "black" or "white".
>
> Now you return to *origin*, concluding lamely, ie. without
> logical conclusion of any sort. You still don't know.
Because we don't know. You may call it propaganda, or "crap that
passes for scholarship". But when something is uncertain, I prefer
to say that it's uncertain, instead of claiming that I know...
> > In any case, it is likely that all modern humans
> > (and thus all human languages) originated in Sub-Saharan Africa, so
> > that we're all "black" originally, just gradually less so the longer
> > it has been since one has been "out of Africa" and in colder/dryer
> > climes.
>
> Now you try to appear "reasonable", the better to appear
> objective, and dispassionate.
Thanks for reading my thoughts...
> > As to the Ancient Egyptians, the close ties with Semitic,
> > Berber and Beja that their language betrays, make a local North
> > African origin the most likely.
>
> It is the conclusion you desire, but it remains undemonstrated.
> Certainly, it fails my test of credibility when set against
> the likenesses of Narmer, first pharaoh of Egypt, of Lord
> Tera Neter, of the god Ausar, and of the sphinx. They all look
> Black African to me. They are far more convincing proof of the
> *origins* of the ancient Egyptians than a linguistic argument
> that commits an elementary logical fallacy.
Great scholarship: "they all look Black African to me."
My cat is saying, in Ancient Egyptian: "that sphynx sure looks feline
to *meeow*!" She's right.
Akhtar Siddique
This is with reference to what S. F. Thomas has to say about races
in Egypt. I am not from Egypt but I did grow up in that part of the
world as a brown-skinned foreigner. It seems to me that the beliefs
about race in the U.S. and the West in general derives from the
obsession with racial hierarchy that is so central to the Judaeo-Christian
tradition starting with the drawers of water and hewers of wood in
Genesis. Thus, while to someone like Thomas (who appears to be a
Christian at least by culture) a person appears either black or white,
whereas it may appear tall, warm or brown to me with race a very minor part
of a person's identity. This appears to be unique to the Judaeo-Christian
beliefs. This obsession with racial pigeonholing appears important
even to groups like the Nation of Islam that are outwardly rebellions
against the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
S. F. Thomas
Saida wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> > by contrast, are maddening in their obfuscation, and their
> > penchant for incestuous citing of "authority".
>
>
> >
> > this very thread: I cited Diop's "African Origins" in making
> > the claim that Pharaoh Thutmose III, the so-called "Napoleon
> > of antiquity", looked Black African in appearance. A picture
> > of his bust appears on the cover of "African Origins". One of
> > my detractors said that Thutmose III was the least Nubian
> > looking of pharaohs that one could conceive, or words to that
> > effect. I said, well, here is a chance to prove Diop wrong
> > on a question of pure FACT. Is that the bust of Thutmose III,
> > or not. Nothing more is heard from this detractor on the subject,
> > but he leaves in a pout, calling me a "troll", and vowing not
> > to respond any more to my "drivel". Good Lord Almighty, give
> > me strength!
>
> He was at it. Since you can't stop talking about me, I must assume you
> miss me after all. First of all, I am not a "he", I am a woman. I am
> not the pouting kind. The reasons I didn't bother to debate your claims
> about Thutmose III are:
>
> 1. Your stock reply, your song and dance--see above.
> 2. I know you would discount everything I said, even though I am no
> Eurocentrist.
>
> 3. You are a bloody creep
>
> You offer the presence of a picture of Thothmose III on the cover of a
> book by Diop as proof that this pharaoh was black, as some sort of
> irrefutable FACT??? Oh, my goodness yes, that is the most convincing
> piece of factual evidence ever known to science. Just being on the
> cover of a book by Diop could send a man to jail faster than some of his
> DNA being on the scene of a crime! By your reasoning, even a blue-eyed,
> tow-headed Scandinavian could be called black by the sheer inarguable
> actuality that he is on the cover, or the fly-leaf, or whatever of a
> book by Diop!
>
> Right now I am not looking at a book by Diop, myself, but at a book
> about the royal mummies. I am looking at the face of Thutmose III. I
> see his great, aquiline nose, now crushed, his thin lips, his small,
> dimpled chin and his big, platycephalic head, shaved bald.
Surely if you would calm down it might occur to you that
the figure you describe and the bust I describe may not
belong to the same person? In which case it might further
occur to you precisely what I said, namely that here is
chance to prove Diop wrong as to a matter of FACT? Perhaps
he is even perpetrating a FRAUD on his public? Here is
your chance to PROVE what you so ardently desire.
> What, can you tell us, is there about Thutmose III that looks Nubian to
> you??? Which features are so outstandingly black?
The bust I am looking at is as Black African as you can
get.
> Which features of
> Napoleon Buonaparte look black to you, since you compare the two men?
> They were both great military types, yes, and, Napoleon, from his
> portraits, even shares the general facial makeup of Thutmose III.
> Except Thutmose wasn't short. The early Egyptologists measured him from
> stem to stern and forgot to tell us that the mummy has no feet, which
> took off about five inches.
Are you this unutterably stupid? Or is it only when you are
in the throes of a hissing fit? Thutmose III is called the
"Napoleon of antiquity" not because he looks like a short
Frenchman, but because of his varied campaigns of conquest.
> You, however, probably still have your feet. Use them and get gone,
> because I pegged you right from the start. You are a TROLL because
> trolls come into newsgroups to aggrevate and insult everyone. They
> never give an inch (they don't have many inches to spare, probably) and
> all they can say is "You are wrong", "You are prejudiced", "The
> establishment is hiding the Truth", blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum.
>
> BTW, can you tell me who in the hell besides people like you actually
> cares what Diop thinks about ancient Egypt? Who is he to argue with
> Egyptologists or tell actual Egyptians what race they belong to?
Classic argumentum ad hominem, coupled with classic argumentum
ab auctoritate. With respect, Saida, you give a very good
example of drivel, which is what is uttered by those who have
no conception of what constitutes valid argument. It is also
what is uttered by those who either do not know what they say
or do not say what they mean... as in "valediction". Three
valediction speeches...yet here you are. Still. You call me
a troll, but it is one of your own, Katherine Griffis, not I, who
cross-posted to your group, whatever it is. When you recover
from your hissing fit, here is what you do: put me in your
kill-file. That way we won't need to be treated to any more of
your interminable valedictory speeches.
Kindly,
S. F. Thomas
"Now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity, these three;
of the three, Charity is best."
Saida
You said Thutmose III! How the hell do you expect us to know whom you
are talking about if you can't even identify the person??
In which case it might further
> occur to you precisely what I said, namely that here is
> chance to prove Diop wrong as to a matter of FACT? Perhaps
> he is even perpetrating a FRAUD on his public? Here is
> your chance to PROVE what you so ardently desire.
>
> > What, can you tell us, is there about Thutmose III that looks Nubian to
> > you??? Which features are so outstandingly black?
>
> The bust I am looking at is as Black African as you can
> get.
>
> > Which features of
> > Napoleon Buonaparte look black to you, since you compare the two men?
> > They were both great military types, yes, and, Napoleon, from his
> > portraits, even shares the general facial makeup of Thutmose III.
> > Except Thutmose wasn't short. The early Egyptologists measured him from
> > stem to stern and forgot to tell us that the mummy has no feet, which
> > took off about five inches.
>
> Are you this unutterably stupid? Or is it only when you are
> in the throes of a hissing fit? Thutmose III is called the
> "Napoleon of antiquity" not because he looks like a short
> Frenchman, but because of his varied campaigns of conquest.
Do you suffer from dislexia, Idiot? I said, and you quote me above,
that they were both great military types. I know all about Thutmose
III, Moron, as much as there is to know from the evidence, and to me he
looks a lot more like Napoleon Buonaparte than any black man I have ever
seen!
> > You, however, probably still have your feet. Use them and get gone,
> > because I pegged you right from the start. You are a TROLL because
> > trolls come into newsgroups to aggrevate and insult everyone. They
> > never give an inch (they don't have many inches to spare, probably) and
> > all they can say is "You are wrong", "You are prejudiced", "The
> > establishment is hiding the Truth", blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum.
> >
> > BTW, can you tell me who in the hell besides people like you actually
> > cares what Diop thinks about ancient Egypt? Who is he to argue with
> > Egyptologists or tell actual Egyptians what race they belong to?
>
> Classic argumentum ad hominem, coupled with classic argumentum
> ab auctoritate. With respect, Saida, you give a very good
> example of drivel, which is what is uttered by those who have
> no conception of what constitutes valid argument. It is also
> what is uttered by those who either do not know what they say
> or do not say what they mean... as in "valediction". Three
> valediction speeches...yet here you are. Still. You call me
> a troll, but it is one of your own, Katherine Griffis, not I, who
> cross-posted to your group, whatever it is. When you recover
> from your hissing fit, here is what you do: put me in your
> kill-file. That way we won't need to be treated to any more of
> your interminable valedictory speeches.
>
> Kindly,
> S. F. Thomas
You conjured me up, Troll, when you insinuated that I'd gone off in a
huff because I had run out of things to say. If you knew me better,
you'd realize I NEVER run out of ammo. Just watch I don't flame your
"kindly" ass off!
> "Now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity, these three;
> of the three, Charity is best."
Blow it out your phoney asp, Godzilla!
Xina
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> >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
And this proves *what* essentially? Nothing other than the fact that
its a really BAD picture of a sculpture (how did you put it?) "believed
by many to be Narmer.." Who is the "many" and isnt the operative word
'beleived?'
>
> 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
Fine. It still does NOT answer the age old question that I have asked,
yet *no one* can seem to answer it adequately....*what* difference does
what colour Narmer, or any other Pharaoh have to do with *anything*?
You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell me
where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
(snippage)
> 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?
Wait a minute. You cannot be serious. The kink goes out of hair after
you die? Gee, what happened with the mummy of the "Elder Lady" who was
later postively identified through testing as Tutankhamun's Grandmother,
Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Amenhotep IV
(Akhenaten). As I remember correctly, the hair that was found on the
mummy of the Elder Lady, and that which was found in Tutankhamun's tomb
(See Pages 292 & 293 of "Egyptian Mummies" by Bob Brier, Figures
110-112) If you look closely there is NO difference between the hair
samples *except* that which was found on the mummy of the Elder
Lady/Tiye was greyer...not straighter.
> 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.
So, now that you comfort yourself with this information now what? I dont
doubt for one instant that some of the Ancient Egyptian Pharohs and
Queens *were* indeed black, and of Nubian decent etc. I dont doubt that
in the slightest, but what annoys me is the assertion that all Pharaohs
were indeed black African, and that 'race' was so much an issue for the
Egyptians as it seemingly is for our modern day minds. It simply
wasn't.
> 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.
If you dig up some of *my* ancestors, which are Native American, they
look alot like that too...in fact Tiye looks like my Grandmother....so
are we saying that there are only *two* races of people, Black and
White?
> >> 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.
Look...they were't 100% black either. Are we to apply the same 'One
Drop Rule" that the white supremist society of America used in
determinging who was 'negroid' or 'indian'? Excuse my insolence or
ignorance, but the Egyptians didnt view Race as a distinction the way it
is being presented here.
> >> (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.)
Oh please!! That is a myth! It wasnt shot off because of someone being
'offended by the black looking nose'!
>
> >> 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!
What other sources are you willing to cite then? This author seems to
come up again and again.
> 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?
Now that sounds pretty racist in itself! Rampant Eurocentrism? If you
arent black, you are part of the Eurocentrist consiracy? Is that your
train of thought? What happens to those of us who are *neither*? (If
*anyone* answers that one I will be incredibly surprised!) Im trying to
be objective here, but until I see some more proofand citations to other
pieces than Diop, and when the artistic cannons of Egyptian art are
taken into account by the afrocentric side, (Im sorry, they *did*
exist, they are inescapable) then we are basically at a gridlock.
Em Hotep!
Xina
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326D2D...@netins.net>, Xina <Xi...@netins.net> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
>> >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
>
>And this proves *what* essentially? Nothing other than the fact that
>its a really BAD picture of a sculpture (how did you put it?) "believed
>by many to be Narmer.." Who is the "many" and isnt the operative word
>'beleived?'
>
The suggestion that the head is Narmer's originated from Western
Egpytologists, not Afrocentrists. Obviously, you don't want it to
be Narmer because you can see it clearly represents a black physical
type (typical of many Egyptians).
>>
>> 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
>
>Fine. It still does NOT answer the age old question that I have asked,
>yet *no one* can seem to answer it adequately....*what* difference does
>what colour Narmer, or any other Pharaoh have to do with *anything*?
>You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
>claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell me
>where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
>
Excuse me? You must be new to this group. In fact, just today someone
was claiming Egyptians (ancient?) were white.
>(snippage)
>
>> 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?
>
>Wait a minute. You cannot be serious. The kink goes out of hair after
>you die?
Do you want a forensic reference? If I have time I'll try to post one.
>Gee, what happened with the mummy of the "Elder Lady" who was
>later postively identified through testing as Tutankhamun's Grandmother,
>Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Amenhotep IV
>(Akhenaten). As I remember correctly, the hair that was found on the
>mummy of the Elder Lady, and that which was found in Tutankhamun's tomb
>(See Pages 292 & 293 of "Egyptian Mummies" by Bob Brier, Figures
>110-112) If you look closely there is NO difference between the hair
>samples *except* that which was found on the mummy of the Elder
>Lady/Tiye was greyer...not straighter.
>
And exactly what does this prove??
>> 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.
>
>So, now that you comfort yourself with this information now what? I dont
>doubt for one instant that some of the Ancient Egyptian Pharohs and
>Queens *were* indeed black, and of Nubian decent etc. I dont doubt that
>in the slightest, but what annoys me is the assertion that all Pharaohs
>were indeed black African, and that 'race' was so much an issue for the
>Egyptians as it seemingly is for our modern day minds. It simply
>wasn't.
