Natsef-Amun
wit...@webtv.net
To: Richard Poe
First I would like to thank you for bringing a little sanity to the
"thread." However, in some ways you have done my graduate class in
clinical psychology a disservice. Three of my students were utilizing
the comments and replys in the "thread" in an original (and sometimes
amusing) behavior analysis.
Asside from this -- two questions which were raised, which I promised to
ask Richard Poe, These were about the time frame of Natsef-Amun
(anthropology is not my field). 1100 BCE seems somewhat recent to juge
"racial" make-up of a people as ancient as the Egyptians. What was there
make-up in 3000 BCE? One would expect a "racial" mixture at only 1100
BCE (given the trade and warefare with the people of the far uper Nile)
of the Egyptians. The USA has only been in existance since the late
1400 and look at our "racial" mixture.
Would the choice of Natsef-Amun be similar to chosing a mixed "race"
person from our present century as a representative of the entire
population to the United States? Granted that Natsef-Amun looks Black -
but then so would a reconstruction of Colin Powell look black - but he
would not be representative of the entire population of the United
states.
If I take a single skull the only valid thesis that I can safely make is
that that person looked as he lookd - I cannot project his looks or
"race" on an entire population.
As for the rest of your argument - granted if one accepts your first
premise in regard to the representativeness of Natsef-Amun to the entire
population the rest of your argument follows. BUT, what happens if one
does not accept your premise - would your argument fall apart?
It seems to me that one skull (in time) reconstruction is rather flimsy
evidence of an entire populaton, or even what that population
acomplished.
sicerely, witsun
-30-
richa...@aol.com
In article <6htcce$q71$1...@newsd-121.bryant.webtv.net>,
wit...@webtv.net wrote:
>
> To: Richard Poe
>
> First I would like to thank you for bringing a little sanity to the
> "thread."
>
>
Since entering this debate, I have been accused of many things, but never of
"sanity" until now. Thanks for your vote of confidence.
>
> Aside from this -- two questions which were raised, which I promised to
> ask Richard Poe, These were about the time frame of Natsef-Amun
> (anthropology is not my field). 1100 BCE seems somewhat recent to judge
> "racial" make-up of a people as ancient as the Egyptians. What was their
> make-up in 3000 BCE?
>
Most anthropologists would agree that the Egyptian population has changed
very little from prehistoric times, down to the present day.
Even more to the point, though, I offered the example of Natsef-Amun as a
counterpoint to the persistent attempts of others on this newsgroup to imply
that more "caucasoid"-looking types, such as Nefertiti and Ramesses II
represent the typical Egyptian.
Like Natsef-Amun, Nefertiti and Ramesses II also appeared rather late in
Egypt's history. Nefertiti died around 1338 BC and Ramesses II around 1212
BC. Yet, no two individuals are cited more frequently by those who wish to
view the Egyptians as fundamentally "white".
To the limited extent that your objection to Natsef-Amun has validity, that
objection applies equally to all the other familiar faces that are habitually
trotted out in the argument over Egyptian "blackness". I simply decided to
add Natsef-Amun to the usual mix.
> One would expect a "racial" mixture at only 1100
> BCE (given the trade and warefare with the people of the far upper Nile)
> of the Egyptians. The USA has only been in existence since the late
> 1400 and look at our "racial" mixture.
>
The USA makes a poor analogy, in this case. No country in history has ever
experienced such a massive upheaval in population, in such a short time, as
has the USA. Certainly, there is no evidence that Egypt ever experienced any
trauma remotely comparable to the extermination of the Indians and the
resettlement of the USA by whites and blacks.
As I stated above, most anthropologists believe that the racial composition
of Egypt during the pharaonic period was very similar to that in prehistoric
times.
>
> Would the choice of Natsef-Amun be similar to choosing a mixed "race"
> person from our present century as a representative of the entire
> population to the United States? Granted that Natsef-Amun looks Black -
> but then so would a reconstruction of Colin Powell look black - but he
> would not be representative of the entire population of the United
> States.
>
I think that you will not be able to understand the situation in Egypt, as
long as you conceive of it as analogous to the USA. Unlike the USA, Egypt
appears to have been a true melting pot, in which various different peoples
freely intermarried over thousands of years. The USA is a nation of
immigrants who have managed, in large measure, to avoid marrying across
"racial" or "color" lines, and who have only been neighbors for about 400
years.
It is entirely true that Natsef-Amun's features look more negroid than those
of many other Egyptians. But it would be a mistake to conclude, from this,
that Natsef-Amun is a "black" or "mulatto" person living in a nation of white
people. This American analogy does not fit ancient Egypt.
If you must have a modern analogy, you might think of ancient Egypt more like
Puerto Rico, where virtually everyone has some admixture of African blood, no
matter how "white" they may look, on the surface.
In addition to Natsef-Amun, forensic artist Richard Neave also reconstructed
the faces of two Egyptian brothers, found in a Middle Kingdom tomb. The
inscriptions in the tomb left no doubt that Nekht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht were
brothers. Yet, Nekht-Ankh was found to have "caucasoid" features and
Khnum-Nakht to have "negroid" features.
You can find a photo of the reconstructed heads of the Two Brothers in my
book, Black Spark, White Fire. The face of Natsef-Amun appears at the
following URL:
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black5.html
> If I take a single skull the only valid thesis that I can safely make is
> that that person looked as he looked - I cannot project his looks or
> "race" on an entire population.
>
The idea that the Egyptians were a thoroughly "mixed" population, on the
model of Puerto Rico, does not arise from Natsef-Amun, or from any other
"single skull." It is common knowledge among specialists, and is not a matter
of dispute.
The real question is this: Were the Egyptians a basically black people who
later became intermixed with whites? Or were they a basically white people
who later became intermixed with blacks?
On this question, there is no general agreement. However, the weight of
scholarly opinion seems to be shifting toward the former. Some forensic
studies seem to show that negroid characteristics were more prevalent among
the earliest Egyptians. Moreover, the Egyptians spoke an African language,
directly related to hundreds of other languages in Africa, and whose earliest
ancestor appears to have arisen in Ethiopia. Many scholars have pointed to
strong parallels between Egyptian culture and other African cultures, in the
realm of art, religion, rituals of kingship and more.
>
> As for the rest of your argument - granted if one accepts your first
> premise in regard to the representativeness of Natsef-Amun to the entire
> population the rest of your argument follows. BUT, what happens if one
> does not accept your premise - would your argument fall apart?
> It seems to me that one skull (in time) reconstruction is rather flimsy
> evidence of an entire populaton...
>
I hope I have made it clear, by now, that my view of the Egyptians' racial
origins is quite mainstream, and does not represent some eccentric theory
based on a single skull.
That you would think or suspect otherwise testifies to the failure of
specialists to clearly communicate to the lay public what they really think
about ancient Egypt.
How do we account for this failure of communication? I don't know the whole
answer. Obscurantism certainly plays a role. Because many scholars now regard
the word "race" as taboo (along with such words as "white" and "black"), it
becomes nearly impossible to discuss racial issues in a way that ordinary
people can understand. That's part of the problem, but maybe not all of it.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
___________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Jame...@aol.com
> > Aside from this -- two questions which were raised, which I promised to
> > ask Richard Poe, These were about the time frame of Natsef-Amun
> > (anthropology is not my field). 1100 BCE seems somewhat recent to judge
> > "racial" make-up of a people as ancient as the Egyptians. What was their
> > make-up in 3000 BCE?
> >
>
> Most anthropologists would agree that the Egyptian population has changed
> very little from prehistoric times, down to the present day.
>
> Even more to the point, though, I offered the example of Natsef-Amun as a
> counterpoint to the persistent attempts of others on this newsgroup to imply
> that more "caucasoid"-looking types, such as Nefertiti and Ramesses II
> represent the typical Egyptian.
>
In many cases, those citing the Nefertiti and Ramesses II examples, are doing
so as a counterpoint against the "all-black" Egyptian theory. In my opinion,
these examples along with your Natsef-Amun example, show just how racially
mixed the ancient Egyptians were.
> Like Natsef-Amun, Nefertiti and Ramesses II also appeared rather late in
> Egypt's history. Nefertiti died around 1338 BC and Ramesses II around 1212
> BC. Yet, no two individuals are cited more frequently by those who wish to
> view the Egyptians as fundamentally "white".