Nobody said all the Pharaohs were all black African. I certainly don't think
this was the case. Neither did Diop ever make this assertion. In fact,
he never assumes that any Pharaoh is black, but tries to prove the case in
every instance. In a number of his works he clearly discusses the presence
of "whites" in ancient Egypt.
>
>> 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.
>
>If you dig up some of *my* ancestors, which are Native American, they
>look alot like that too...in fact Tiye looks like my Grandmother....so
>are we saying that there are only *two* races of people, Black and
>White?
>
>
>> >> 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.
>
>Look...they were't 100% black either. Are we to apply the same 'One
>Drop Rule" that the white supremist society of America used in
>determinging who was 'negroid' or 'indian'?
No, we simply need to recognize the Black African contribution to
Egyptian society and stop hiding behind the racial theories formulated
by Euroamericans.
>Excuse my insolence or
>ignorance, but the Egyptians didnt view Race as a distinction the way it
>is being presented here.
>
Your right, that distinction was made by Euroamericans, and because of this
we are discussing this issue today. If race is not such a problem, why are
you guys getting so worked up about it? This subject was being discussed
in another group, when some individuals (not normally participants in the ng)
rumbled in and, eventually, crossposted. I'm perfectly willing to discuss
this in a rational manner.
>
>> >> (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.)
>
>Oh please!! That is a myth! It wasnt shot off because of someone being
>'offended by the black looking nose'!
>
>>
>> >> 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!
>
>What other sources are you willing to cite then? This author seems to
>come up again and again.
>
>> 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?
>
>Now that sounds pretty racist in itself! Rampant Eurocentrism? If you
>arent black, you are part of the Eurocentrist consiracy?
Now you're putting words in my mouth. Settle down. If you didn't get the
sin, why get all upset. However, the sins were committed.
>Is that your
>train of thought? What happens to those of us who are *neither*? (If
>*anyone* answers that one I will be incredibly surprised!) Im trying to
>be objective here, but until I see some more proofand citations to other
>pieces than Diop,
And until I see some cites other than Eurocentric whites, I will not be impressed.
Yours in the late great Cheikh Anta Diop,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Hab
This is the crapiest post I have heard in a while...hey buddy, the
"Judaeo-Christian tradition" originated in the MIddle East NOT the US.
Your argument is void. Think about it.
The Hab
Greg Reeder
Xina <Xi...@netins.net> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
>> >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
>
>And this proves *what* essentially? Nothing other than the fact that
>its a really BAD picture of a sculpture (how did you put it?) "believed
>by many to be Narmer.." Who is the "many" and isnt the operative word
>'beleived?'
>
>>
>> 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
(he was the excavator of the Thebaid). It has been noted that a number of the black-skinned figures beared iconographic traits lat=
er reserved for pharoahs including (_Egypt
>
>Fine. It still does NOT answer the age old question that I have asked,
>yet *no one* can seem to answer it adequately....*what* difference does
>what colour Narmer, or any other Pharaoh have to do with *anything*?
>You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
>claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell me
>where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
>
>(snippage)
Actually several have posted here that the ancient Egyptians were
caucasian and "essentially white." I do not accept this. What ever the
merits or demerits of Afrocentrism the Egyptians were not "white" imho!
Here is a photo of a young Egyptian boy from Kom Lollah ( the small
village in front of the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu).
http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/photo5.html He looks to me like the young
TUT. There is no way he could be called white. He is African-Egyptian.
It is so sad that this discussion has degenerated to such depths of
rancor. I am not on either side. But lets be civil and discuss this with
clear heads.
_
_____
Greg Reeder
On the WWW
at Reeder's Egypt Page
---------------->http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/egypt.html
ree...@sirius.com
Ryan Hoel
just testing
Katherine Griffis
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
Look, like I said earlier to Manasala, if you don't *like* the issue
of the cross-post, trim your header. This "it's Griffis' fault I'm
here", wears thin. I didn't *start* the cross-posting, and this has
been verified to me, via 3rd parties, as well.
The issue of *proving* who is wrong is in YOUR corner, Thomas. As I
look over the some 500-odd list of books in the British Museum catalog
here, and that of J. Pye, Archaeologia, et al. I see NO books by
Diop, Van Sertima, etc. Heck, I even see Velikovsky here, but no
Diop.
This tells me (beyond your yammering about Eurocentrism) that Diop has
been reviewed, analyzed, and found wanting. Personally, I feel the
same, and I have read AOC cover to cover, as well as other AfroC works
(where I can find them). It comes back to the same problems:
a) misquotes of standard works;
b) reliance on Herodotus and others of Greek/Roman times, taken
out of context;
c) reliance on what things *look like*, when personal
*interpretation* is NOT the name of the game here, but reliance on
actual artifacts and *Egyptian* textual/artistic evidence is;
d) Use of *proof by absence* (argumentum ad ignorantium, if you
want to get Latin here), or where there is no proof available one way
or another, you default to the "well, they had to be black" result.
No Egyptologist would do this, AND would be loathe to speculate. I
have tried to do this, insofar as I don't *tell* you (despite your
delusions to the contrary) that the Egyptians were "white". That
would be absurd, as I mentioned before; and, finally
e) Use of the *argumentum ad hominem* to the point of this
being more of a "cult" religion than an academic scholarship.
You accuse Saida (and myself, I presume, from the earlier post) of
"feel-good" archaeology. Pot, kettle, black, as you would say. Diop,
his works, and the whole tone of the *Afrocentrist* movement shows
this.
When I (or any other here) have asked for cites, you come back with
Diop. We refute it: you come back with Diop. We ask for cites other
than Diop: you come back with Diop. Well, tell me: does this not
sound like *argument with a "true believer"* as opposed to scholarly
discussion? Does from my end.
I have given varied cites, you will not read (or so you have said in
your posts) and are *damned proud* you will not: I **have** given
evidence, cites, references, and so on: you come back and dismiss with
a *wave of your hand* as "eurocentric/racist/white", and then say,
"not relevant".
This discussion, for me, is absurd, and not worthy of my time any
longer. You can say whatever you want (for surely, you will claim
victory), but I want you to remember this: What price victory? When
time comes to us all, and we look back, which one of us will look back
and be able to say, "We used honesty, solid research that can be
*verified* with evidence, valid study and discussion, and worked HARD
to see the 'other fellows' side(s)', and came to our conclusions..." ?
I certainly can, and if you can, have at it. But right now, I see no
evidence of real discussion here, but sniping when you have nothing
else to say.
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
Saida
Greg Reeder wrote: (quoting others)
> >You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
> >claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell me
> >where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
> >
> >(snippage)
> and more snippage...
>
> Actually several have posted here that the ancient Egyptians were
> caucasian and "essentially white." I do not accept this. What ever the
> merits or demerits of Afrocentrism the Egyptians were not "white" imho!
> Here is a photo of a young Egyptian boy from Kom Lollah ( the small
> village in front of the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu).
> http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/photo5.html He looks to me like the young > TUT. There is no way he could be called white. He is
African-Egyptian.
> It is so sad that this discussion has degenerated to such depths of
> rancor. I am not on either side. But lets be civil and discuss this with
> clear heads.
Greg, I know we have gone over this before, but it really is
oversimplifying to say that the ancient Egyptians were neither white nor
black. I would never say that *all* of the Egyptians were white, but I
will be the one to say that surely a great many were!
You have given us the example of a boy that reminded you of King Tut. I
feel that you are implying that Tut, also, was "African", which I take,
in this case, to mean "black". While I have no idea what the shade of
Tutankhamun's skin was, there is no reason to assume that he was...well,
black!
Look at his family. If you think the Amarna people look Nubian or
"negroid", then you see them one way and I another. I give you, as an
example, the excellently-preserved mummy of the lady supposedly Queen
Tiye. She looks like a white person to me with her long fine hair and
sharp features. Scott Woodward, who did the DNA testing on the royal
mummies has already been quoted as saying that in testing 8 generations
of remains having to do with the 18th Dynasty, he has found a very small
genetic pool, indicating that there was NO marriage outside the family.
Woodward has also said that Tut and the person believed to be Smenkhare
share a blood group of A2 with anitgen MN, which is rarely found in
ancient Egypt. Woodward is doing this testing not only to determine
familial connections among the royal mummies, but also to try to answer
the question "Who was an ancient Egyptian".
I find the face of the mummy of Tutankhamun at variance with some of his
representations, including the wonderful mask. I see quite a bit of
idealization there and, as I've said in the past, I see a tendancy from
about the time of Thutmose IV to make the royal family look more
"southern" or "Nubian" in some portraiture than they actually were. It
occurs to me that this may have been done because there was some doubt
about the "Egyptianess" of the family at this time--that they may have
had too much "northern" read "Asiatic" blood.
The 19th Dynasty is even more "suspect", IMHO. I don't know how many
times I've repeated, in this group, that French scientists found
Ramesses II to be a "leukoderm" or fair-skinned man, whose hair, when
younger, probably was red or auburn.
Yes, Egypt is in Africa--no one can deny this. But it is also
geographically connected to an area called the Levant, whose inhabitants
must certainly be called "white". My point is, the ancient Egyptians
may be difficult to categorize ethnically, but it would not be correct
to assume that there were not olive or fair-skinned individuals among
them who cannot justifiably be termed as anything but "white" if such a
designation must be assigned. It seems to me that this whole thing only
comes up whenever the Afrocentrists come in with their sweeping
generalities. Civility, also, is something they leave outside the door
before they enter.
IMHO, the confusion about the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians is only
temporary, anyhow.
The Hab
Greg Reeder <ree...@sirius.com> wrote:
> Actually several have posted here that the ancient Egyptians were
>caucasian and "essentially white." I do not accept this. What ever the
>merits or demerits of Afrocentrism the Egyptians were not "white" imho!
>Here is a photo of a young Egyptian boy from Kom Lollah ( the small
>village in front of the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu).
>http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/photo5.html He looks to me like the young
>TUT. There is no way he could be called white. He is African-Egyptian.
He is Egyptian first.
>It is so sad that this discussion has degenerated to such depths of
>rancor. I am not on either side. But lets be civil and discuss this with
>clear heads.
You assume there are only two sides? Not likely, bud.
The Hab
S. F. Thomas
Clearly neither you nor I know THutmose III. We are both relying
on the representations made by those who have discovered the bust,
in my case, and the mummy, in yours. My point was that perhaps
Diop is wrong, or perhaps your book of photographs is wrong. The
bust that I am looking at is Black African, and I do not doubt
you when you say that the mummy you are looking at is not. The
question I pose is: was Diop wrong? or is your book of photographs?
Then we are not looking at the same person. And the question
posed above remains.
You give me too much power...I do not do conjuring tricks.
And it was *you* that made three valedictory speeches.
Now you're back. So much for valedictory speeches.
I did not wish you away, but I must confess the quality
of your contribution is not of a tenor or quality that
I would very much miss if you did what you said you
would.
> If you knew me better,
> you'd realize I NEVER run out of ammo. Just watch I don't flame your
> "kindly" ass off!
Flame away. Truth has traction; and traction generates heat.
> > "Now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity, these three;
> > of the three, Charity is best."
>
> Blow it out your phoney asp, Godzilla!
What a nauseating sentiment! I think you mistake me for
someone else...how close to you I do not care to speculate.
Serenely,
S. F. Thomas
Saida
Saida wrote:
>
> Paulo da Costa wrote:
> >
> > In <326B0D7F...@decan.com> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> writes:
> >
> > >Saida wrote:
> > [...]
> > >> > 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.
> >
> > The famous bust of Nefertiti is olive-skinned. She looks the same as
> > the other royal family depicted on various statues and objects in the
> > same museum from the same period. Copies of the bust found for sale
> > all over the place are usually lighter-skinned. Blame that on the
> > modern copiers, not the Egyptians.
> >
> > >Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
> >
> > nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
> > a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
>
> I don't know about that, but I can buy the olive-skin or yellow-ish
> photos, which are not necessarily reliable. Yet I wonder why you would
> say that a person with an olive skin cannot be considered "white"?
Today I saw two interesting things: One a large photo of the famous
bust of Nefertiti in an expensive art book. I was right the first time.
She's painted in pinkish flesh tone--no yellow at all. I read in a back
issue I got in the mail of the British archaeology magazine, Minerva,
that "the head of the inner sarcophagus of Tuya (wife of Yuya and mother
of Queen Tiye) is of gilded wood with the eyes inlaid with white
'marble', obsidian (a black stone) and opaque, violet-colored glass."
Why violet? The answer is obvious. For the same reason that the inlay
of the eyes of the mutilated coffin in which the mummy of Seti I was
found (originally part of his funerary equipment) was blue.
We've got to face it--we don't know who or what these people were at
all.
Greg Reeder
>
>> >You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
>> >claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell >>me where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
>> >
>> >(snippage)
>>
>>Actually several have posted here that the ancient Egyptians were
>>caucasian and "essentially white." I do not accept this. What ever the
>>merits or demerits of Afrocentrism the Egyptians were not
I at Medinet >>Habu). http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/photo5.html He looks to me like >>the young TUT. There is no way he could be ca=
lled white. He is
>>African-Egyptian. It is so sad that this discussion has degenerated to >>such depths of rancor. I am not on either side. But lets=
be civil and >>discuss this with clear heads.
>
>oversimplifying to say that the ancient Egyptians were neither white nor
>black. I would never say that *all* of the Egyptians were white, but I
>will be the one to say that surely a great many were!
I don't understand what you mean by white. I think the ancients probably
looked much like the Egyptians look today ...darkest in the South and
lightest in the North. The very lightest modern Egyptians probably have a
lot of Greek and Eastern European in them the later inherited from the
Mamluks.
>You have given us the example of a boy that reminded you of King Tut. I
>feel that you are implying that Tut, also, was "African", which I take,
>in this case, to mean "black". While I have no idea what the shade of
>Tutankhamun's skin was, there is no reason to assume that he was...well,
>black!
I did not use the term black. I prefer African which he certainly was
having been born there.
>Look at his family. If you think the Amarna people look Nubian or
>"negroid", then you see them one way and I another.
I think they look much like the people living on the West Bank today.
I do not know about describing them as "negroid" but I would not say they
are white. They are Upper Egyptian. They have their own colorization.
> I give you, as an
>example, the excellently-preserved mummy of the lady supposedly Queen
>Tiye. She looks like a white person to me with her long fine hair and
>sharp features. Scott Woodward, who did the DNA testing on the royal
>mummies has already been quoted as saying that in testing 8 generations
>of remains having to do with the 18th Dynasty, he has found a very small
>genetic pool, indicating that there was NO marriage outside the family.
>Woodward has also said that Tut and the person believed to be Smenkhare
>share a blood group of A2 with anitgen MN, which is rarely found in
>ancient Egypt. Woodward is doing this testing not only to determine
>familial connections among the royal mummies, but also to try to answer
>the question "Who was an ancient Egyptian".
I think the DNA testing is very exciting so I look forward to learning
what answers they come up with.
>I find the face of the mummy of Tutankhamun at variance with some of his
>representations, including the wonderful mask. I see quite a bit of
>idealization there and, as I've said in the past, I see a tendancy from
>about the time of Thutmose IV to make the royal family look more
>"southern" or "Nubian" in some portraiture than they actually were. It
>occurs to me that this may have been done because there was some doubt
>about the "Egyptianess" of the family at this time--that they may have
>had too much "northern" read "Asiatic" blood.
Mummies are all dried out. I think it would be very difficult to get an
objective idea of appearence form a dessicated body thousands of year
old.
>The 19th Dynasty is even more "suspect", IMHO. I don't know how many
>times I've repeated, in this group, that French scientists found
>Ramesses II to be a "leukoderm" or fair-skinned man, whose hair, when
>younger, probably was red or auburn.
>
>Yes, Egypt is in Africa--no one can deny this. But it is also
>geographically connected to an area called the Levant, whose inhabitants
>must certainly be called "white". My point is, the ancient Egyptians
>may be difficult to categorize ethnically, but it would not be correct
>to assume that there were not olive or fair-skinned individuals among
>them who cannot justifiably be termed as anything but "white" if such a
>designation must be assigned. It seems to me that this whole thing only
>comes up whenever the Afrocentrists come in with their sweeping
>generalities. Civility, also, is something they leave outside the door
>before they enter.
>
>IMHO, the confusion about the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians is only
>temporary, anyhow.
We shall see.
--
The Hab
Everett Battle <eve...@advfilms.com> wrote:
>Napoleon most definitely was the perpetrator that shot the nose off of
>the sphinx.
Everett Battle = GROOVE YOU.
The Hab
S. F. Thomas
Katherine Griffis wrote:
>
> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>
> >Saida wrote:
> >>
> >> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> Who is he to argue with
> >> Egyptologists or tell actual Egyptians what race they belong to?
>
> >Classic argumentum ad hominem, coupled with classic argumentum
> >ab auctoritate. With respect, Saida, you give a very good
> >example of drivel, which is what is uttered by those who have
> >no conception of what constitutes valid argument. It is also
> >what is uttered by those who either do not know what they say
> >or do not say what they mean... as in "valediction". Three
> >valediction speeches...yet here you are. Still. You call me
> >a troll, but it is one of your own, Katherine Griffis, not I, who
> >cross-posted to your group, whatever it is. When you recover
> >from your hissing fit, here is what you do: put me in your
> >kill-file. That way we won't need to be treated to any more of
> >your interminable valedictory speeches.
>
> Look, like I said earlier to Manasala, if you don't *like* the issue
> of the cross-post, trim your header. This "it's Griffis' fault I'm
> here", wears thin. I didn't *start* the cross-posting, and this has
> been verified to me, via 3rd parties, as well.
I have no problem with the cross-posting... Just with being
falsely accused of trolling some no-name group with posts
they do not want. Those who complain have a simple solution
at their disposal: put me, or the thread, or both, in their
goddam kill-file.
> The issue of *proving* who is wrong is in YOUR corner, Thomas. As I
> look over the some 500-odd list of books in the British Museum catalog
> here, and that of J. Pye, Archaeologia, et al. I see NO books by
> Diop, Van Sertima, etc. Heck, I even see Velikovsky here, but no
> Diop.
And *that* is supposed to be a commentary on Diop? You
disappoint me. Tell me, how many past Nazis are in the list?
> This tells me (beyond your yammering about Eurocentrism) that Diop has
> been reviewed, analyzed, and found wanting.
As pronounced, ex cathedra, from the Academy? Look, this
argumentum ab autoritate does not impress me. Especially
when the authority cited is complicit in perpetrating a
fraud which even you have confessed.
> Personally, I feel the
> same, and I have read AOC cover to cover, as well as other AfroC works
> (where I can find them). It comes back to the same problems:
>
> a) misquotes of standard works;
> b) reliance on Herodotus and others of Greek/Roman times, taken
> out of context;
> c) reliance on what things *look like*, when personal
> *interpretation* is NOT the name of the game here, but reliance on
> actual artifacts and *Egyptian* textual/artistic evidence is;
I think I like Bernal's notion of competitive plausibility
when competing hypotheses can be used to explain the same
data. However, when I see Black African faces for Narmer,
the Sphinx, the god Ausar, Lord Tera Neter, and other
important personages placed at the *origin* of Egyptian
civilization, I tend to assign greater competitive plausibility
to the hypothesis that ancient Egyptian high culture was
founded by a Black African people than to the competing
hypothesis that they were White, as we have all been
led to believe. Wrongly, as it would now appear.
> d) Use of *proof by absence* (argumentum ad ignorantium, if you
> want to get Latin here), or where there is no proof available one way
> or another, you default to the "well, they had to be black" result.
I think Diop looks at the positive evidence. Not just the
statuary, which it seems to me is compelling as it stands,
but also linguistic, socio-cultural, and anthropological
evidence. I think you are reaching here, to no avail,
when you claim resort is had to "proof by absence". Btw,
modus tollendo tollens (method of denying the consequent)
is a perfectly valid form of logical reasoning which can
be construed as a form of "proof by absence". So also is the
reductio ad absurdum form of argument.
> No Egyptologist would do this, AND would be loathe to speculate. I
> have tried to do this, insofar as I don't *tell* you (despite your
> delusions to the contrary) that the Egyptians were "white". That
> would be absurd, as I mentioned before; and, finally
Well we agree on something. Now go tell the folks in
Hollywood, the makers of tv documentaries, and the folks
that write the history books used in Western Civ classes
from grade school through at least undergraduate level.
> e) Use of the *argumentum ad hominem* to the point of this
> being more of a "cult" religion than an academic scholarship.
Translation, please.
> You accuse Saida (and myself, I presume, from the earlier post) of
> "feel-good" archaeology. Pot, kettle, black, as you would say. Diop,
> his works, and the whole tone of the *Afrocentrist* movement shows
> this.
That has been the charge. But Bernal (see his review of
Lefkowitz' Not out of Africa--it's on the net somewhere,
but I would have to do a search to find it) has put the lie to
this, and he is no afrocentrist. In any case the same
theme is apparent in parts of his Blacj Athena. The real
feel-good scholars have been the ones that gave us what
Bernal characterized as the "Aryan Model", disguised as
objective scholarship.
> When I (or any other here) have asked for cites, you come back with
> Diop. We refute it: you come back with Diop. We ask for cites other
> than Diop: you come back with Diop. Well, tell me: does this not
> sound like *argument with a "true believer"* as opposed to scholarly
> discussion? Does from my end.
It seems you want only sources from your "approved list"
duly certified by the Academy. When I cite Diop, I
summarize as best as I can, considering the medium, the
FACTS used by him, the CONCLUSIONS drawn, and the
ARGUMENTS used. Now, I don't mind you disputing Diop.
But don't merely say that his CONCLUSIONS are wrong
because such-and-thus "expert" says so. Tell me where
Diop is wrong as to FACTS adduced, or to ARGUMENTS used.
Don't ask me for additional cites reaching the same
conclusions as Diop. That adds nothing to the validity
of ARGUMENT. And for damn sure, don't ask me for cites
from your "approved list". I am impressed by argument.
Not by "authority".
>
> I have given varied cites, you will not read (or so you have said in
> your posts)
Show me.
> and are *damned proud* you will not: I **have** given
> evidence, cites, references, and so on: you come back and dismiss with
> a *wave of your hand* as "eurocentric/racist/white", and then say,
> "not relevant".
Practice what you preach. Where have I said the things you
put in direct quotes?
> This discussion, for me, is absurd, and not worthy of my time any
> longer. You can say whatever you want (for surely, you will claim
> victory), but I want you to remember this: What price victory?
Is this an admission of defeat?
> When
> time comes to us all, and we look back, which one of us will look back
> and be able to say, "We used honesty, solid research that can be
> *verified* with evidence, valid study and discussion, and worked HARD
> to see the 'other fellows' side(s)', and came to our conclusions..." ?
Uh oh. Valedictory speech from you too? Whatever.
By all means examine all the individual trees out there that
present themselves. But if you will lose sight of the forest
for the trees, I won't. Possibly it helps that I'm *not*
an Egyptologist. But I know what I was taught as part of
my Western education. And I also know that when I went to
Egypt it was a shock to me, because from what I could see
with my own eyes, it wasn't true. And having since read Diop,
Bernal, ben Jochannan, James, Massey and others, I understand
why. I never deny the evidence of my senses; I was trained
as an engineer, so I am used to the logical rigor involved
in distinguishing mere wish from harsh reality. Structures
don't stand nor machines run merely because you wish it so.
The developers of the Aryan Model clearly felt no similar
need for logical rigor and commitment to truth. They sold
us all a lie, and most of us remain sold on it, no doubt
relying on the scholarly authority they project. I will
continue to listen with interest as the researchers debate
the meanings of individual trees of evidence, but don't
ask me to believe that ancient Egypt and its provenance was
not substantially Black African, and that that fact was
sought to be hidden by Western scholarship.
> I certainly can, and if you can, have at it. But right now, I see no
> evidence of real discussion here, but sniping when you have nothing
> else to say.
>
> Regards --
>
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
NZ...@pop3.concentric.net
Greg Reeder wrote:
>
> Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
> >Greg Reeder wrote: (quoting others)
> Xina I think?
> >
> >> >You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
> >> >claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell >>me where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
> >> >
> >> >(snippage)
> >> and more snippage...
> >>
> >>Actually several have posted here that the ancient Egyptians were
> >>caucasian and "essentially white." I do not accept this. What ever the
> >>merits or demerits of Afrocentrism the Egyptians were not
Given the above discussion about who is what and what color, I wonder
how anthropologist, geneticist and archaeologist view americans 5,000
years from now? My great great grandfather was white. My grandmother
was fair with blue eyes (a "leukoderm"? I don't think so) . I am a
dark brown skin african american. My niece is fair skinned. If they
dig up my grandmother they will say she is a descendent of a western
european. They'll say my niece is hispanic. They say I'm a descendent
of an african. My grandmother taught me that we are proud african
americans. Those anthropologist, archaeologist and geneticist will deny
my grandmother's and niece's blackness and call them descendents of
white or hispanic people. Too bad my grandmother will not be able to
set the record straight and she surely would if she could.
I always read that Egyptians are descendents of white people (Berbers,
Levant, etc.). If they are not black as Afrocentrists suggest, aren't
they descendents of black people too (glass half empty or full), with
possibly some white blood (Berbers) like my grandmother (who definitely
considered herself a Negro during most of her life)?
You'll get this when you get home.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326EE403...@decan.com>,
S.F., the whole mummy thing is just a lot of smoke. Human hair
loses color and thickness after death. It also changes texture
( Rogers, Spencer Lee, _Personal identification from human remains_
Springfield, Ill., Charles C. Thomas, c1987, p. 8). Hair can
be altered by different chemicals and treatment. So, we can't
even speculate on the effects of mummification.
Heyerdahl was probably the first to use this technique when he used
Peruvian mummy hair to support his theory on the white origin of
civilization in the Western hemisphere.
There is a study in which x-ray analysis is made of the royal mummies:
_An X-ray atlas of the royal mummies_ edited by James E. Harris
and Edward F. Wente, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1980.
The x-rays showed a strong occurence of prognathism among the 18th
Dynasty Pharaohs. Thutmose I & II had rather extreme prognathism,
as did the early royal queens. Also, a comparison of dental wear
of nearly all the mummies with that of modern Nubians showed strong
similarity.
Regards,
Paul
Katherine Griffis
pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote to Xina:
>Excuse me? You must be new to this group. In fact, just today someone
>was claiming Egyptians (ancient?) were white.
And WHO would that be, Paul? No one that I am aware of who has a
serious interest in this discussion...cranks are everywhere, but I
don't consider it *part of the discussion*. I find that this *white*
interpretation is perhaps prt of your "perception" of the use of words
we have had here.
>>(snippage)
>>
>>> 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?
>>
>>Wait a minute. You cannot be serious. The kink goes out of hair after
>>you die?
>Do you want a forensic reference? If I have time I'll try to post one.
This I would like to see as well.
>>So, now that you comfort yourself with this information now what? I dont
>>doubt for one instant that some of the Ancient Egyptian Pharohs and
>>Queens *were* indeed black, and of Nubian decent etc. I dont doubt that
>>in the slightest, but what annoys me is the assertion that all Pharaohs
>>were indeed black African, and that 'race' was so much an issue for the
>>Egyptians as it seemingly is for our modern day minds. It simply
>>wasn't.