>
The kings and queens of the fourth dynasty are earlier examples of "white"
Egyptians. As I stated above, I believe the ancient Egyptians were racially
mixed, so I am not presenting this as evidence of "typical" Egyptians.
> As I stated above, most anthropologists believe that the racial composition
> of Egypt during the pharaonic period was very similar to that in prehistoric
> times.
> The real question is this: Were the Egyptians a basically black people who
> later became intermixed with whites? Or were they a basically white people
> who later became intermixed with blacks?
>
This is an interesting question. I would say that considering Egypt's
geographic location, and its proximity to the Eurasian continent, the
original Egyptians were genetically closer to those living in Europe and
Asia, near the Mediterranean, than to central Africans. Since I do not know
how Asians and Europeans originally looked (and Africans for that matter),
this is all I can say.
> I hope I have made it clear, by now, that my view of the Egyptians' racial
> origins is quite mainstream, and does not represent some eccentric theory
> based on a single skull.
>
The title of your book does not suggest this.
Sincerely,
James Kalohelani
wit...@webtv.net
Thank you (Richard Poe) for your reply.
What would be a (some) good text(s) which are basic, reliable, recent
and unbiased. Keeping in mind that I am a tyro in this area with a lot
of hear-say knowlege(?).
When my coleagues carry on discussions concerning the physical
structures or vestigial anomalies it is relitive easy to follow (I have
a second PhD in that area) but the cultural aspects come only from
popular casual reading.
(asside with amusement) I would appreciate a short list, keeping up with
my primary area reading and research etc. etc. (the usual lamintations
of the over worked professor - with two years to partial retirement.)
Thank you,
witsun
-30-
Jon / Back41more
richa...@aol.com wrote in message <6hvco1$5mo$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>Most anthropologists would agree that the Egyptian population has changed
>very little from prehistoric times, down to the present day.
>
"That they were not exactly the same as the modern coastal inhabitants could
be explained by migration that occured after the breakdown of local
sovereignty following invasions from West Asia and Europe. Most important
was the Muslim period that brought some 2 million immigrants, mostly from
the Levant, Anatolia and the Aegean. In fact, in modern Cairo today, a
substantial portion of the population are Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Turks,
etc., of fairly recent arrival into the region.
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/anthro.htm
>
Mark Richardson
richa...@aol.com wrote in article <6hvco1$5mo$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In addition to Natsef-Amun, forensic artist Richard Neave also >
reconstructed the faces of two Egyptian brothers, found in a Middle >
Kingdom tomb. The inscriptions in the tomb left no doubt that Nekht-Ankh >
and Khnum-Nakht were brothers. Yet, Nekht-Ankh was found to have
>"caucasoid" features and
> Khnum-Nakht to have "negroid" features.
How were they defined as "brothers"? Same mother and father? Not perhaps
"Brothers-in Arms" as in Mahirpe/Amenhotep II ?
> The real question is this: Were the Egyptians a basically black people >
who later became intermixed with whites? Or were they a basically white >
people who later became intermixed with blacks?
>
> On this question, there is no general agreement. However, the weight of
> scholarly opinion seems to be shifting toward the former. Some forensic
> studies seem to show that negroid characteristics were more prevalent >
among the earliest Egyptians. .
I honestly do not think that it matters who they were so much as what they
did, or did not do. But it is interesting nevertheless to speculate. As you
speculate above as to the characteristics of the very Ancient Egyptians may
I throw in a quote from "Everyman's Encyclopedia" published in 1950:-
"In the British Musuem (Case A First Egyptian room) is the body of a man
whose grave was discovered on the West bank of the Nile in _Upper_ Egypt
(my underlining); he belonged to the later Neolithic age, a relic of remote
antiquity. He was buried on the left side with the knees drawn nearly up to
the chin; the hair and skin are fair, the fingers long and slender; by the
side of the body were flint knives and black, red and buff pottery,
pointing to the belief in the existence of a future life ieven in that
remote age."
As much as a single Natsef-Amun indicates that there was a negroid presence
during the later periods, so much would this appear to indicate that the
very earliest inhabitants were not negroid. I would nevertheless agree that
it presents no basis for dogmatic assertions as to the make up of the
founder population at the time of the Old Kingdom.
I am not aware if this body has been the subject of DNA testing but if it
was possible to recently test Neolithic remains from the Cheddar Gorge area
in England and establish a correspondence with DNA from current inhabitants
of the area, it would be interesting to know how far the DNA of these
remains corresponds with those of the current inhabitants.
>Moreover, the Egyptians spoke an African language, directly related to >
hundreds of other languages in Africa, and whose earliest ancestor >
appears to have arisen in Ethiopia. Many scholars have pointed to strong >
parallels between Egyptian culture and other African cultures, in the
realm > of art, religion, rituals of kingship and more
Agreed on the language, from what I have read it was one of the Hamitic
group of the Semitic-Hamitic languages. However, are you saying that
hundreds of other African languages fall into this group because that does
seem to be stretching it a bit? What languages of sub-Saharan Africa (other
than possibly Hausa) do you believe fall into this category?
In the area of religion and in the broadest possible sense, I understand
that indigenous African beliefs relate to the ancestral spirits and certain
"great spirits". I can see how,again, in the very broadest of possible
interpretations, this could be seen to relate to Egyptian beliefs but I
think that the same could be said for similar beliefs right across the
world and it would be interesting to know if you are intending something
more precise as a comparison or relationship.
Which African peoples' art do you believe is comparable in style or
conventions to that of the Ancient Egyptians?
"Rituals of Kingship" ? Do you mean the king as a living embodiment of a
god or gods? If so, this is hardly an Ancient Egyptian phenomenon. The king
as the earthly regent of God or gods is, or was, a widespread concept and
the further back in time one goes the closer the presumed relationship.
After all, the old Anglo-Saxon kings were "wotan geborn" and derived their
mystical authority from a superhuman source. Are the practices to which you
refer common to Ancient Egypt and African societies and peculiar to them
alone?
Mark Richardson
richa...@aol.com
In article <6i0ha3$j...@news3.newsguy.com>,
"Jon / Back41more" <back4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> richa...@aol.com wrote in message <6hvco1$5mo$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>
> >very little from prehistoric times, down to the present day.
> >
>
> be explained by migration that occured after the breakdown of local
> sovereignty following invasions from West Asia and Europe. Most important
> was the Muslim period that brought some 2 million immigrants, mostly from
> the Levant, Anatolia and the Aegean. In fact, in modern Cairo today, a
> substantial portion of the population are Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Turks,
> etc., of fairly recent arrival into the region.
>
> http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/anthro.htm
>
Your point is a good one. Egypt has indeed received large numbers of
immigrants in recent years, many of them of a lighter complexion and more
caucasoid aspect than the native Egyptians.
However, this sort of northern immigration appears to have been going on for
thousands of years, all the way back to the Stone Age, which probably
explains some of the fair-haired mummies that many people on this newsgroup
are continually citing.
If Egypt has been receiving a constant influx of people, from both north and
south, since the dawn of history, the result may well have been a kind of
equilibrium, in which the lighter and darker immigrants cancelled each other
out.
All of this, however, is highly speculative. Personally, I do not have a
strong opinion on the matter. Mainstream anthropologists do, however, tend to
see the modern Egyptian population as very similar to the prehistoric
population (rightly or wrongly).
Egyptologist Ann Macy Roth made this comment, on the matter:
"I have encountered arguments that the ancient Egyptians were much `blacker'
than their modern counterparts... However, given the size of the Egyptian
population against these comparatively minor waves of northern immigrants...
I doubt that the modern population is significantly darker or less `African'
than their ancient counterparts. IT SHOULD BE NOTED, HOWEVER, THAT WE REALLY
DO NOT KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION (emphasis mine). More research on
human remains needs to be, and is being, done."
Ann Macy Roth, "Building Bridges to Afrocentrism: A Letter to my
Egyptological Colleagues", American Research Center in Egypt Newsletter,
September 1995, page 15.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
______________________________________________________________________
richa...@aol.com
In article <6i09ev$soa$1...@newsd-122.bryant.webtv.net>,
wit...@webtv.net wrote:
>
> Thank you (Richard Poe) for your reply.