>Nobody said all the Pharaohs were all black African. I certainly don't think
>this was the case. Neither did Diop ever make this assertion. In fact,
>he never assumes that any Pharaoh is black, but tries to prove the case in
>every instance. In a number of his works he clearly discusses the presence
>of "whites" in ancient Egypt.
OK, so let's say that *we agree* here, and I think the majority of the
discussion participants do. Some were black, and some were not and
yet, that is NOT what you and Thomas have tried to assert: you have
said that the *majority* of the Royal House, and others AT ALL times
were *black African*. There is no real evidence of that, but there is
*evidence* that there were *many groups* in the area that interacted,
intermingled, etc, such that *at the point* of the beginning of
Egyptian civilization, you had not *one "race"*, but you had a group
of confederated peoples who called themselves Egyptians *because that
was where they lived*, and not what they were. The Egyptians have
*always* distinguished themselves s "residents of a land", and not as
familes/clans/ethnic groups. This is, for example, what Hab keeps
pointing out.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>If you dig up some of *my* ancestors, which are Native American, they
>>look alot like that too...in fact Tiye looks like my Grandmother....so
>>are we saying that there are only *two* races of people, Black and
>>White?
>>
>>
>>> >> 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.
>>
>>Look...they were't 100% black either. Are we to apply the same 'One
>>Drop Rule" that the white supremist society of America used in
>>determinging who was 'negroid' or 'indian'?
>No, we simply need to recognize the Black African contribution to
>Egyptian society and stop hiding behind the racial theories formulated
>by Euroamericans.
No one has denied their contribution, and/or that it was significant
even from the beginning. It was just not a "who was 'top dog' " kind
of question, Paul.
>>Excuse my insolence or
>>ignorance, but the Egyptians didnt view Race as a distinction the way it
>>is being presented here.
>>
>Your right, that distinction was made by Euroamericans, and because of this
>we are discussing this issue today. If race is not such a problem, why are
>you guys getting so worked up about it? This subject was being discussed
>in another group, when some individuals (not normally participants in the ng)
>rumbled in and, eventually, crossposted. I'm perfectly willing to discuss
>this in a rational manner.
To me, the question is: WHY are YOU so worked up about it?? The rise
of Afrocentrism is, from my viewpoint, more a response to the
"globalization" of peoples across the world TODAY, and like
fundamentalist upsurge in Christianity, Islam, etc., it is a search
for *identity* (racially, culturally, whatever) in a world that
becomes *less interested* in who or *what ethnic* persuasion/heritage
a person has, but as to whether he/she can operate within the *global
village*.
Needless to say, this hue and cry about *what the ancients were*
(ethnically) is, except for detailed scientific study, a pretty
*irrelevaint issue* unless you are trying for "bragging rights" for
use TODAY. Then, what do you have? Bragging rights.
>>> 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?
>>
>>Now that sounds pretty racist in itself! Rampant Eurocentrism? If you
>>arent black, you are part of the Eurocentrist consiracy?
>Now you're putting words in my mouth. Settle down. If you didn't get the
>sin, why get all upset. However, the sins were committed.
And HOW relevant is that TODAY, Paul? Neither you nor I can change
what our ancestors did in the past: it is the past, and like it or
not, there it is. If you think that a *eurocentric* historian isn't
aware of these things, you are mistaken. If you think that by
*telling us over and over* it was done **makes** a difference in the
sin, again, you are mistaken. The future of the relationship is what
is *at stake*, and I think that Egyptology, for one, works *hard* to
stay as bias-free and objective about its work, and in some cases,
more than other disciplines. But NO ONE here has claimed a) that the
Egyptians were *white* (in the US American sense of the word), nor b)
that *bad things* were not done to or written about "black races" in
the past. Let's move on.
>>Is that your
>>train of thought? What happens to those of us who are *neither*? (If
>>*anyone* answers that one I will be incredibly surprised!) Im trying to
>>be objective here, but until I see some more proofand citations to other
>>pieces than Diop,
>And until I see some cites other than Eurocentric whites, I will not be impressed.
Suit yourself: just remember this when the information you need begins
to "get away from you" that YOU made that choice.
>Yours in the late great Cheikh Anta Diop,
>Paul Kekai Manansala
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
S. F. Thomas
(( cuts ))
> >Nobody said all the Pharaohs were all black African. I certainly don't think
> >this was the case. Neither did Diop ever make this assertion. In fact,
> >he never assumes that any Pharaoh is black, but tries to prove the case in
> >every instance. In a number of his works he clearly discusses the presence
> >of "whites" in ancient Egypt.
>
> OK, so let's say that *we agree* here, and I think the majority of the
> discussion participants do. Some were black, and some were not and
> yet, that is NOT what you and Thomas have tried to assert: you have
> said that the *majority* of the Royal House, and others AT ALL times
> were *black African*.
That is not what I have said. Nor is it what Paul has said,
nor what Diop has said. The issue is what role have Black
Africans played. The answer is they were there from the
beginning, and look to be the FOUNDERS of Egyptian civilization,
not the imported menials, servants and slaves as Western Civ
would have us believe. Diop has cited plenty of evidence
for this assertion--physical, historiographic, anthropological,
socio-cultural, etc.--which I won't recount here.
> There is no real evidence of that, but there is
> *evidence* that there were *many groups* in the area that interacted,
> intermingled, etc, such that *at the point* of the beginning of
> Egyptian civilization, you had not *one "race"*, but you had a group
> of confederated peoples who called themselves Egyptians *because that
> was where they lived*, and not what they were.
This is mere assertion, and sounds ideological. It would be
like saying that the United States was founded by a group
of intermingled Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans,
merely because all three types were present contemporaneously
with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The
cultural and racial provenance of the United States we know
instead to be White Anglo-Saxon. In contrast, America today is
a polyglot mixture of peoples, come together by the lure of
wealth and plenty. It is not too hard to imagine that the
wealth of the fertile Nile Valley became a powerful magnet
for the ancient world's tired, poor and hungry, leading to
the inter-mingling of peoples in that area then, as we see
happening in America today. My starting hypothesis would be
that IF there were different groups of people attempting to
occupy the same space that was ancient Egypt at the founding,
they were far more likely warring rivals, than peacefully
coalescing. Even more likely I would think is that there was
a homogeneous group of people that established the culture,
created wealth, then found that their wealth attracted
others, some wanting to share peacefully in the bounty, who
may have merged into the starting culture, and others who
came as warring rivals, who also would ultimately merge into
the ab-original culture. But the clear evidence shows that
the founders looked like Lord Tera Neter, Ausar, Narmer,
the Sphinx, and the like--all Black African...in the same
way that future historians will no doubt remark on the
monochromatic hue of George Washington and the other founders
of this republic, which was followed by an unbroken string
of similarly hued presidents through at least the year 2000.
In any case, if you would assert a contrary hypothesis--as
to the provenance of ancient Egypt--what is your evidence?
Diop at least lays his bare.
> The Egyptians have
> *always* distinguished themselves s "residents of a land", and not as
> familes/clans/ethnic groups. This is, for example, what Hab keeps
> pointing out.
Evidence, please. In the Book of the Dead, as Diop
points out (see African Origins, p. 199), references to the
gods Ausar and Ausara are with often with an ethnic designator,
viz. Ani, meaning "of the Anu people".
> >>
> >>> 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.
> >>
> >>If you dig up some of *my* ancestors, which are Native American, they
> >>look alot like that too...in fact Tiye looks like my Grandmother....so
> >>are we saying that there are only *two* races of people, Black and
> >>White?
> >>
> >>
> >>> >> 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.
> >>
> >>Look...they were't 100% black either. Are we to apply the same 'One
> >>Drop Rule" that the white supremist society of America used in
> >>determinging who was 'negroid' or 'indian'?
>
> >No, we simply need to recognize the Black African contribution to
> >Egyptian society and stop hiding behind the racial theories formulated
> >by Euroamericans.
>
> No one has denied their contribution, and/or that it was significant
> even from the beginning.
The whole problem is that it *was* denied. Often to the point
of absurdity, like postulating the existence of black-skinned
whites, for example.
> It was just not a "who was 'top dog' " kind
> of question, Paul.
That precisely was and is the preoccupation of those in the
grip of the White-as-Superior compulsion...and delusion.
Diop and the other afrocentrists that I have read are laboring
under no similar compulsion. If Blacks were "first", it
is because of the accident of circumstances in the Nile Valley.
That at any rate is what Diop has asserted.
> >>Excuse my insolence or
> >>ignorance, but the Egyptians didnt view Race as a distinction the way it
> >>is being presented here.
> >>
>
> >Your right, that distinction was made by Euroamericans, and because of this
> >we are discussing this issue today. If race is not such a problem, why are
> >you guys getting so worked up about it? This subject was being discussed
> >in another group, when some individuals (not normally participants in the ng)
> >rumbled in and, eventually, crossposted. I'm perfectly willing to discuss
> >this in a rational manner.
>
> To me, the question is: WHY are YOU so worked up about it?? The rise
> of Afrocentrism is, from my viewpoint, more a response to the
> "globalization" of peoples across the world TODAY, and like
> fundamentalist upsurge in Christianity, Islam, etc., it is a search
> for *identity* (racially, culturally, whatever) in a world that
> becomes *less interested* in who or *what ethnic* persuasion/heritage
> a person has, but as to whether he/she can operate within the *global
> village*.
One globe, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
Is that it? Could it be that God is White American?
> Needless to say, this hue and cry about *what the ancients were*
> (ethnically) is, except for detailed scientific study, a pretty
> *irrelevaint issue* unless you are trying for "bragging rights" for
> use TODAY. Then, what do you have? Bragging rights.
>
> >>> 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?
> >>
> >>Now that sounds pretty racist in itself! Rampant Eurocentrism? If you
> >>arent black, you are part of the Eurocentrist consiracy?
>
> >Now you're putting words in my mouth. Settle down. If you didn't get the
> >sin, why get all upset. However, the sins were committed.
>
> And HOW relevant is that TODAY, Paul? Neither you nor I can change
> what our ancestors did in the past: it is the past, and like it or
> not, there it is. If you think that a *eurocentric* historian isn't
> aware of these things, you are mistaken. If you think that by
> *telling us over and over* it was done **makes** a difference in the
> sin, again, you are mistaken. The future of the relationship is what
> is *at stake*, and I think that Egyptology, for one, works *hard* to
> stay as bias-free and objective about its work, and in some cases,
> more than other disciplines. But NO ONE here has claimed a) that the
> Egyptians were *white* (in the US American sense of the word), nor b)
> that *bad things* were not done to or written about "black races" in
> the past. Let's move on.
Seems to me your repudiation of white supremacy scholarship
is a little weak; and moreover, you want to replace it by
a happy sort of "global village" where white supremacy is
replaced by a kindly white hegemony. So you want to make
the afrocentrist bearers of inconvenient truth into the bad
guys, and you want to assume the high ground, where what's
past is past and all of us should "move on". Well, indeed
we should, but it would be folly to forget what happened in
the past, as the Jews know only too well, and as Blacks
would do only at their peril.
> >>Is that your
> >>train of thought? What happens to those of us who are *neither*? (If
> >>*anyone* answers that one I will be incredibly surprised!) Im trying to
> >>be objective here, but until I see some more proofand citations to other
> >>pieces than Diop,
>
> >And until I see some cites other than Eurocentric whites, I will not be impressed.
>
> Suit yourself: just remember this when the information you need begins
> to "get away from you" that YOU made that choice.
>
> >Yours in the late great Cheikh Anta Diop,
>
> >Paul Kekai Manansala
>
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
>
> University of Alabama at Birmingham
> Special Studies
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
> >
> > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
> > >
> > > "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > >The question which interests those
> > > >of us who come to [Egypt] 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.
> > >
> > > You are right, it is a "fair" question, not to be dismissed on
> > > a-priori grounds. What I don't understand is how to match
> > > this with your own words, later on:
> > >
> > > >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.
> > >
> > > I think you're not practising what you preach...
> >
> > Perhaps if you would quote also that which went before,
> > you would find the answer to your question...
>
> Why you don't practice what you preach?
I gave you my answer, and you did not have the courage to do
as I asked. Again, quote also what went before.
> > > The Ancient Egyptian
> > > language is not related in any way to modern Nubian or the ancient
> > > Meroitic language of Nubia (Kush).
> >
> > Hmmm... I am no linguist, and certainly not competent in
> > any of the languages referred to. But you make a surprisingly
> > categorical statement, the kind that is easy to rebut. I wonder
> > what linguistic scholars would make of it.
>
> The kind of categorical statement a linguistic scholar makes when he's
> pretty sure of what he's taling about...
Good.
> > > It is instead related to the
> > > languages of the Semites in the Near East, of the Berbers in the North
> > > African Maghreb, the Chadic peoples in North Nigeria (Hausaland) and
> > > the Cushitic peoples in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia). This
> > > language family is called Afro-Asiatic nowadays (to avoid the earlier
> > > "racist" term Hamito-Semitic), and is indeed racially mixed: the
> > > Chadics and the Cushites are predominantly "black", the Berbers,
> > > Egyptians and Semites predominantly "white",
> >
> > Here, you assert as fact that which is in question, viz.
> > that the *original* Egyptians were "predominantly white".
>
> Where do I say "original"?
There is no argument as to present and past race-mixing in
Egypt. The question is what were the *original* Egyptians.
That was the context of the discussion, and appears at the
outset of your own exegesis. Check it, you'll see.
> > > despite racial mixture in
> > > all groups. As the original "homeland" of the Afro-Asiatic language
> > > family is still unknown, we don't know if they were "originally"
> > > "black" or "white".
> >
> > Now you return to *origin*, concluding lamely, ie. without
> > logical conclusion of any sort. You still don't know.
>
> Because we don't know. You may call it propaganda, or "crap that
> passes for scholarship". But when something is uncertain, I prefer
> to say that it's uncertain, instead of claiming that I know...
You started out by claiming to have a linguistic argument.