> What would be a (some) good text(s) which are basic, reliable, recent
> and unbiased. Keeping in mind that I am a tyro in this area with a lot
> of hear-say knowlege(?).
>
>
A good introduction to mainstream anthropological thought on ancient Egypt is:
Bruce G. Trigger, "Nubian, Negro, Black, Nilotic?", Africa in Antiquity, Vol.
I, The Brooklyn Museum, 1978, pages 27-35.
Cultural parallels between Egypt and other African peoples are explored in a
collection of essays entitled:
Egypt in Africa, (Theodore Celenko, editor), Indianapolis Museum of
Art/Indiana University Press, 1996.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
______________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
richa...@aol.com
In article <6i0fo8$u16$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
Jame...@aol.com wrote:
>
>
[snip]
>
> > The real question is this: Were the Egyptians a basically black people who
> > later became intermixed with whites? Or were they a basically white people
> > who later became intermixed with blacks?
> >
>
> geographic location, and its proximity to the Eurasian continent, the
> original Egyptians were genetically closer to those living in Europe and
> Asia, near the Mediterranean, than to central Africans. Since I do not know
> how Asians and Europeans originally looked (and Africans for that matter),
> this is all I can say.
>
We can quibble ad infinitum over whether the Egyptians themselves were
"black". However, there is no question that the Nubians were. One does not
have to go as far as "Central Africa" to find people who are "black" by
anyone's definition.
I might add that such "Mediterranean" peoples as the Greeks, Levantines and
Libyans were separated from Egypt by fearsome natural barriers, such as
deserts and seas. In order to travel from Egypt to Nubia, however, one had
only to don one's sandals and stroll from one end of Elephantine to the
other.
> > I hope I have made it clear, by now, that my view of the Egyptians' racial
> > origins is quite mainstream, and does not represent some eccentric theory
> > based on a single skull.
> >
>
> The title of your book does not suggest this.
>
Well, the title of my book certainly does suggest that the Egyptians were
black, if that's what you mean. Some specialists might dispute my choice of
words, but only on transparently frivolous semantic grounds.
Those who actually take the trouble to read my book, however, will find the
issue of Egyptian "blackness" laid out in nuts-and-bolts terms that few
experts would be able to contest.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
______________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
richa...@aol.com
In article <01bd71aa$55f76ea0$LocalHost@Pmarho>,
"Mark Richardson" <ma...@iafrica.com> wrote:
>
>
> richa...@aol.com wrote in article <6hvco1$5mo$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>
> reconstructed the faces of two Egyptian brothers, found in a Middle >
> Kingdom tomb. The inscriptions in the tomb left no doubt that Nekht-Ankh >
> and Khnum-Nakht were brothers. Yet, Nekht-Ankh was found to have
> >"caucasoid" features and
> > Khnum-Nakht to have "negroid" features.
>
> "Brothers-in Arms" as in Mahirpe/Amenhotep II ?
In the tomb inscriptions, both brothers were identified as the sons of a
woman named Khnum-aa, who was apparently an heiress of a land-owning family.
The "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht, was further identified as the son of a
local mayor. However, the father of Nekht-Ankh -- the "white" brother -- was
not specifically mentioned. This led some Egyptologists to speculate that the
two brothers might have had two different fathers, one of whom might have
been a Nubian. Others have suggested that the "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht,
may have been adopted.
Only recently has the possibility been seriously considered that Nekht-Ankh
and Khnum-Nakht may be exactly what they seem to be -- full brothers, with
the same mother and father. At the Manchester Museum, where the sarcophagi
and reconstructed heads of the Two Brothers are now on exhibit, the display
plaque reads: "However, it is accepted nowadays that a child may well inherit
a marked similarity to one of his parents while having no resemblance at all
to the other. This could well be the case with the two brothers."
What came as a revelation to the learned scientists and scholars who studied
the Two Brothers would have been obvious, from the beginning, to any African
American. In fact, it is quite common, among mixed populations, for one
sibling to come out with distinctly "black" features and another with
"white".
Until the Two Brothers are subjected to the new technique of DNA
"fingerprinting", we cannot know their actual relationship for sure. But
whether they are foster brothers, half-brothers, or full brothers, the mere
fact that they appear in the same family says a great deal about the racial
composition of ancient Egypt.
Even if Khnum-Nakht was only the half-brother of Nekht-Ankh, this would still
mean that his (allegedly) "Nubian" father would have been mayor of an
Egyptian town and husband to a wealthy Egyptian heiress.
The very negroid-looking Natsef-Amun also held lofty status in the priesthood
of Amun.
At one time, negroid-looking Egyptians were routinely dismissed as "Nubian"
immigrants or even slaves. But Richard Neave's reconstructions show that
negroid types could be found consistently among the wealthiest and
highest-ranking families in Egypt.
>
[snip]
>
> >Moreover, the Egyptians spoke an African language, directly related to >
> hundreds of other languages in Africa, and whose earliest ancestor >
> appears to have arisen in Ethiopia. Many scholars have pointed to strong >
> parallels between Egyptian culture and other African cultures, in the
> realm > of art, religion, rituals of kingship and more
>
> Agreed on the language, from what I have read it was one of the Hamitic
> group of the Semitic-Hamitic languages. However, are you saying that
> hundreds of other African languages fall into this group because that does
> seem to be stretching it a bit? What languages of sub-Saharan Africa (other
> than possibly Hausa) do you believe fall into this category?
>
The Chadic language family was found, by Joseph Greenberg, to be one of the
five component branches of the Afroasiatic language family (which you call by
its older name of Semitic-Hamitic).
The Chadic branch contains over 150 African tongues, spread over a vast area
of West Africa, including Nigeria and the Cameroons. It is, by far, the
largest branch of the entire Afroasiatic group.
All these languages are closely related to ancient Egyptian, as are the
Cushitic, Semitic and Berber branches of Afroasiatic.
> In the area of religion and in the broadest possible sense, I understand
> that indigenous African beliefs relate to the ancestral spirits and certain
> "great spirits". I can see how, again, in the very broadest of possible
> interpretations, this could be seen to relate to Egyptian beliefs but I
> think that the same could be said for similar beliefs right across the
> world and it would be interesting to know if you are intending something
> more precise as a comparison or relationship.
>
> Which African peoples' art do you believe is comparable in style or
> conventions to that of the Ancient Egyptians?
>
> "Rituals of Kingship" ? Do you mean the king as a living embodiment of a
> god or gods? If so, this is hardly an Ancient Egyptian phenomenon. The king
> as the earthly regent of God or gods is, or was, a widespread concept and
> the further back in time one goes the closer the presumed relationship.
> After all, the old Anglo-Saxon kings were "wotan geborn" and derived their
> mystical authority from a superhuman source. Are the practices to which you
> refer common to Ancient Egypt and African societies and peculiar to them
> alone?
>
> Mark Richardson
>
There is a great deal of literature on this subject, dating back at least to
the 1930s. See C.G. Seligman (1933), "Egypt and Negro Africa". Also Henri
Frankfort (1948), "Kingship and the Gods".
Both of these classic works and many others, more recent, abound with
specific and compelling examples of cultural parallels between Egypt and
other African peoples.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
_______________________________________________________________________
ke...@jps.net
In article <6i2bk8$skh$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In article <6i0ha3$j...@news3.newsguy.com>,
> "Jon / Back41more" <back4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > richa...@aol.com wrote in message <6hvco1$5mo$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> >
> > >very little from prehistoric times, down to the present day.
> > >
> >
could
> > be explained by migration that occured after the breakdown of local
> > sovereignty following invasions from West Asia and Europe. Most important
> > was the Muslim period that brought some 2 million immigrants, mostly from
> > the Levant, Anatolia and the Aegean. In fact, in modern Cairo today, a
> > substantial portion of the population are Greeks, Armenians, Syrians,
Turks,
> > etc., of fairly recent arrival into the region.
> >
> > http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/anthro.htm
> >
>
> Your point is a good one. Egypt has indeed received large numbers of
> immigrants in recent years, many of them of a lighter complexion and more
> caucasoid aspect than the native Egyptians.