It was nothing of the sort. However uncertain, an argument
must at least have a conclusion. Yours had none.
> > > In any case, it is likely that all modern humans
> > > (and thus all human languages) originated in Sub-Saharan Africa, so
> > > that we're all "black" originally, just gradually less so the longer
> > > it has been since one has been "out of Africa" and in colder/dryer
> > > climes.
> >
> > Now you try to appear "reasonable", the better to appear
> > objective, and dispassionate.
>
> Thanks for reading my thoughts...
I'm used to all the tricks...
> > > As to the Ancient Egyptians, the close ties with Semitic,
> > > Berber and Beja that their language betrays, make a local North
> > > African origin the most likely.
> >
> > It is the conclusion you desire, but it remains undemonstrated.
> > Certainly, it fails my test of credibility when set against
> > the likenesses of Narmer, first pharaoh of Egypt, of Lord
> > Tera Neter, of the god Ausar, and of the sphinx. They all look
> > Black African to me. They are far more convincing proof of the
> > *origins* of the ancient Egyptians than a linguistic argument
> > that commits an elementary logical fallacy.
>
> Great scholarship: "they all look Black African to me."
I call a spade a spade... Starting FACTS speak for themselves.
Besides, I notice that you do not deny it.
> My cat is saying, in Ancient Egyptian: "that sphynx sure looks feline
> to *meeow*!" She's right.
If by that you mean that the sphinx is whatever the beholder
wishes it to be, then you take Alice in Wonderland too literally.
> ==
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
> Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
> m...@pi.net |_____________|||
>
> ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
So there is a third possibility, viz. that mummies can look
a lot different from the persons as they were? Whatever.
> Regards,
> Paul
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
S. F. Thomas wrote:
> There is no argument as to present and past race-mixing in
> Egypt. The question is what were the *original* Egyptians.
I take it that by "the original Egyptians" you mean the founders
of the First Dynasty. We know that the 25th Dynasty was Nubian.
Whether the first one was, is for the archaeologists to decide,
I'm a mere linguist. All I'm pointing out is:
1) The Egyptian language is closely related to its Western neighbour
Berber, and its Eastern neighbour, Semitic. It is in no way related
to either Meroitic or Old Nubian, its southern neighbours.
2) The ethnic makeup of Egypt is now and has been for quite some
time essentially no different from the ethnic makeup of the rest
of the geographical area where Egypt belongs: the Mediterranean basin,
specifically its southern part (North Africa).
If the archaeological facts would prove a Nubian origin for the
First Dynasty, that's fine with me, and I'm sure it would make you
very happy. But let's not get carried away: the 25th was Nubian,
the Chinese Ch'ing dynasty was Manchu. They conquered the lands,
but were quickly assimilated lock, stock and barrel. That's what's
meant by "the tail wagging the dog" (or "the cat", in the case of
Egypt).
None of that would change facts (1) and (2) above, to wit, that the
Egyptian language, people and culture are essentially Mediterranean-
North African, not Nubian-Black African.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <54nrnl$u...@camel0.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com (Katherine Griffis) wrote:
>pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote to Xina:
>
>>Excuse me? You must be new to this group. In fact, just today someone
>>was claiming Egyptians (ancient?) were white.
>
>And WHO would that be, Paul? No one that I am aware of who has a
>serious interest in this discussion...cranks are everywhere, but I
>don't consider it *part of the discussion*. I find that this *white*
>interpretation is perhaps prt of your "perception" of the use of words
>we have had here.
Maybe if you bothered to check first, you would find that Miguel C.
Vidal had stated that Egyptians were white on the very same day as this
question was asked. I have found Vidal a capable linguist and certainly
not a crank.
>
>>>(snippage)
>>>
>>>> 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?
>>>
>>>Wait a minute. You cannot be serious. The kink goes out of hair after
>>>you die?
>
>>Do you want a forensic reference? If I have time I'll try to post one.
>
>This I would like to see as well.
>
Hair changes after death. It loses color and thickness and changes
texture. The hair also becomes dry and brittle. This is only
a few months after death! You might want to consult some of the
refutations of Heyerdahl's arguments regarding Peruvian mummy hair.
Can you cite studies that claim human hair retains the same
appearance after thousands of years? And can you verify that
Egyptian mummification does not relax hair. Microscopic studies are
the most scientific approach, and they suggest "Negroid" or "mulatto"
hair. Here are my refs regarding hair degradation after death:
Rogers, Spencer Lee, 1905-
_Personal identification from human remains_ by Spencer L. Rogers.
Springfield, Ill., U.S.A. : Charles C. Thomas, c1987
Handbook of forensic archaeology and anthropology / editors, Dan Morse, Jack
Duncan, James Stoutamire ; [art by Timothy Jones]. D. Morse ; Tallahassee, Fla.
1983.
>>>So, now that you comfort yourself with this information now what? I dont
>>>doubt for one instant that some of the Ancient Egyptian Pharohs and
>>>Queens *were* indeed black, and of Nubian decent etc. I dont doubt that
>>>in the slightest, but what annoys me is the assertion that all Pharaohs
>>>were indeed black African, and that 'race' was so much an issue for the
>>>Egyptians as it seemingly is for our modern day minds. It simply
>>>wasn't.
>
>>Nobody said all the Pharaohs were all black African. I certainly don't think
>>this was the case. Neither did Diop ever make this assertion. In fact,
>>he never assumes that any Pharaoh is black, but tries to prove the case in
>>every instance. In a number of his works he clearly discusses the presence
>>of "whites" in ancient Egypt.
>
>OK, so let's say that *we agree* here, and I think the majority of the
>discussion participants do. Some were black, and some were not and
>yet, that is NOT what you and Thomas have tried to assert: you have
>said that the *majority* of the Royal House, and others AT ALL times
>were *black African*.
Again, you seem to be working under a lot of preconceptions. Neither
of us have suggested others AT ALL times were black African. I have
claimed that Egypt originated as a black African civilization.
The predynastic, early dynasty, and Old Kingdom Giza dynasties were
predominantly of that type (Prowse and Lovell, 1996; Keita, 1993, 1992).
Everyone, including Diop and Keita have maintained that a process of
"hybridization" occurred with "North African" types mainly from Lower Egypt.
The racial background of particular dynasties varied with some being more
Africoid and some conforming more to Keita's "northern coastal type." The l
latter type itself was not homogenous, and contained varieties that hardly
would be considered "white." I my opinion the 1st through 13th dynasties were
mostly Nubian/Sudanic in physical type. Dynasties 18 through 20 varied
from strongly Nubian to "mulatto" with the type changing back and forth.
Of course, the Kushite Dynasty was Nubian, and all other dynasties had at
least strong traces of Nubian and other black influence. However, the
dynasties (the local ones) that were not strongly Nubian cannot be considered
white. They may not have been black, but they were definitely African.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <326F9320...@decan.com>,
"S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>So there is a third possibility, viz. that mummies can look
>a lot different from the persons as they were? Whatever.
>
Yes, that's basically what the Eurocentrists tell us regarding the skin
color of the mummies, but they expect us to believe everything else stays
the same.
Another problem is that only mummies that tend to support their thesis are
used. Or they are photographed in a way that supports their thesis.
Ben-Jochanan has addressed this point by showing mummies that look very
Africoid. He shows mummies at different angles that show very different qualities,
and addresses the fact that many of the actual faces of mummies were
reconstructed (like that of Seti I), and the problems with bias in this
reconstruction.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Doug or Kathy Lowry
The violet color is the Kohl-rimmed eyelids. The white of the eyes are
termed "calcite" by some authors. The obsidion is the iris. No pupil
is represented.
Doug or Kathy Lowry
(iron oxide). Red ochre is the standard paint used by the Egyptians on
representations of men. This mixture used on the bust is very stable
and hasn't changed much (if at all)since it was painted.
Nefertiti's eye (she only has a right) is of calcite and rock crystal
held in with a black wax. This gives the eye depth. No iris is
indicated. This technique was used in numerous other examples, i.e.
Rahotep & Nefert of the 4th dynasty. If the iris becomes loose, the eye
looks grey/blue.
I read in a back
> issue I got in the mail of the British archaeology magazine, Minerva,
> that "the head of the inner sarcophagus of Tuya (wife of Yuya and mother
> of Queen Tiye) is of gilded wood with the eyes inlaid with white
> 'marble', obsidian (a black stone) and opaque, violet-colored glass."
>
> Why violet? The answer is obvious. For the same reason that the inlay
> of the eyes of the mutilated coffin in which the mummy of Seti I was
> found (originally part of his funerary equipment) was blue.
> The violet and blue colors refered to are the kohl-lines around the
eyes. The whites in the eyes was of calcite and the iris is obsidion.
No pupil is indicated. The color of the living eye was not what was
represented, rather it was that the person would become a god with
obsidion eyes (or whatever could pass for obsidion).
> We've got to face it--we don't know who or what these people were at
> all.
They were like many people - showing us what they wanted to be, and not
what they were. Today they would use "Image Consultants". :-)
Doug or Kathy Lowry
The Hab
m...@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>None of that would change facts (1) and (2) above, to wit, that the
>Egyptian language, people and culture are essentially Mediterranean-
>North African, not Nubian-Black African.
People are Mediterranean-North African, language is Mediterranian-North
African...but our culture? Hmmm...I think it is somewhere between those
two.
The Hab
An Egyptian, an African, a Mediterranian and a Middle Eastern;)
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote:
>Maybe if you bothered to check first, you would find that Miguel C.
>Vidal had stated that Egyptians were white on the very same day as this
>question was asked. I have found Vidal a capable linguist and certainly
>not a crank.
Thank you. Just to clarify my position, I said, if I remember correctly:
...predominantly "white"...
which is not quite the same thing.
As I have replied to S.F. Thomas, I merely wanted to point out two problems I
see with a Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization (based on what I have read in
this thread I believe that to be Diop's main thesis). One is based on my
subjective impression of the (modern) ethnic makeup of Egypt, which looks
"predominantly" Mediterranean/North African to me. The more important, and
objective one, is the linguistic problem posed by the Ancient Egyptian language:
its close ties with Berber and Semitic within the Afro-Asiatic language family,
and its lack of relationship with the languages of Nubia (Meroitic and Nubian,
the first probably, the second surely members of Nilo-Saharan).
Stephen Hendricks
dac...@natlab.research.philips.com (Paulo da Costa) wrote:
>In <326B0D7F...@decan.com> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> writes:
>>Saida wrote:
>[...]
>>> > 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.
>The famous bust of Nefertiti is olive-skinned. She looks the same as
>the other royal family depicted on various statues and objects in the
>same museum from the same period. Copies of the bust found for sale
>all over the place are usually lighter-skinned. Blame that on the
>modern copiers, not the Egyptians.
>>Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
>>Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
>There should be. Nefertiti and the others there are clearly neither "white"
>nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
>a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
There is some confusion here among those who want to claim some black
influence in Egyptian art. Nefertiti is clearly and obviously white
skinned and caucausian. The confusion is that Nefertari, was a black
skinned nubian, and so depicted in the one or two murals of her. Of
the hundreds of murals and paintings I viewed, perhaps 2 or 3 were
depicting black skinned people. The REST, by the thousands are all
pink skinned. We also know that pink is depicted because of the
nature of the pigments being used, being mostly crushed stone. It is
hard to depict skin tones accurately with such pigment.
>[citiong Diop] Nevertheless, in
>> current textbooks, the problem is suppressed; most often
>> they merely take it on themselves to assert categorically
>> that the Egyptians were Whites. [...]
Not at all. There is no issue here. The research has been done and
published in a book titlted "Not out of Africa" and pinpoints the
origins of much of the revisionist and inaccurate "information" being
proprosed in this area. A member of the Fraternal Order of Ancient
Free and Accepted Free Mason, will immediately see in the current Afro
Centrism the teachings of the Prince Albert lodges of the 1800s.
There were a few blacks mentioned in Egyptian art. Nefertari was one.
Mobius: in admiration of Mobius and Crelle
Mobius Digital Services - Custom Computers
and Web Services.Stephen Hendricks- mob...@smart.net
Stephen Hendricks
>> The famous bust of Nefertiti is olive-skinned. She looks the same as
>> the other royal family depicted on various statues and objects in the
>> same museum from the same period. Copies of the bust found for sale
>> all over the place are usually lighter-skinned. Blame that on the
>> modern copiers, not the Egyptians.
>>
>> >Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
>> >Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
>>
>> There should be. Nefertiti and the others there are clearly neither "white"
>> nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
>> a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
>I don't know about that, but I can buy the olive-skin or yellow-ish
>cast. I have never seen the bust of Nefertiti in person, only color
>photos, which are not necessarily reliable. Yet I wonder why you would
>say that a person with an olive skin cannot be considered "white"?
Being caucausian involves a lot more characteristics than skin color.
The Asian Indians are also caucasians, are not negroid or hamitic.
Nefetiti, is clearly the image of the Ideal European woman, when
disregarding skin color. Nefertari image is clearly Negroid in
appearance.
If we are going to discuss superficial characteristics, we should
discuss the entire group that makes up a racial description.
Nefertiti, could easily have been GREEK, as was Cleopatra VIII.
Saida
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <326F9320...@decan.com>,
> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> wrote:
>
> >So there is a third possibility, viz. that mummies can look
> >a lot different from the persons as they were? Whatever.
> >
>
> color of the mummies, but they expect us to believe everything else stays
> the same.
>
> Another problem is that only mummies that tend to support their thesis are
> used. Or they are photographed in a way that supports their thesis.
> Ben-Jochanan has addressed this point by showing mummies that look very
> Africoid. He shows mummies at different angles that show very different qualities,
> and addresses the fact that many of the actual faces of mummies were
> reconstructed (like that of Seti I), and the problems with bias in this
> reconstruction.