>
> However, this sort of northern immigration appears to have been going on for
> thousands of years, all the way back to the Stone Age,
Depends on what you mean. I'm sure there were always different types
from way back among the desert nomads. However, if you ask an
ethnic Egyptian in Cairo today who owns and manages most of the
businesses in the posh downtown area, you will probably get a disdainful
look. Ethnic Egyptians often work as clerks, clean-up crew, security,
drivers, messengers, etc., while Armenians, Greeks, Lebanese, etc.,
own and run the businesses. When I was shopping around for good tickets
in Cairo, most of the travel agents I talked to were ethnic Greeks.
I doubt if this type of situation existed in ancient Greece.
The migrations that occurred during the Muslim period were of an
extraordinary nature. I don't know of any evidence of similar
migrations before or after with the exception possibly of the
Holocene migrations.
which probably
> explains some of the fair-haired mummies that many people on this newsgroup
> are continually citing.
I'm very doubtful about this fair-haired mummy business. The same kind
of reports can be found concerning mummies in Xinkiang and Peru. Much of
this stuff is pseudo-scientific and racially biased.
>
> If Egypt has been receiving a constant influx of people, from both north and
> south, since the dawn of history, the result may well have been a kind of
> equilibrium, in which the lighter and darker immigrants cancelled each other
> out.
>
> All of this, however, is highly speculative. Personally, I do not have a
> strong opinion on the matter. Mainstream anthropologists do, however, tend
to
> see the modern Egyptian population as very similar to the prehistoric
> population (rightly or wrongly).
I believe that most anthropologists assert that the ancient Egyptian
population was not greatly influenced by extra-African migrations -- the
so-called "New Race" theory. However, most believe in extensive intra-African
migration. For example, practically every anthropologist believes that
there were major migrations during the Holocene after the shifting of
the monsoons.
On my Royal Mummies website, I've just added a new page that describes
the mummy x-rays in context with what is known of early Mesolithic-
Holocene peoples. Changes did occur. And if one compares the royal
mummies in a craniofacial analysis to modern elite Lower
Egyptians, you will also find differences.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
richa...@aol.com
In article <199804272113...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>
> One can see a three-dimensional image of the skull of
> Natsef-Amun as displayed on a computer on page 165
> of "The Mummy's Tale" by Drs. David and Tapp. This
> skull exhibits no cranio-facial attributes that can be interpreted
> as " negroid". The bite is absolutely straight. There is no
> prognathism whatsoever.
Prognathism -- the jutting forward of the lower part of the face -- is
present in some Africans, but not all. If the absence of prognathism means
that a person is not "black" or "negroid", then millions of Somalis,
Ethiopians, Nubians and other East Africans will have to be eliminated from
the black race, despite their profoundly dark skin, frizzy hair, thick lips,
etc.
>
[snip]
>
> If an individual emerged from their reconstruction with
> "somewhat negroid features", as they describe him, I am
> not surprised. I think this reconstruction was done with
> considerable prejudice as to what an ancient Egyptian
> should look like.
If there was any bias in the reconstruction of Natsef-Amun, it was in the
opposite direction. The forensic artist Richard Neave commented to me, in an
interview, that Natsef-Amun's negroid features came as something of a shock
to him.
"It was surprising to me," said Neave. "I have to admit to not having
seriously thought about the fact that Egypt is part of the continent of
Africa." (Richard Poe, Black Spark, White Fire, page 433).
Since you evidently have a copy of The Mummy's Tale in hand, I direct your
attention to page 166. There, Neave explains that the standards of flesh
thickness he used in reconstructing Natsef-Amun's face were based upon
Caucasian models.
"These measurements..." wrote Neave, "give a range between emaciated and
obese, male and female, but they are not specific to any particular ethnic
group, being based on American Caucasians..."
(Dr. A.R. David and Dr. E. Tapp, The Mummy's Tale, St. Martin's Press, New
York, 1992, page 166)
Neave admitted to me that had he used standard measurements of flesh
thickness based upon black people, Natsef-Amun would likely have come out
looking even more negroid than he did.
> In fact, all the Manchester reconstructions
> show extremely ugly people, almost freakish, and I really wonder where they are
> trying to go with all this. Personally, I don't
> think they have the slightest idea what they are doing.
>
You won't get very far by questioning Neave's competence. He has a worldwide
reputation as one of the leaders in the field.
Most of Neave's work is done, not for archaeologists, but for police
detectives trying to identify dead bodies that have been burned, maimed or
decomposed beyond recognition. He has a high rate of success in reproducing
faces with sufficient accuracy that their living relatives can identify them.
> They
> have chosen to totally ignore the face on Natsef-Amun's coffin,
> dismissing it as "idealized", when in fact it is a good attempt
> at portraiture and not idealized at all. Probably, it just does
> not fit in with the ideas of the Manchester people that the ancient
> Egyptians were basically grotesque. They have made the two "Brothers" look
> like chaps one would never want to meet in a dark alley.
>
They ignored the face because it clearly did not resemble the person in the
coffin, as evidenced by Natsef-Amun's skull. Is it your opinion that artwork
should hold more weight, in a scientific examination, than forensic evidence?
As for the "grotesque" and "ugly" business, I personally thought that
Natsef-Amun was a very handsome fellow.
Shall I assume that, in the event that you were you put in charge of forensic
reconstructions at Manchester, you would make sure that all specimens came
out meeting your personal standards of "attractiveness" -- even if that meant
altering their fundamental racial characteristics?
> I have seen a number
> of mummies from Egypt and none ever suggested to me that they might have had
> faces like thugs.
>
[snip]
>
You are welcome to give your opinion, of course, but I wonder to what extent
your opinion is scientifically sound. Have you been trained in the highly
specialized techniques used for determining how mummies would have looked, in
real life? Or are you just guessing?
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
Katherine Griffis
On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 06:05:23 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <199804272113...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
> nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>>
>> One can see a three-dimensional image of the skull of
>> Natsef-Amun as displayed on a computer on page 165
>> of "The Mummy's Tale" by Drs. David and Tapp. This
>> skull exhibits no cranio-facial attributes that can be interpreted
>> as " negroid". The bite is absolutely straight. There is no
>> prognathism whatsoever.
>
>Prognathism -- the jutting forward of the lower part of the face -- is
>present in some Africans, but not all. If the absence of prognathism means
>that a person is not "black" or "negroid", then millions of Somalis,
>Ethiopians, Nubians and other East Africans will have to be eliminated from
>the black race, despite their profoundly dark skin, frizzy hair, thick lips,
>etc.
Yet prognathism is not necessarily a genetic (ie.or, in use of the
term in this argument only, a "racial") feature. One must take into
account the effects of diet, cultural habits, and in this case, the
tendency of the human face to maintain teeth at the same size, while
the overall jaw size has shrunk. This causes teeth crowding, which
is exacerbated into Class II malocclusions with the addition of
extended cultural habits of thumb-sucking. This was the point of
Harris' work in Nubia, BTW, and did NOT support the concept of a
totally genetic based to such malocclusions. Harris and Weeks'
studies, citing Harris' original work in Nubia, in _X-Raying the
Pharaohs_, noted this:
"...Buck teeth, called Class II malocclusions by orthodontics, are
common in the United States but rare in Egypt, and the size of the
Nubian sample [chosen ONLY as a homogeneous example and which could be
followed over a 2000 year span, and stated so specifically by Harris
and Weeks-KG] made it possible to determine the extent to which such
acquired habits such as thumb-sucking and tongue-thrusting forced the
teeth forward* and the extent to which the problem was genetic in
origin. HARRIS FOUND THAT SUCH CLASS II MALOCCLUSIONS AMONG NUBIANS
OCCURRED _ONLY_ AMONG THOSE CHILDREN WHO ALSO HAD ACQUIRED HABITS THAT
PUT ABNORMAL PRESSURE ON THEIR FRONT TEETH." (Capitalized emphasis
and _ _ mine) [p. 65]
*In the case of ancient Egyptian mummies, they noted that such
malocclusions likely occurred due to extended thumb sucking
habits, which is definitely attested to as a cultural habit among
children of the ancient Egyptians, and is in fact, a "symbol" of
childhood in Egyptian art. They also noted that the Harris study of
modern Nubian children indicated the same rationale (extended thumb
sucking and tongue thrusting) accounted for the buckteeth there as
well. IOW, neither Harris or Wente lay the development of prognathous
maxilla to any "racial" feature, but due to cultural habits of the
cultures of Nubia (ancient and modern) and ancient Egypt that allowed
long-term thumb sucking among the young.
In the _X-Ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies_, Wente and Harris noted the
malocclusions of the mummies of Tetisheri and Aahmes-Nefertari
[traditionally known as grandmother and granddaughter, respectively]
were very severe (maxillary dentition forward by almost a centimeter
beyond the mandibular dentition), but they were even hesitant in this
case to lay it to strictly _familial relationships_ between these two
women, noting
"...It is not possible through x-ray studies alone to determine
whether this condition was the result of heredity, environment (oral
habit), or a combination of the two. Certainly the severity of this
malocclusion and the close family relationship between these two
queens suggests a genetic predisposition! This type of malocclusion
is frequently seen in Western and/or American populations [NB: where
the populations are quite _heterogeneous_ - KG] and represents the
majority of patients treated in the orthodontic office. However, oral
habits, such as thumb-sucking and abnormal tongue position in
swallowing, may induce a similar malocclusion (vid. Fig 9.8 - statue
of Rameses II as a child sucking his thumb). Harris, et al., have
noted that the Nubian people, who have basically a normal molar
relationship, may demonstrate an abnormal molar relationship or
maxillary prognathism associated with oral habits (vid. Fig. 9.9 -
which shows a cast of a prognathous maxilla, with the note: "Dental
cast of a Nubian schoolchild with a malocclusion resulting from a
thumb-sucking habit (prognathic maxilla).")." [ pp. 331-332, 343]
So, I think that discussion of prognathism in craniofacial studies
must be tempered with the fact that rather than strictly a genetic
feature, other factors such as diet, cultural and oral habits, and
even the progressive nature of the shrinking of jaw size in the human
skull, which causes teeth crowding (which occurs over an extended
period of time, and amongst both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups,
as indicated by Wente and Harris) must be taken into account rather
than a facile statement that such feature indicates a "racial" aspect.
Regards --
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Member, American Research Center in Egypt
International Association of Egyptologists
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/1692/index.html
Reading mail from me in a Usenet group does not
grant you the right to send me unsolicited commercial e-mail.
All senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail will be
reported to their postmasters as Usenet abusers.
Katherine Griffis
On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 06:05:23 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <199804272113...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
> nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
<snip>
One thing that seems clear in most forensic reconstructions is that
certain subjective assumptions must be made, and one being that of
tissue depth. In x-ray/MRI models, there is a tendency to "flatten"
the tissue distribution and have not proved to be beneficial in
computerized reconstructions, for example. As such, those methods use
a _wide_ range of "tissue factors" to be laid in, based upon age
determination, sex, and DNA information supplied by examination of
remains (such as disease tendencies, population affinities). IOW,
tissue distribution (which accounts for thickness of skin at certain
points (such as lips, cheeks, nose, etc.) can be manipulated based
upon the choice of the "artist" in his computer rendering.
At best in either clay or computer models, one can only make "general"
features stand out from the skeletal features alone: the rest depends
upon the _artistic skill_ (read: subjective choices) that forensic
artists make to account for "life-like" features. Neave is a great
artist, but cannot attest with a certainty that any rendering is how
the individual looked. As he states in his comments in _A Mummy's
Tale_:
"...It is, however, very important to understand that, whilst a strong
similarity can be achieved, it is not possible to produce a completely
accurate portrait, since there are too many variables both in terms of
tissue thickness and in surface details such as spots, folds,
wrinkles, creases, scars and so forth. The exact details of the eyes
cannot be gleaned from the skull alone, and neither can the _shape of
the lips, the tip of the nose or the ears_; all of these features are
inevitably subject to experience and 'feel' [of the artist - KG].
Thus when we come to consider a reconstruction of the head of
Natsef-Amun, it can be argued that certain details are not totally
accurate, but his close friends and family would almost certainly
recognize him..." (p. 166) [Emphasis _ _ mine] <Dr. A.R. David and
Dr. E. Tapp, The Mummy's Tale, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992>
>You won't get very far by questioning Neave's competence. He has a worldwide
>reputation as one of the leaders in the field.
>
>Most of Neave's work is done, not for archaeologists, but for police
>detectives trying to identify dead bodies that have been burned, maimed or
>decomposed beyond recognition. He has a high rate of success in reproducing
>faces with sufficient accuracy that their living relatives can identify them.
Yes, but Neave's assumption on tissue depth here is based upon the
_modern studies_ of human beings today. Insofar as we do not have any
sort of forensic tissue chart of ancient peoples, then we must take
Neaves' rendering as based upon how forensic methods are based upon a
totally different set of human features and models based upon modern
humans today. As such, the intermingling of peoples over the last
3000 years does not render a human type (upon which the tissue depth
charts are based) that existed when Natsef-Amun lived. Therefore,
once again, Neave had to make certain assumptions even within his
scientific models for tissue depth, for example - assuming that tissue
depth measurements remained constant for the last 3000 years. I don't
think that even forensic artist are willing to presume that as a fact,
and I know of no study that maintains it.
In a recent exchange I had with a police forensic artist, he noted
that all tissue depth assumptions in forensic art are based upon
studies of live and cadaver studies of modern humans, with
acknowledgement of general assumptions made by forensic pathologists
of skeletal remains as to age, sex and race. In this sense, the artist
then makes personal artistic choices about his subject. This is, from
my reading of Neave's article, is exactly what he is saying he has
done.
BTW, one of the problems that has been noted forensically is that
"race" determination is tricky where several different groups of
people live within the same area, and that a presumption of "racial
separation" cannot be maintained, factually, even in ancient times.
This means that, at best, the forensic artist can go with some "middle
ground" assumptions about his subject, and in this case of the rather
diverse nature of the ancient Egyptian populace of the 19th Dynasty
(attested to by text and art of the period), then I don't think that
one should be surprised that Natsef-Amun appears "negroid", as it is
shown that Nubians had been well-absorbed into Egyptian society by
that time.
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <3546ca5d....@news.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com (Katherine Griffis) wrote:
>On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 06:05:23 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
HARRIS FOUND THAT SUCH CLASS II MALOCCLUSIONS AMONG NUBIANS
>OCCURRED _ONLY_ AMONG THOSE CHILDREN WHO ALSO HAD ACQUIRED HABITS THAT
>PUT ABNORMAL PRESSURE ON THEIR FRONT TEETH." (Capitalized emphasis
>and _ _ mine) [p. 65]
>
Thumb-sucking causes prognathism only very rarely among persons
who continue this practice to a more advanced age than usual.
There are numerous studies that show dental prognathism is genetic in
the great majority of cases.
All cultures practice thumb-sucking to a degree, but not all have
rates of dental alveolar prognathism.
The data produced by Wente and Harris show that in most of hte more
important cephalometric norms, the royal mummies were closer to Africans.
For example a number of studies, including those of Drummond, Alexander
and Hamilton, Jacobson, Fonseca and Klein, suggest that an angular mandible,
vertical chin, and protrusion of the incisors are the most pronounced
distinguishing features between Africans and Europeans. The royal mummies
display all these traits in high frequencies.
WM Krogman, who is called the doyen of physical anthropologists in Harris and
Wente, states the most important features to examine in distinguishing people
of African descent are rounded glabella, rounded forehead, sagittal plateau,
prognathism, rounded occiput and rectangular orbits. Forensic scientist, S
Rhine again mentions a vertical receding chin, and adds the feature of a vertical
zygomatic arch. Most anthropologists agree that most modern Africans tend to have
very rounded skulls. Again, the profiles of the royal mummies conform to this type
of head shape.
A comparison of the royal mummies with Mesolithic and more recent Nubian crania
can be found at my website on the royal mummies. One peculiar feature found
among both ancient and modern Nubians, and also among the royal mummies is an
'occipital bun.' Follow the links to the section of descriptions of the x-rays of
Harris and Wente.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Alex
richa...@aol.com heeft geschreven in bericht <6i4d5j$ld0$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>If there was any bias in the reconstruction of Natsef-Amun, it was in the
>opposite direction. The forensic artist Richard Neave commented to me, in an
>interview, that Natsef-Amun's negroid features came as something of a shock
>to him.