That is an outright lie! The face of Seti I, being beautifully
preserved (and beautiful in life) certainly does not require
reconstruction except on paper by persons like me. The only royal mummy
whose face was actually reconstructed, that I know of, (and I follow
these matters very closlely) was Queen Henettawi. Dr. Iskander of the
Cairo Museum restored the queen's face after the skin of it had burst
from overstuffing by the embalmers. He did a great job and the poor
lady looks quite nice again!
Saida
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
I don't know anything about Peruvian mummies. I do know about Egyptian
ones. If anything, the individuals who had straight hair have had their
hair "set" into wavy, haphazard patterns (whenever it was not already
arranged in some other style) by pressure applied by the bandages over
the millenia. Although there is doubtlessly some chemical changes in
human hair due to the mummification process, it does not alter its
appearance to the degree one cannot see what sort of hair it was
originally. Changes are in color primarily, an example being the hair
in the small case found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Due to unguents
being poured over it, it had become rather reddish as opposed to its
original dark brown. How did we know it used to be dark brown? Because
it matched, microscopically, with the hair on the head (dark brown) of
the "Elder Lady" from KV35.
Saida
Stephen Hendricks wrote:
> >> modern copiers, not the Egyptians.
> >>
> >> >Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
> >> >Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
> >>
> >> There should be. Nefertiti and the others there are clearly neither "white"
> >> nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
> >> a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
>
> >I don't know about that, but I can buy the olive-skin or yellow-ish
> >cast. I have never seen the bust of Nefertiti in person, only color
> >photos, which are not necessarily reliable. Yet I wonder why you would
> >say that a person with an olive skin cannot be considered "white"?
>
> Being caucausian involves a lot more characteristics than skin color.
> The Asian Indians are also caucasians, are not negroid or hamitic.
> Nefetiti, is clearly the image of the Ideal European woman, when
> disregarding skin color. Nefertari image is clearly Negroid in
You have clearly never been in the tomb of Nefertari! The artist there
painted her with various pink tones that make her actually bloom with
beauty. There is nothing "Negroid" about this lady except in your
imagination.
> appearance.
>
> If we are going to discuss superficial characteristics, we should
> discuss the entire group that makes up a racial description.
> Nefertiti, could easily have been GREEK, as was Cleopatra VIII.
> Mobius: in admiration of Mobius and Crelle
> Mobius Digital Services - Custom Computers
> and Web Services.Stephen Hendricks- mob...@smart.net
Nefertiti Greek?? Anything is possible, I suppose, but you are
indulging in unwarranted speculation here because there is NOTHING to
indicate any Hellenistic background for this queen.
JOHN CLARKE
In article <54o153$q...@news-e2b.gnn.com> JOHN CLARKE wrote:
>In article <326E2E...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> Saida wrote:
>
>
> Allow me to jump into the fray. I see some basic
> mistakes here.
>
>
>>Greg Reeder wrote: (quoting others)
>>
>>> >You seem to have this idea that we sit here in these newsgroups and
>>> >claim that the Ancient Egyptians were "white". Can you please tell me
>>> >where this assertion has *ever* been made here?
>>> >
>>> >(snippage)
>>> and more snippage...
>>>
>>> Actually several have posted here that the ancient Egyptians were
>>> caucasian and "essentially white." I do not accept this. What ever the
>>> merits or demerits of Afrocentrism the Egyptians were not "white" imho!
>>> Here is a photo of a young Egyptian boy from Kom Lollah ( the small
>>> village in front of the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu).
>>> http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/photo5.html He looks to me like the young
>> > TUT. There is no way he could be called white. He is
>>African-Egyptian.
>>> It is so sad that this discussion has degenerated to such depths of
>>> rancor. I am not on either side. But lets be civil and discuss this with
>>> clear heads.
>>
>>Greg, I know we have gone over this before, but it really is
>>oversimplifying to say that the ancient Egyptians were neither white nor
>>black. I would never say that *all* of the Egyptians were white, but I
>>will be the one to say that surely a great many were!
>
>
> Of all the depictions of Egyptians, from the ancient through
> the modern era, none could be considered white. If you have
> examples, please provide illustrations or references.
>
> For the most part, Egyptians had have held physiological
> traits specific to the Midlle East, Northern Africa, and
> down to Somalia. These people, although sometimes classified
> as white, even modern Ethiopians darker and Negroid than some
> AfricanAmericansfor whatever reason, would never be
> considered white by the average white person.
>
>
>>You have given us the example of a boy that reminded you of King Tut. I
>>feel that you are implying that Tut, also, was "African", which I take,
>>in this case, to mean "black". While I have no idea what the shade of
>>Tutankhamun's skin was, there is no reason to assume that he was...well,
>>black!
>
>
> If one observes the Death Mask of King Tut, one could say
> that his nasal ridge could be more characteristic of Caucasions
> and his full lips and almond shaped eyes as more characteristic
> of a Negroid nature. However, one could say that these features
> are distrubuted across these two races, perhaps moreso in one
> than in the other. Likewise, the features of the statutes at
> the Abu Simbel Temple depict a people with interesting
> characteristics.
>
>
>>Look at his family. If you think the Amarna people look Nubian or
>>"negroid", then you see them one way and I another. I give you, as an
>>example, the excellently-preserved mummy of the lady supposedly Queen
>>Tiye. She looks like a white person to me with her long fine hair and
>>sharp features.
>
>
> Ever seen an Ethiopian, Somalian, a member of the Masai, or even
> a Nigerian?
> You'll find long hair (fineness cannot be determined from a
> picture) and sharp features in these peoples.
>
>
>>Scott Woodward, who did the DNA testing on the royal
>>mummies has already been quoted as saying that in testing 8 generations
>>of remains having to do with the 18th Dynasty, he has found a very small
>>genetic pool, indicating that there was NO marriage outside the family.
>>Woodward has also said that Tut and the person believed to be Smenkhare
>>share a blood group of A2 with anitgen MN, which is rarely found in
>>ancient Egypt. Woodward is doing this testing not only to determine
>>familial connections among the royal mummies, but also to try to answer
>>the question "Who was an ancient Egyptian".
>
>
> He must take care that he is not researching a inherited
> familial trait, e.g. anemia, which may not be found in the
> larger surrounding populace. In any case, this evidence
> is inconclusive.
>
> As of now, it is difficult to say the precise ethnic origin
> of the Egyptians. Aside from Afrocentrism and Eurocentricism,
> it seems likely that these peoples originated from the west
> in the dessicating and dying regions or the Sahara or further
> south along the Nile.
>
>
>>I find the face of the mummy of Tutankhamun at variance with some of his
>>representations, including the wonderful mask. I see quite a bit of
>>idealization there and, as I've said in the past, I see a tendancy from
>>about the time of Thutmose IV to make the royal family look more
>>"southern" or "Nubian" in some portraiture than they actually were. It
>>occurs to me that this may have been done because there was some doubt
>>about the "Egyptianess" of the family at this time--that they may have
>>had too much "northern" read "Asiatic" blood.
>
>
> You make the unproven assumption that you knew what "they
> actually were." I think I remember you saying that we should
> give these people some credit for depicting themselves
> accurately.
>
>
>>The 19th Dynasty is even more "suspect", IMHO. I don't know how many
>>times I've repeated, in this group, that French scientists found
>>Ramesses II to be a "leukoderm" or fair-skinned man, whose hair, when
>>younger, probably was red or auburn.
>
>
> First of all, Ramses II did not come to power until the tail
> end of the New Kingdom, reigning from 1290 B.C. to 1224 B.C.,
> over 2000 years! after the beginning of the Archaic Period; thus,
> his relation to the origin pharoahs extremely dubious.
>
> Secondly, there are a number of "authentic" depictions of
> Ramses II, one by Egyptian Artist Adel Ghabour, from paintings
> at the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens that
> show a man who is of typical swarthy Middle Eastern complexion,
> and definitely cannot be mistaken for white.
>
>
>>Yes, Egypt is in Africa--no one can deny this. But it is also
>>geographically connected to an area called the Levant, whose inhabitants
>>must certainly be called "white".
>
>
> Mind you that Ethiopians are also classified as white, but
> noone aside from this most abstract designation would call
> an Ethiopian a white person. The fact of the matter is that
> whites are considered to be of European and some of Asian
> descent, Asia Minor not included. Don't be too reliant
> on the technical fiction you read in books.
>
>
>> My point is, the ancient Egyptians
>>may be difficult to categorize ethnically, but it would not be correct
>>to assume that there were not olive or fair-skinned individuals among
>>them who cannot justifiably be termed as anything but "white" if such a
>>designation must be assigned. It seems to me that this whole thing only
>>comes up whenever the Afrocentrists come in with their sweeping
>>generalities. Civility, also, is something they leave outside the door
>>before they enter.
>
>
> I prefer to stay away from mudslinging, and with the exception
> of a few individuals, the Afrocentrists, Egyptologists, and the
> Egyptians bring up some interesting interpretations. It seems.
> also, that some have become so frustrated with each other
> that your responses are reduced to egoistic strutting and bravado.
> It's probably best that these people take a break and come
> back at a later time.
>
>
>>IMHO, the confusion about the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians is only
>>temporary, anyhow.
>
>
> Make no mistake. Many peoples would like to lay claim to
> the glories of Egypt, either in heritage or to the goods.
> (Hell, the British have virtually extracted every significant
> portable artifact from the pyramids.) And, the fact of the
> matter is that the Ancient Egyptians, unique as a society,
> will probably remain an ego-boosting pawn for ages to come,
> as most ancient cultures have been.
>
> -John
Welcome to the USENET continuum.
I will be your host in this strange but wonderful journey through
the far reaches of cyberspace.
S. F. Thomas
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>
> pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote:
>
> >Maybe if you bothered to check first, you would find that Miguel C.
> >Vidal had stated that Egyptians were white on the very same day as this
> >question was asked. I have found Vidal a capable linguist and certainly
> >not a crank.
>
>
> ...predominantly "white"...
>
> which is not quite the same thing.
>
> As I have replied to S.F. Thomas, I merely wanted to point out two problems I
> see with a Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization (based on what I have read in
> this thread I believe that to be Diop's main thesis). One is based on my
> subjective impression of the (modern) ethnic makeup of Egypt, which looks
> "predominantly" Mediterranean/North African to me. The more important, and
> objective one, is the linguistic problem posed by the Ancient Egyptian language:
> its close ties with Berber and Semitic within the Afro-Asiatic language family,
> and its lack of relationship with the languages of Nubia (Meroitic and Nubian,
> the first probably, the second surely members of Nilo-Saharan).
We have already seen that your linguistic argument contains
an elementary logical fallacy. Your recapitulation here does
not rescue it, although it does provide excellent disguise,
and might even fool those who have not been paying attention.
> ==
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
> Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
> m...@pi.net |_____________|||
>
> ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Regards,
S. F. Thomas
S. F. Thomas
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>
> S. F. Thomas wrote:
>
> > There is no argument as to present and past race-mixing in
> > Egypt. The question is what were the *original* Egyptians.
>
> I take it that by "the original Egyptians" you mean the founders
> of the First Dynasty. We know that the 25th Dynasty was Nubian.
> Whether the first one was, is for the archaeologists to decide,
> I'm a mere linguist. All I'm pointing out is:
>
> 1) The Egyptian language is closely related to its Western neighbour
> Berber, and its Eastern neighbour, Semitic. It is in no way related
> to either Meroitic or Old Nubian, its southern neighbours.
I am no linguist, but it strikes me that your last statement is
incredible. I would have thought, given that we ultimately all
share a common origin, that ALL languages would be related to
SOME degree. I remember reading somewhere, for example, that
the baby word for mother, "ma", is pretty much the same across
all languages. And I have myself observed the similarity in the
words for "father" across widely divergent languages: "baba" (Yoruba),
"babu" (Hindi), "papa" (various European). So, your categorical
assertion that ancient Coptic is "in no way related" to Old
Nubian strikes me as a priori incredible and over-reaching.
But I'm no linguist, so I offer that not to dispute your metric
for linguistic distance, which would probably turn out to be
subjective, but merely to get over the point that I take your
assumption of linguistic authority with a common-sense grain of
salt.
> 2) The ethnic makeup of Egypt is now and has been for quite some
> time essentially no different from the ethnic makeup of the rest
> of the geographical area where Egypt belongs: the Mediterranean basin,
> specifically its southern part (North Africa).
They're predominantly "white", right? I took away a different
impression from my visit to Egypt. I saw a range of hues,
ranging from dark black to blonde and blue-eyed. They are
mostly a mixed, mulatto sort of people, but the predominant
impression I took away is "Negroid". In any case, as I pointed
out before, the fact of mixing is not in dispute. The question
is what were the *original* Egyptians. The physical evidence
supports a Black African origin. I believe that evidence
trumps your in any case inconclusive linguistic argument.
> If the archaeological facts would prove a Nubian origin for the
> First Dynasty, that's fine with me, and I'm sure it would make you
> very happy.
Frankly my self-esteem is not riding on the truth of the
matter, whatever it may be. It seems rather the reverse,
that the white-supremacy compulsion/obsession/delusion under
which we have all labored is what also compelled the great
LIE that is taught in the Western school-books, viz. that
Black Africans have contributed nothing to human history.
The heated reaction to Diop and the afrocentrists betray
white emotional investment in their delusions of superiority.
Blacks by contrast, can stand the truth, because it can't
be worse than the lies to which we have been subjected for
at least the last 200 years.
> But let's not get carried away: the 25th was Nubian,
> the Chinese Ch'ing dynasty was Manchu. They conquered the lands,
> but were quickly assimilated lock, stock and barrel.
You left out the Mongols and Hindu India. Be that as it
may, the arguments for Black African origin do not hinge,
obviously, on the response by Piankhy, King of Sudan, to
the call for help by the priests and priestesses in
Thebes to rescue Egypt from the usurpers. The founding
of the 25th dynasty which then ensued took place toward
the near end of the Egyptian empire. In any event, what
is more remarkable is that the authority of this
Sudanese dynasty was "recognized by Egypt, less as that
of an enemy imposing his rule by force, than as a guardianship
invited by the prayers of a long-suffering country..."