>
>"It was surprising to me," said Neave. "I have to admit to not having
>seriously thought about the fact that Egypt is part of the continent of
>Africa." (Richard Poe, Black Spark, White Fire, page 433).
I find this a puzzling statement, but perhaps characteristic of the mindset
that tries to seperate "Africa Proper" (i.e. "Sub-Saharan" Africa) from the
world around it. Is Richard Neave going to attempt another reconstruction
of Natsef-Amun, with thicknesses of flesh that _are_ representative of
African people, or are we going to be stuck with this image forever?
Alex van Deelen
LDavis
I dont know where this thread come from or is going but one point, Don't
black people have two more teeth than white? Do the people of upper
Africa have a different number of teeth than those in lower Africa? On
one trip to Africa few years ago I had a medical person tell me that
Africans (speaking of people in Zimbabwe) had two more teeth, the 5th
dentical, or some thing like that. But, having said all of this, even if
there is or was a difference in this group or that group, so what?
Jame...@aol.com
In article <6i2dde$v7e$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In article <6i0fo8$u16$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> Jame...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > > later became intermixed with whites? Or were they a basically white people
> > > who later became intermixed with blacks?
> > >
> >
> > geographic location, and its proximity to the Eurasian continent, the
> > original Egyptians were genetically closer to those living in Europe and
> > Asia, near the Mediterranean, than to central Africans. Since I do not know
> > how Asians and Europeans originally looked (and Africans for that matter),
> > this is all I can say.
> >
>
> We can quibble ad infinitum over whether the Egyptians themselves were
> "black". However, there is no question that the Nubians were. One does not
> have to go as far as "Central Africa" to find people who are "black" by
> anyone's definition.
>
> I might add that such "Mediterranean" peoples as the Greeks, Levantines and
> Libyans were separated from Egypt by fearsome natural barriers, such as
> deserts and seas. In order to travel from Egypt to Nubia, however, one had
> only to don one's sandals and stroll from one end of Elephantine to the
> other.
>
I am not implying that Egyptians came from Europe, but rather that Europeans
and Asians came from Egypt and other parts of north Africa. When this
occurred, the Mediterranean region was much different than it is today, so
those "fearsome natural barriers" you mentioned, may not have been a factor;
afterall, early humans did manage to migrate out of Africa. Furthermore, it
appears that the sea level of the Mediterranean was much lower before the end
of the last ice age, so the regions surrounding the Mediterranean were even
closer than they are today.
Please understand, I did not make an opinion as to whether the first
Egyptians were "white" or "black". Instead, I stated that they were
genetically closer to those living in Eurasia, near the Mediterranean, than
to central Africans. So if you believe that Eurasian Mediterraneans were
"black" during this period, you could say that the first Egyptians were
"black".
> > > I hope I have made it clear, by now, that my view of the Egyptians' racial
> > > origins is quite mainstream, and does not represent some eccentric theory
> > > based on a single skull.
> > >
> >
> > The title of your book does not suggest this.
> >
>
> Well, the title of my book certainly does suggest that the Egyptians were
> black, if that's what you mean. Some specialists might dispute my choice of
> words, but only on transparently frivolous semantic grounds.
>
Not only this, but your analogy between European civilization and fire.
Sincerely,
James Kalohelani
Katherine Griffis
On Tue, 28 Apr 98 13:11:33 GMT, ke...@jps.net (Paul Kekai Manansala)
wrote:
>In article <3546ca5d....@news.mindspring.com>,
> gri...@mindspring.com (Katherine Griffis) wrote:
>>On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 06:05:23 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>>
> HARRIS FOUND THAT SUCH CLASS II MALOCCLUSIONS AMONG NUBIANS
>>OCCURRED _ONLY_ AMONG THOSE CHILDREN WHO ALSO HAD ACQUIRED HABITS THAT
>>PUT ABNORMAL PRESSURE ON THEIR FRONT TEETH." (Capitalized emphasis
>>and _ _ mine) [p. 65]
>>
>
>Thumb-sucking causes prognathism only very rarely among persons
>who continue this practice to a more advanced age than usual.
>There are numerous studies that show dental prognathism is genetic in
>the great majority of cases.
>
>All cultures practice thumb-sucking to a degree, but not all have
>rates of dental alveolar prognathism.
You tended to gloss over the issue of teeth crowding due to the
shrinking of the jaw, however, Paul. My point was that thumb-sucking,
combined with the teeth crowding, is a _cultural phenomenon_, and
therefore, its resulting prognathism is not genetic as a matter of
fact.
Wente and Harris in their _Atlas_ indicated that one has to consider
that the Egyptian symbolism of childhood with "thumb-sucking" for an
extended period of time is evidenced in the art itself, and as such,
was a feature that occurred in ancient Egyptian culture. Their main
point was that thumb-sucking for long periods still occurs today among
the modern Nubians.
I also note with some interest that Krogman does not tend to use any
of these "typings" from his _The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine_
(1962) as you have shown on your website as "proof" that the mummies
were somehow "Africoid" or makes any comment that the prognathism
evident in the mummies relates to any sort of origin points.
>Forensic scientist, S
>Rhine again mentions a vertical receding chin, and adds the feature of a vertical
>zygomatic arch. Most anthropologists agree that most modern Africans tend to have
>very rounded skulls. Again, the profiles of the royal mummies conform to this type
>of head shape.
Apparently, not all forensic scientists agree in this, however. This
is a general comment on "estimating ancestry" from the Department of
Anthropology, Dr. Randy Skelton, located at
http://taylor.anthro.umt.edu/notes/464/l05_464.htm:
Chins: "....Africans tend to exhibit sharp, pointed chins.
American/Asians tend to have rounded chins that are not prominent.
Europeans tend to have more square chins, of medium prominence."
"...Head shape: American/Asians are often described as round-headed.
Africans are the opposite, with a tendency toward long narrow skulls.
Africans are often described as long-headed. Europeans are
intermediate and are often described as medium-headed. "
So, this is one of the problems in attempting to prove "racial"
characteristics by the use of forensics - there seems to be no pattern
of agreement at this time. Again, as I indicated before, present
forensic sciences can only make "guesstimates" based on studies of
_modern_ humans at any rate, and since we do not have proper tissue
studies of ancient peoples, it is not quite possible to make flat
statements as to "race" based on the forensic examinations.
Gisele
Jame...@aol.com wrote:
> Furthermore, it
> appears that the sea level of the Mediterranean was much lower before the end
> of the last ice age, so the regions surrounding the Mediterranean were even
> closer than they are today.
Seems to me that a good understanding of the water levels in the Mediterranean would
be helpful in understanding the movements of early people. I was just reading about
Mediterranean water levels in HG Wells Outline of History. I know that the
information and theories presented in the book are quite old but I often feel that
older history books are less biased and provide additional material which can be
checked out in more recent sources. In any case, I'd be interested in finding out
how some of the knowledge and ideas presented by Wells measures up to today's
knowledge.
Wells wrote that the Mediterranean is a 'sea of evaporation' meaning that the rivers
that flow into it do not make up for the evaporation from its surface. He
concluded, for this reason, that the Mediterranean must have been previously closed
at the location of the Strait of Gibraltar and further speculated that the earlier
Mediterranean area had been two seas - a freshwater one in the eastern depression
which drained into the another in the western depression. Wells further stated that
there was evidence of the Strait of Gibralter being opened up as there is an
"enormous valley running up from the Mediterranean deep right through the Straits
and trenching some distance out on the Atlantic shelf. He believed that this valley
or gorge was the work of inflowing waters at the termination of the last ice age
which he placed between 15,000 and 10,000 BC.
What are the latest thoughts on this?
Gisele
Mark Richardson
richa...@aol.com wrote in article <6i2fvj$30d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <01bd71aa$55f76ea0$LocalHost@Pmarho>,
> >
> >
> > richa...@aol.com wrote in article
<6hvco1$5mo$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> >
> . The inscriptions in the tomb left no doubt that Nekht-Ankh >
> > and Khnum-Nakht were brothers. Yet, Nekht-Ankh was found to have
> > >"caucasoid" features and
> > > Khnum-Nakht to have "negroid" features.
> >> "Mark Richardson" <ma...@iafrica.com> wrote:
> > How were they defined as "brothers"? Same mother and father? Not > >
perhaps "Brothers-in Arms" as in Mahirpe/Amenhotep II ?
>
> In the tomb inscriptions, both brothers were identified as the sons of a
> woman named Khnum-aa, who was apparently an heiress of a land-owning >
family. The "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht, was further identified as the son
> of a local mayor. However, the father of Nekht-Ankh -- the "white"
brother -- > was not specifically mentioned. This led some Egyptologists to
speculate > that the two brothers might have had two different fathers, one
of whom >might have been a Nubian.
Obviously the most likely explanation. Why the query, "might have been a
Nubian?", that would also seem to a given in the situation. It also begs
the question but it is presumably taken for granted that Mrs Khnum-aa was
"white".
> . Others have suggested that the "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht,
> may have been adopted.
A very good possibility and not, I would imagine, altogether uncommon.
>
> Only recently has the possibility been seriously considered that Nekht->
Ankh and Khnum-Nakht may be exactly what they seem to be -- full >
brothers, with the same mother and father. At the Manchester Museum, >
where the sarcophagi and reconstructed heads of the Two Brothers are > now
on exhibit, the display plaque reads: "However, it is accepted > nowadays
that a child may well inherit a marked similarity to one of his > parents
while having no resemblance at all to the other. This could well be > the
case with the two brothers."
There seems to be a touch of "looking after Mrs Khnum-aa's reputation",
even at this late stage. With the advent of DNA testing and the more it
refined it becomes, the likelihood of this explanation being accepted will
become less and less. That such things happen is not impossible, but the
obvious answer is usually the correct one and Mrs -aa probably had a roving
eye.
>
> What came as a revelation to the learned scientists and scholars who >
studied the Two Brothers would have been obvious, from the beginning, to >
any African American. In fact, it is quite common, among mixed >
populations, for one sibling to come out with distinctly "black" features
and > another with "white".
See above. I also live in a country with very mixed populations but once
again, the obvious answer is generally the correct one.
> Until the Two Brothers are subjected to the new technique of DNA
> "fingerprinting", we cannot know their actual relationship for sure. But
> whether they are foster brothers, half-brothers, or full brothers, the
mere
> fact that they appear in the same family says a great deal about the
racial
> composition of ancient Egypt.
> Even if Khnum-Nakht was only the half-brother of Nekht-Ankh, this would >
still mean that his (allegedly) "Nubian" father would have been mayor of an
> Egyptian town and husband to a wealthy Egyptian heiress.
I do not think that there would be serious argument about the possibility
of a Nubian mayor from the period 1200BC onwards. However, you did not
state where the tomb was and to which period it was dated. Obviously if it
came from the period of, say, the 25th Dynasty and was located in Upper
Egypt the fact of a Nubian mayor would not be the occasion for any comment
at all.
The racial composition of "Ancient Egypt" is a very broad statement to make
given the extremely long period of time that the term implies. It could, at
an extreme level, be taken to mean the period from 5000BC to the Ptolomies
concurrent with the Romans. Our current period from the Renaissance to date
is only about 500 years and it is probably as well to consider what
movements of populations could and did occur over the vastly longer period
of Ancient Egypt. I suppose hoever that people would generally associate
the term with the 4th Dynasty and the pyramids to that of Rameses III.
Also, if one speaks of particular officials, one can compare the present
situation. What, for example, will a future historian, with limited
material available to him, make of Colin Powell as Chief of Staff as this
relates to the situation of blacks generally in the USA?
>
> The very negroid-looking Natsef-Amun also held lofty status in the > >
priesthood of Amun.
This again begs the question of the period. If it is fair to say that there
was a correspondence between civil and sacred appointments and that these
were in the gift of the pharoah at the time (or his immediate
administration) then a Nubian priest holding office during the reign of a
Nubian pharoah would not be in the least unusual.
>
> At one time, negroid-looking Egyptians were routinely dismissed as >
"Nubian" immigrants or even slaves. But Richard Neave's reconstructions >
show that negroid types could be found consistently among the wealthiest >
and highest-ranking families in Egypt.
Once again, the period is germane. At one time it would certainly have been
fair to say that they were slaves (and conscripted soldiers) and at another
that they held positions of influence. Imagine my future historian with his
scanty records, examining the Reconstruction period after the Civil War,
having to establish relative authority between racial groups based on the
records of civl appointments in the Southern states from 1865 to say 1870.
> > Agreed on the language, from what I have read it was one of the Hamitic
> > group of the Semitic-Hamitic languages. However, are you saying that
> > hundreds of other African languages fall into this group because that >
> does seem to be stretching it a bit? What languages of sub-Saharan > >
Africa (other than possibly Hausa) do you believe fall into this category?
> >
>
> The Chadic language family was found, by Joseph Greenberg, to be one of >
the five component branches of the Afroasiatic language family (which you >
call by its older name of Semitic-Hamitic). The Chadic branch contains >
over 150 African tongues, spread over a vast area of West Africa, including
> Nigeria and the Cameroons. It is, by far, the largest branch of the
entire > > Afroasiatic group.
Getting into another minefield here, but 150 tongues seems a touch
excessive if one is talking of languange. Would dialects not be a better
term? This presents a most sensitive topic all on it's own and one in which
I would not participate through lack of any detail at all. But, suffice to
say that the language must have moved from East to West and that the
speakers either conquered and removed previous inhabitants, or conquered
and dominated them to the extent of imposing their language. The preset
political situation in NIgeria might be said to be a continuation of this.
> >
>
> There is a great deal of literature on this subject, dating back at least
to
> the 1930s. See C.G. Seligman (1933), "Egypt and Negro Africa". Also >
Henri Frankfort (1948), "Kingship and the Gods".
>
> Both of these classic works and many others, more recent, abound with
> specific and compelling examples of cultural parallels between Egypt and
> other African peoples.
I have not,unfortunately, read any of these works and the resources that I
have close at hand mean that I am unlikely to be able to. However, I
suspect that, in general, the rituals of kingship would have parallels
throughout all societies. It would be interesting to know where specific
correspondences existed between Ancient Egyptian and African societies
which existed nowhere else.
Mark Richardson
richa...@aol.com
In article <3548ec9f....@news.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> This means that, at best, the forensic artist can go with some "middle
> ground" assumptions about his subject, and in this case of the rather
> diverse nature of the ancient Egyptian populace of the 19th Dynasty
> (attested to by text and art of the period), then I don't think that
> one should be surprised that Natsef-Amun appears "negroid", as it is
> shown that Nubians had been well-absorbed into Egyptian society by
> that time.
>
In an earlier thread, the question was asked, "Were the Egyptians a basically
white people who later became intermixed with blacks, or a basically black
people who later became intermixed with whites?"
Your explanation for Natsef-Amun's negroid appearance seems to suggest that
you adhere to the former hypothesis -- that the Egyptians were white, and
that negroid traits such as those of Natsef-Amun came later, through "Nubian"
immigration.
I believe that many anthropologists would disagree with you.
In discussing the Badari culture, for example -- Egypt's earliest predynastic
civilization (4400-4000 BC) -- Shomarka Keita writes that many researchers
have found their remains to be "fundamentally `Negroid'."
Going back even further in time, Keita states:
"...late paleolithic remains from Egypt indicate characteristics which
distinguish them clearly from their European counterparts at 30,000 and
20,000 years BP... These distinguishing characteristics, commonly called
`Negroid,' are shared with later Nile valley and more southerly groups...
Epipaleolithic `mesolithic' Nile valley remains have these characteristics
and diverge notably from their Maghreban and European counterparts in key
craniofacial characteristics."
(S.O.Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological
Relationships", History in Africa 20 (1993), page 135).
All this would suggest that people resembling Natsef-Amun were living in
Egypt thousands of years before "Egypt" even existed as a political entity.
richa...@aol.com
In article <199804281624...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>
> >
> >Prognathism -- the jutting forward of the lower part of the face -- is
> >present in some Africans, but not all. If the absence of prognathism means
> >that a person is not "black" or "negroid", then millions of Somalis,
> >Ethiopians, Nubians and other East Africans will have to be eliminated from
> >the black race, despite their profoundly dark skin, frizzy hair, thick lips,
> >etc.
>
> NONE of the features you mention and his hair was never shown
> in the book--what can possibly be your reason for considering
> him a man that was of Nubian stock?