(Diop, African Origins, p. 146, quoting Cherubini.)
>
> None of that would change facts (1) and (2) above, to wit, that the
> Egyptian language, people and culture are essentially Mediterranean-
> North African, not Nubian-Black African.
The question is what were they *originally*.
The Hab
NZ...@Pop3.concentric.net wrote:
>I always read that Egyptians are descendents of white people (Berbers,
>Levant, etc.). If they are not black as Afrocentrists suggest, aren't
>they descendents of black people too (glass half empty or full),
No because: (a) the North African ethnic groups are older than all
present European groups and (b) there is a significant difference between
the North African ethnic groups and the non-Saharan groups.
> with
>possibly some white blood (Berbers) like my grandmother (who definitely
>considered herself a Negro during most of her life)?
>You'll get this when you get home.
The Hab
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3270D249...@decan.com>,>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>>
>> pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote:
>>
>> >Maybe if you bothered to check first, you would find that Miguel C.
>> >Vidal had stated that Egyptians were white on the very same day as this
>> >question was asked. I have found Vidal a capable linguist and certainly
>> >not a crank.
>>
>>
>> ...predominantly "white"...
>>
>> which is not quite the same thing.
>>
>> As I have replied to S.F. Thomas, I merely wanted to point out two problems I
>> see with a Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization (based on what I have read in
>> this thread I believe that to be Diop's main thesis). One is based on my
>> subjective impression of the (modern) ethnic makeup of Egypt, which looks
>> "predominantly" Mediterranean/North African to me. The more important, and
>> objective one, is the linguistic problem posed by the Ancient Egyptian language:
>> its close ties with Berber and Semitic within the Afro-Asiatic language family,
>> and its lack of relationship with the languages of Nubia (Meroitic and Nubian,
>> the first probably, the second surely members of Nilo-Saharan).
>
>We have already seen that your linguistic argument contains
>an elementary logical fallacy. Your recapitulation here does
>not rescue it, although it does provide excellent disguise,
>and might even fool those who have not been paying attention.
Somehow, I missted the original post so I'll respond using S.F.'s reply. It seems
to me that Miguel may not ever have visited modern Egypt to say that Egyptians
are mostly "white." Actually, the charateristics differ depending on geographical
region you go to. The further south you go, the greater the black element in the
population. It has been stated many times by anthropologists over the centuruies
that from about Abydos southward the population has more in common with Nubian types.
North of that the population is more mixed. When I was among the nomadic tribes of
the Sinai, even there the population was highly mixed with many black types.
Also, there is a type in Egypt that does not conform to our notion of "black," but
neither could it be called "white." This type is no closer to a southern Italian
than it is to a Nubian.
Regarding language, I do not know where Miguel goes off saying that Egyptian is closer
to Berber and Semite than the languages of Nubia and the Sudan. I had always heard the
best modern language to study to get an idea of ancient Egyptian was modern Eastern
Sudani.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3270B8...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>,
Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
>ones. If anything, the individuals who had straight hair have had their
>hair "set" into wavy, haphazard patterns (whenever it was not already
>arranged in some other style) by pressure applied by the bandages over
>the millenia. Although there is doubtlessly some chemical changes in
>human hair due to the mummification process, it does not alter its
>appearance to the degree one cannot see what sort of hair it was
>originally. Changes are in color primarily, an example being the hair
>in the small case found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Due to unguents
>being poured over it, it had become rather reddish as opposed to its
>original dark brown. How did we know it used to be dark brown? Because
>it matched, microscopically, with the hair on the head (dark brown) of
>the "Elder Lady" from KV35.
I'm afraid you've simply ignored the references I gave. You have absolutely
no idea what the original color was and have given no scientific justification
for believing hair remains the same after thousands of years of mummification.
Microscopic matches of two mummies in no way confirms the original color of the
hair. You've also ignored the fact that microscopic studies of hair have
confirmed that the black racial element in ancient Egyptian hair remains.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Saida
Doug or Kathy Lowry wrote:
>
> Saida wrote:
> >
> > Saida wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > In <326B0D7F...@decan.com> "S. F. Thomas" <sth...@decan.com> writes:
> > > >
> > > > >Saida wrote:
> > > > [...]
> > > > >> > 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.
> > > >
> > > > the other royal family depicted on various statues and objects in the
> > > > same museum from the same period. Copies of the bust found for sale
> > > > all over the place are usually lighter-skinned. Blame that on the
> > > >
> > > > >Why is it that there is no talk of "artistic canon" when
> > > > >Nefertiti and pink skin tones are involved?
> > > >
> > > > There should be. Nefertiti and the others there are clearly neither "white"
> > > > nor "black" in the sense you people want. Nefertiti looks, in fact, like
> > > > a much improved version of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
> > >
> > > I don't know about that, but I can buy the olive-skin or yellow-ish
> > > cast. I have never seen the bust of Nefertiti in person, only color
> > > photos, which are not necessarily reliable. Yet I wonder why you would
> > > say that a person with an olive skin cannot be considered "white"?
> >
You are probably right about Thuya's coffin. I dug up an old copy of
KMT, on which is a large color photo of Thuya's mask (but not coffin).
The kohl lines do seem to be in some purplish material there.
As for the eyes on Seti's coffin, I only have Romer to go by. Here is
what he says about them in "Valley of the Kings" page 149:
"The restorers (ancient) find the face irretrievably scarred, remodelled
it, cutting down its size and leaving the huge elegant inlaid eyes of
blue glass and white limestone, with black obsidian pupils, strangely
large, floating in the bland, white-washed countenance." (The entire
coffin was white-washed by the restorers--nothing racial there.) I'm
not sure if Romer meant the iris or just the pupil--anyway he says
"pupil". He doesn't mention the kohl-lines--although they are, of
course, present.
I have seen the eyes of Ra-hotep and wife and their eyes do look grey
(and startling!). What makes you think they are loose? Just curious.
Saida
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <3270B8...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net>,
> Saida <sa...@PioneerPlanet.infi.net> wrote:
> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> >
> >ones. If anything, the individuals who had straight hair have had their
> >hair "set" into wavy, haphazard patterns (whenever it was not already
> >arranged in some other style) by pressure applied by the bandages over
> >the millenia. Although there is doubtlessly some chemical changes in
> >human hair due to the mummification process, it does not alter its
> >appearance to the degree one cannot see what sort of hair it was
> >originally. Changes are in color primarily, an example being the hair
> >in the small case found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Due to unguents
> >being poured over it, it had become rather reddish as opposed to its
> >original dark brown. How did we know it used to be dark brown? Because
> >it matched, microscopically, with the hair on the head (dark brown) of
> >the "Elder Lady" from KV35.
>
> I'm afraid you've simply ignored the references I gave. You have absolutely
> no idea what the original color was and have given no scientific justification
> for believing hair remains the same after thousands of years of mummification.
> Microscopic matches of two mummies in no way confirms the original color of the
> hair. You've also ignored the fact that microscopic studies of hair have
> confirmed that the black racial element in ancient Egyptian hair remains.
>
> Regards,
>
> Paul Kekai Manansala
Your statements are absurd. You are one racist dude. In which of your
"sources" did you read that last statement of yours? How does it
pertain to Egyptian mummies? Cite us the relevant passages.
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
pmana...@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala) wrote:
>>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
> It seems
>to me that Miguel may not ever have visited modern Egypt to say that Egyptians
>are mostly "white."
I have worked, as a translator, with both Egyptians and Sudanese.
There are many Egyptians in my Amsterdam neighbourhood, e.g. one
place where I buy food almost every week. One guy there could pass
for Black African, the other two might be Moroccans. But I've
never been to Egypt, as you say.
>Regarding language, I do not know where Miguel goes off saying that Egyptian is closer
>to Berber and Semite than the languages of Nubia and the Sudan. I had always heard the
>best modern language to study to get an idea of ancient Egyptian was modern Eastern
>Sudani.
You probably mean Beja (To Bedawi), a Cushitic language spoken in East
Sudan. Some linguists would classify Beja as separate from the rest of
Cushitic and put it in its own group, occupying an intermediate position
between Egyptian and Cushitic. Unfortunately, I have never seen a
sample or a description of the language, so I cannot say if this is a
correct assessment. I do have a reference: A. Zaborski, "Der Wortschatz
der Bedscha-Sprache. Eine vergleichende Analyse", in ZDMG, Supplement
VII (Stuttgart, 1989), 573-91.
If you are looking for linguistic links between Egypt and the South,
Beja is your best bet. Trouble is, as far as I know, the Beja have
never been linked to Nubia or the Nile (the EB article claims the Beja
are "descended from peoples who have lived in the area [Egypt to
Eritrea] since 4000 BC or earlier", but as this is not backed up in any
way, you may take it with a grain of salt).
The internal relationships of Afro-Asiatic are still a matter of debate.
Ruhlen lists seven different recent proposals:
Voegelin & Voegelin '77:
=======================
Chadic
Berber
Egyptian
Semitic
(Beja=Cushitic)
Omotic
Ehret '79:
=========
Chadic
(Berber=Semitic)-Egyptian
Beja=Cushitic
------
Omotic
Newman '80: [*]
==========
Chadic-Berber
Egyptian-Semitic
Beja-Cushitic
[Omotic excluded]
[*] That's Paul Newman (really!): I did some work for him on Hausa as a
student in Leiden University.
Fleming '81:
===========
(Chadic=Berber)-Egyptian-Beja
Semitic
Cushitic
------
Omotic
Greenberg '81:
=============
Chadic
Berber
Egyptian
Semitic
(Beja=Cushitic)
-------
Omotic
Bender '81:
==========
Chadic
Berber-Egyptian-Semitic
Beja
Cushitic-Omotic
Hetzron '82:
===========
Chadic
Berber
Egyptian
Semitic
Beja
Cushitic
Omotic
If we may draw a kind of "statistical" conclusion from these different
opinions, it's that each language group is most often linked with its
direct neighbours:
Berber -- Egyptian -- Semitic
| |
Chadic Beja
\
Cushitic
/
Omotic
Egyptian is thus most often linked with Semitic (Ehret, Newman, Bender),
Berber [c.q. Berber-Chadic] (Ehret, Fleming, Bender) and Beja (Fleming).
Doug or Kathy Lowry
construction of Egyptian art. The article spoke of using different
materials (wood, stone, glass, metal, etc.) to form a "composite"
statue. The author stated that of the grey/blue eyes in statues and
coffins he had examined in the Cairo Museum and elsewhere, the eyes had
an air-pocket behind the pupil. As an experiment, take a drinking
glass, wrap a piece of white paper around it (the bottom will represent
the rock crystal and the paper will be the whites) and place it on a
black surface. It will register black until the glass is tipped
slightly, it then becomes grey. I've noticed that some statues I've
seen, do have two different colored eyes. Its a little disconserting to
see. Also some of the pupils were painted on the back and the paint has
flaked off. Much the same as tempra paints do not adhere well to glass.
Saida
What good would that do? It appears, from these posts, that even the
persons who are obviously meant to be white from their pink skin pigment
like Nefertiti and Nefertari are seen by others as black!
> >
> > For the most part, Egyptians had have held physiological
> > traits specific to the Midlle East, Northern Africa, and
> > down to Somalia. These people, although sometimes classified
> > as white, even modern Ethiopians darker and Negroid than some
> > AfricanAmericansfor whatever reason, would never be
> > considered white by the average white person.
Says who?
> >
> >
> >>You have given us the example of a boy that reminded you of King Tut. I
> >>feel that you are implying that Tut, also, was "African", which I take,
> >>in this case, to mean "black". While I have no idea what the shade of
> >>Tutankhamun's skin was, there is no reason to assume that he was...well,
> >>black!
> >
> >
> > If one observes the Death Mask of King Tut, one could say
> > that his nasal ridge could be more characteristic of Caucasions
> > and his full lips and almond shaped eyes as more characteristic
> > of a Negroid nature. However, one could say that these features
> > are distrubuted across these two races, perhaps moreso in one
> > than in the other. Likewise, the features of the statutes at
> > the Abu Simbel Temple depict a people with interesting
> > characteristics.
It seems you are making some *basic* mistakes of your own. As far as I
know, there is no "death" mask of Tutankhamun. A "death" mask is an
impression taken of a person's face shortly after he has died. This can
only be done with some malleable material, such as clay. The mask to
which you refer is a "mummy" mask, which is a different item, made to
fit over the wrapped, embalmed body. The reliability of such masks
varies greatly as far as portraiture is concerned. The mask of Tut (and
other effigies) were apparently made by a master craftsman, a
Michelangelo of a goldsmith. He made a marvelous face, but it is not
necessarily the face of the pharaoh. When I say there are discrepancies
between the mask (for one) and the mummy I mean:
The eyes of the mask are typical, idealized, one-kind-fits-all Egyptian
eyes as seen in paintings, etc. They are pretty but are not intended to
represent the eyes of the individual as they actually looked.
Almond-eyes are hardly an exclusive trait of black people!
The eyes of the mummy appear to be almond-shaped, but, unlike the mask,
have pronounced occipital ridges and appear rather more deep-set than
the mask suggests. I don't know whether Tut had artificial eye-balls or
not. Nowadays, the head of Tut has so deteriorated that his eye-sockets
have all but fallen in, so I am talking about early photos.
The nose of the mummy (though flattened, appears to be bigger and more
high-bridged than on the effigies.
The mummy has considerably less lips than the portraits. Lips do shrink
back quite a bit, but Tut has enormous incisors, a huge overbite. It
seems to me he could only have closed his lips over them with
difficulty--yet the pharaoh could NEVER have been portrayed with buck
teeth.
> >
> >
> >>Look at his family. If you think the Amarna people look Nubian or
> >>"negroid", then you see them one way and I another. I give you, as an
> >>example, the excellently-preserved mummy of the lady supposedly Queen
> >>Tiye. She looks like a white person to me with her long fine hair and
> >>sharp features.
> >
> >
> > Ever seen an Ethiopian, Somalian, a member of the Masai, or even
> > a Nigerian?
> > You'll find long hair (fineness cannot be determined from a
> > picture) and sharp features in these peoples.
I have seen these people you mention--Imam is a lovely example of a
Somali woman--nothing at all like the Elder Lady!
I never said that they depicted themselves "accurately" at all times.
They depicted themselves "differently" from other races. Obviously,
there could be problems with this at times. For example, the Pharaoh
Seti I had examples of various races painted in his tomb, one of them
being the "Aamu" or Asiatic. The irony was that Seti, himself,
resembled the "Aamu" more than any other in his tomb portraits.
I do not know what the people of the 18th Dynasty were ethnically. But
I have my suspicions.
> >
> >>The 19th Dynasty is even more "suspect", IMHO. I don't know how many
> >>times I've repeated, in this group, that French scientists found
> >>Ramesses II to be a "leukoderm" or fair-skinned man, whose hair, when
> >>younger, probably was red or auburn.
> >
> >
> > First of all, Ramses II did not come to power until the tail
> > end of the New Kingdom, reigning from 1290 B.C. to 1224 B.C.,
> > over 2000 years! after the beginning of the Archaic Period; thus,
> > his relation to the origin pharoahs extremely dubious.
The tail end! I take it by "origin" you mean original. Yes, you are
very correct there. The "original" pharaohs were very far removed from
the 19th, the 18th and many dynasties before them! A lot happened that
could have changed the ethnicity of the pharaohs we discussed. But they
were still ancient Egyptians, n'est-ce-pas?
> >
> > Secondly, there are a number of "authentic" depictions of
> > Ramses II, one by Egyptian Artist Adel Ghabour, from paintings
> > at the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens that
> > show a man who is of typical swarthy Middle Eastern complexion,
No more "authentic" than that of Winifred Brunton, who definitely saw
him as a white, rather "Semitic-appearing" gentleman. My own portrait
looks different than Brunton's, but I agree with her.
> > and definitely cannot be mistaken for white.
> >
> >
> >>Yes, Egypt is in Africa--no one can deny this. But it is also
> >>geographically connected to an area called the Levant, whose inhabitants
> >>must certainly be called "white".
> >
> >
> > Mind you that Ethiopians are also classified as white, but
> > noone aside from this most abstract designation would call
> > an Ethiopian a white person. The fact of the matter is that
> > whites are considered to be of European and some of Asian
> > descent, Asia Minor not included. Don't be too reliant
> > on the technical fiction you read in books.
How about what I read in newsgroups?
Whatever.
Paul Kekai Manansala
>> of us have suggested others AT ALL times were black African.
>
>claim every Pharaoh and Queen, from Narmer to CleopatraVII were indeed
>"black african". Ive seen afrocentrists such as Peter Bromfield,
>GrooveYou
Are Peter Bromfield and GrooveYou claiming to be Afrocentric scholars?
Your original post was aimed at people like Diop.
and others claim every historical figure of note as to being
>"black" from Shakespeare, to Beethooven to Elizabeth I to Albert
>Einstien for pete sake!
>
There are also people on this list claiming all sorts of things.
Btw, the masters of this type of trick are Eurocentric not Afrocentric
scholars. They were the first to this on a wide scale, are the main ones
still doing it now.
> I have
>> claimed that Egypt originated as a black African civilization.
>> The predynastic, early dynasty, and Old Kingdom Giza dynasties were
>> predominantly of that type (Prowse and Lovell, 1996; Keita, 1993, 1992).
>
>
>Yes, Im sure you are probably at least partially right. So?
So, why not just acknowledge this with getting all upset? Are you being
threatened in some way?
>When you get done typecasting and putting everybody and everything into
>neat little petrie dishes, let me know. Because this whole bloody
>arguement is getting extrememly stale.
>
You're quite the hypocrite. I you really were not interested in preserving myths
about the ancient Egyptians, then this conversation should not bother you
in the least. You could simply ignore it. The problem with Eurocentrists is that
they fly into rages when their false constructs are threatened. Obviously, there
is a lot of fear out there, and that's hindering any rational and dispassionate
discussion.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Xina
Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> In article <3270E3...@netins.net>, Xina <xi...@netins.net> wrote:
> >Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> There are also people on this list claiming all sorts of things.
> Btw, the masters of this type of trick are Eurocentric not Afrocentric scholars. They were the first to this on a wide scale, are the main ones still doing it now.
So who would you surmise are the *main* eurocentric scholars that are
guilty of this now.
>
> > I have
> >> claimed that Egypt originated as a black African civilization.
> >> The predynastic, early dynasty, and Old Kingdom Giza dynasties were
> >> predominantly of that type (Prowse and Lovell, 1996; Keita, 1993, 1992).
> >
> >
> >Yes, Im sure you are probably at least partially right. So?
>
> So, why not just acknowledge this with getting all upset? Are you being threatened in some way?
No, Im not threatened, I just *did* aknowlege it, my complaint is the
issue of race seems to come up again and again. There are many in the
NG, not necessarily yourself or the Afrocentric 'scholars' who are not
content with an aknowlegement. No, they want to continually throw it up
into the faces of people who study Egypt for love of the subject matter,
and there are even others that go further that say "how dare those
'white' people look at our history and religion! They dont have enough
melanin in their skins so they couldnt possibly have the appropriate DNA
to understand it. I grew up experienceing the 'race issue' first hand.
(Or did you think that no one has ever been prejudiced against anyone
who is of another race other than black?) I grew up around it, it
stinks no matter who is dishing it out....that and only that is what I
find offensive.
Paul, I can respect your point of view, I dont always agree with it
100%, and you have presented more evidence on your side than most
Afrocentric 'scholars', but honestly...after we admit to the race issue
(which I have already done btw) still we have the quetsion....then what?
> >When you get done typecasting and putting everybody and everything into
> >neat little petrie dishes, let me know. Because this whole bloody
> >arguement is getting extrememly stale.
> >
>
> You're quite the hypocrite. I you really were not interested in preserving myths
> about the ancient Egyptians, then this conversation should not bother you
> in the least. You could simply ignore it. The problem with Eurocentrists is that
> they fly into rages when their false constructs are threatened.
I care more about the legends and Religion of Ancient Egypt than you are
capable of comprehending. How incredibly pompous a statement that is.
You are the one who gets bent out of shape when it is pointed out to you
in a calm and concise manner that there was an artistic cannon of
Egyptian art, and that every glyph, every symbol every nuance was
prescribed by that same cannon. Look at the glyph of a mouth (the
letter R) it is ALWAYS Red, when it is painted, the Owl glyph (M) is
ALWAYS Yellow.....the skin of Goddesses is ALWAYS yellow or gold....so
my point is, you are going to have to live with the fact that the
Eguptians did art, language, religion etc through the symbology, like it
or not. No amount of conspiracy theories, no amount of jumping up and
down nor denial is going to change the facts.
Im not a eurocentrist, Paul, Im the last person in the world who is
intersted in perpetuating the liars scrawl of nineteenth century racist
european authors. I read plenty of accounts of how my people were
'ignorant heathen savages, in need of the white race's superior
influence in order to save them from themselves'. Im glad that African
Americans are proud of their heritage, Im certainly proud of mine. What
bothers me are the notions put forth by **some** (Not necessarily YOU)
Afro-C "scholars" or its self styled champions that we who dont have
that much melanin in our skins shouldnt study egyptology...period. That
would include all persons of non-black decent. An example of this would
be (Im not making this up, Ive had it actually *said* to me )"Why would
you study Egyptology? Youre not black! Its not *your* history its
ours!" Thats audacity! That is what I find offensive.
Obviously, there
> is a lot of fear out there, and that's hindering any rational and dispassionate
> discussion.
Obviously you have overestimated your ability to intimidate me and have
a notion that Im afraid of whether or not the Egyptians were originally
black. Im dispassionate enough. I dont personally care if the Egyptians
are black, green, blue, or yellow or red, and yet Ive seen the tomb
paintings that shows them as all of the above. In know that it was an
artistic cannon. Hell, I was on a mailing list where some guy from
Brazil was convinced (and trying to convince everyone else) that not
only were the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses originally white but blonde
and blue eyed to boot! Now I KNOW that isnt the truth!
I ask you your own question, cant we have a dispassionate discussion
about Egyptology? One that doesnt insist on proprietary rights of who is
or was Egyptian. Is that too much to ask?
Respectfully,
Xina
> Regards,
>
> Paul Kekai Manansala
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <32713C...@netins.net>, Xina <xi...@netins.net> wrote:
>Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>>
>> >You are the one who gets bent out of shape when it is pointed out to you
>> >in a calm and concise manner that there was an artistic cannon of
>> >Egyptian art, and that every glyph, every symbol every nuance was
>> >prescribed by that same cannon. Look at the glyph of a mouth (the
>> >letter R) it is ALWAYS Red, when it is painted, the Owl glyph (M) is
>> >ALWAYS Yellow.....the skin of Goddesses is ALWAYS yellow or gold....so
>> >my point is, you are going to have to live with the fact that the
>> >Eguptians did art, language, religion etc through the symbology, like it
>> >or not. No amount of conspiracy theories, no amount of jumping up and
>> >down nor denial is going to change the facts.
>> >
>>
>> skin. Forget about conspiracies, you don't even have your facts straight.
>
>Im sorry, I have enough confidence in my facts and I dont really give a
>damn if you agree with me or not. Please See "Treasures of the Nile"
>eited by Peter Bitstien, or Ancient Egyptian Art (dont have the author
>at the moment but can get it once I get home) take a look at each and
>every tomb in the Bitstien book. You show me *where* the human Netjert
>(Goddesses) are represented in another colour, other than a yellow, or
>in a few cases that I have seen a reddish colour.
So you admit your error, "Goddesses" (now qualified as Netjert) can now be
portrayed in "reddish" color. They also can be portrayed in black and many
other colors.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
S. F. Thomas
Xina wrote:
>
> Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> >
> > >You are the one who gets bent out of shape when it is pointed out to you
> > >in a calm and concise manner that there was an artistic cannon of
> > >Egyptian art, and that every glyph, every symbol every nuance was
> > >prescribed by that same cannon. Look at the glyph of a mouth (the
> > >letter R) it is ALWAYS Red, when it is painted, the Owl glyph (M) is
> > >ALWAYS Yellow.....the skin of Goddesses is ALWAYS yellow or gold....so
> > >my point is, you are going to have to live with the fact that the
> > >Eguptians did art, language, religion etc through the symbology, like it
> > >or not. No amount of conspiracy theories, no amount of jumping up and
> > >down nor denial is going to change the facts.
> > >
> >
> > skin. Forget about conspiracies, you don't even have your facts straight.
>
> Im sorry, I have enough confidence in my facts and I dont really give a
> damn if you agree with me or not. Please See "Treasures of the Nile"
> eited by Peter Bitstien, or Ancient Egyptian Art (dont have the author
> at the moment but can get it once I get home) take a look at each and
> every tomb in the Bitstien book. You show me *where* the human Netjert
> (Goddesses) are represented in another colour, other than a yellow, or
> colour such as what you percieve as black and I will believe you and I
> will concede to that fact. (BTW do you *know* how to tell the difference
> between a Goddess, a Queen and just an ordinary Egyptian woman in
> Egyptian Painting? Test Question for you, Paul) Until that time, you are
> simply trolling and grasping at straws.
>
> >
> > You have a lot of nerve painting a whole group based on the comments of a single person.
> > Isn't this what you (wrongfully) charge Afrocentrists of doing?
>
> Did you not read *some* not necessarily YOU? Did you miss that? Did
> you also perchance *miss* the fact that I agreed with you on some of
> your points. No, the "help Im being oppressed and my legacy has been
> stolen!" syndrome has driven you to a point where *apparently* you
> didn't see that. I was citing an example of extreme Afrocentrism,
> apparently however that fact seems to have elluded you.
>
> The internet is full of
> > racist whites spouting crap continously. Should I generalize their behavior to you? There i
> > s absolutely nothing wrong with Africans and other non-whites seeking vindication for
> > centuries of racist scholarship (which they are still battling to this day).
>
> Damn straight, Baby!! And I lived the racist lies all my life, same as
> you, yet because I want to see concretized facts, and I want to see
> Afrocentric scholars present thier information with as much attention to
> detail as any other scholar is expected to, you accuse me of being a
> hypocrite!
>
> The past is past, no amount of bitching is going to change it. I happen
> to love Egypt for herself and her history her art, her religious and
> mythological legacy are nothing less than incredible. Its given me alot
> of years of joy just learning all I can about it, and its sad that
> somehow for *some* people that isnt enough now we have to turn it into
> some sort of thing that can be "claimed' and mounted on a wall or placed
> on a mantle and displayed.
>
> Im **always** ready to listen to the evidence, and I have no problem
> with whatever colour the pharaohs end up being (one or 100 or ALL of
> them) but when you put out and out bullshit about the art and the
> history that is completely and utterly wrong on line, I and others are
> going to call you on it. If Im wrong I am MORE than happy to admit it.
>
> All of this kind of reminds me of a thread on alt.native where some
> self-styled "expert" insisted Geronimo wasnt an Apache but in fact a
> Lakota.
Very noble sentiments, belied however by the selectivity of
the outrage expressed. If there is a battle between your Native-
American self and your European self I have little doubt which
one is winning... Whatever the external cloak deployed--Native
American, naturally--to lay spurious claim to objectivity and
dispassion. You succeed in fooling yourself. No one
else.
> Xina
Regards,
S. F. Thomas