>
Actually, I see no compelling reason for assuming that Natsef-Amun was of
"Nubian" stock. Personally, I think he was a native Egyptian, who happened to
have negroid features.
Neave, however, does indeed think of Natsef-Amun as a "Nubian", following the
conventional Egyptological practice of labelling all negroid-looking people
in the Nile Valley as "Nubians".
Why Neave reconstructed Natsef-Amun with negroid features, in the first
place, is another question. Personally, I trust his judgment, since Neave is
an internationally renowned expert, in this field. Obviously, you have a
different opinion.
Considering the very narrow definition of "negroid" that you have expressed,
I wonder whether you would describe the skull of a Haile Selassie or an Iman
as "Caucasian" too.
Bioanthropologist Shomarka Keita believes that people with "Caucasoid" skulls
such as those of Iman or Haile Selassie should be considered just as African,
biologically speaking, as people who live in the Congo. He criticizes the
tendency of some experts to restrict the definition of "African" only to
those Africans who exhibit the most exaggerated "negroid" features (such as
extreme prognathism). Keita writes:
"In general, this restricted view presents all tropical Africans with
narrower noses and faces as being related to or descended from external,
ultimately non-African peoples. However, narrow-faced, narrow-nosed
populations have long been resident in Saharo-tropical Africa... and their
origin need not be sought elsewhere. These traits are also indigenous. The
variability in tropical Africa is expectedly naturally high. Given their
longstanding presence, narrow noses and faces cannot be deemed
`non-African.'"
(S.O.Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological
Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993), page 134)
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
_________________________________________________________________________
ke...@jps.net
In article <3547804c...@news.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> On Tue, 28 Apr 98 13:11:33 GMT, ke...@jps.net (Paul Kekai Manansala)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <3546ca5d....@news.mindspring.com>,
> > gri...@mindspring.com (Katherine Griffis) wrote:
> >>
> > HARRIS FOUND THAT SUCH CLASS II MALOCCLUSIONS AMONG NUBIANS
> >>OCCURRED _ONLY_ AMONG THOSE CHILDREN WHO ALSO HAD ACQUIRED HABITS THAT
> >>PUT ABNORMAL PRESSURE ON THEIR FRONT TEETH." (Capitalized emphasis
> >>and _ _ mine) [p. 65]
> >>
> >
> >who continue this practice to a more advanced age than usual.
> >There are numerous studies that show dental prognathism is genetic in
> >the great majority of cases.
> >
> >All cultures practice thumb-sucking to a degree, but not all have
> >rates of dental alveolar prognathism.
>
> You tended to gloss over the issue of teeth crowding due to the
> shrinking of the jaw, however, Paul. My point was that thumb-sucking,
> combined with the teeth crowding, is a _cultural phenomenon_, and
> therefore, its resulting prognathism is not genetic as a matter of
> fact.
Again, that is not correct. Thumb sucking is nowhere a major cause of
prognathism. And when it does cause prognathism it is nearly always
dental prognathism. It does not cause maxillary or mandibular prognathism.
>
> Wente and Harris in their _Atlas_ indicated that one has to consider
> that the Egyptian symbolism of childhood with "thumb-sucking" for an
> extended period of time is evidenced in the art itself, and as such,
> was a feature that occurred in ancient Egyptian culture. Their main
> point was that thumb-sucking for long periods still occurs today among
> the modern Nubians.
This occurs in many cultures, but still does not cause the whole society
to become prognathous.
>
> I also note with some interest that Krogman does not tend to use any
> of these "typings" from his _The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine_
> (1962) as you have shown on your website as "proof" that the mummies
> were somehow "Africoid" or makes any comment that the prognathism
> evident in the mummies relates to any sort of origin points.
>
Krogman did not write the article on the cephalometric data in Wente and
Harris. However, the features he listed are there to find in the book
you cite above, and also on the cephalometric drawings provided in Wente
and Harris. And the features present were more than just prognathism.
> >Forensic scientist, S
> >Rhine again mentions a vertical receding chin, and adds the feature of a
vertical
> >zygomatic arch. Most anthropologists agree that most modern Africans tend
to have
> >very rounded skulls. Again, the profiles of the royal mummies conform to
this type
> >of head shape.
>
> Apparently, not all forensic scientists agree in this, however. This
> is a general comment on "estimating ancestry" from the Department of
> Anthropology, Dr. Randy Skelton, located at
> http://taylor.anthro.umt.edu/notes/464/l05_464.htm:
>
> Chins: "....Africans tend to exhibit sharp, pointed chins.
> American/Asians tend to have rounded chins that are not prominent.
> Europeans tend to have more square chins, of medium prominence."
>
Again, this does not argue at all with the information given above. The
description "sharp, pointed chins" refers to their blunt and vertical nature.
They tend to point downward and not anteriorally. They are not rounded,
prominent or bilobate as in Europeans. Nearly every forensic description
agrees in this regard. Also, all the royal mummies have long heads as shown
by cranial index. Strangely, Brace uses narrow faces as evidence that
Egyptians were not related to West Africans.
All the foresenic typologies and cephalometric norms are listed at my website
and along with references. Anyone can look at the tracings and decide for
themselves.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
H.W.M.
There is a theory that the deluge myth is due to the waters of the
Atlantic flowing into the Mediterranean . It is a pretty accepted theory
that the Black Sea was filled with waters from the Mediterranean, but
the deluge myths are still compromised.
Though the surveys of the bottom of the Mediterranean have brought up a
layer of salt between a layer of mud, consistent to the theory that if
the Mediterranean Basin was once an inland lake and a salt basin that
one day the levee broke at the Pillars of Heracles, and the waters of
the Atlantic flooded in...
Just to spark a bit of your imagination...'
HWM
FKoe
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 01:28:56 -0600, Gisele <horv...@oanet.com> wrote:
>Wells wrote that the Mediterranean is a 'sea of evaporation' meaning that the rivers
>that flow into it do not make up for the evaporation from its surface. He
>concluded, for this reason, that the Mediterranean must have been previously closed
>at the location of the Strait of Gibraltar and further speculated that the earlier
>Mediterranean area had been two seas - a freshwater one in the eastern depression
>which drained into the another in the western depression. Wells further stated that
>there was evidence of the Strait of Gibralter being opened up as there is an
>"enormous valley running up from the Mediterranean deep right through the Straits
>and trenching some distance out on the Atlantic shelf. He believed that this valley
>or gorge was the work of inflowing waters at the termination of the last ice age
>which he placed between 15,000 and 10,000 BC.
>
>What are the latest thoughts on this?
>
>Gisele
>
Bovine fertilizer, at least what you make of it.
The Mediterranean was closed sometime, I think it was the Eocene, a
mere 40 million years ago. The water that filled it, did not flow
through the Strait of Gibraltar which remained closed then, but across
southern Spain, to enter the Mediterranean basin about at Alicante.
The mountains west of Alicante have been uplifted since then.
I have forgotten when the Strait of Gibraltar opened, but it surely
was a couple dozen million years ago, too. During the Pleistocene the
Strait was open, and the sea level in the Mediterranean changed
together with the rest of the world's oceans, i.e. sometimes it was
near today's level, sometimes it was 150m below today. The Delta of
the Nile did not exist then. It started to buid up (plus the deltas of
the Hoangho, Yangzekiang, Mississippi, Niger, Rhine, Amazonas, Ganges,
Indus, Euphrat-Tigris, you name it) after 6000 BCE, because that was
the time when the post-pleistocene rising of the sea level slowed
sufficiently to permit deltas to build up.
FKoe
pere...@T-Online.de --> correct @@@ to @
Aachen, Germany
________________________________________________
Daddy, what does it mean, "Formatting C"?
Wayne B. Hewitt
The Mediterranean dried up more than once during the Pliocene period,
something like 5 or 6 million years ago. Core samples clearly reveal this
geologic history, but the flood that occured when "the levee broke."
Unfortunately, a little to early except for Science Fiction writers like
Julian May.
The flooding of the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf were about(?) 6,000
BCE. Others have quoted dates of about 2,900 BCE for great floods of the
Tigris & Euphrates. I'm not sure we'll ever know which "Flood" which
"Myth" is refering to. I would like to believe the older histories, but of
course I have no proof.
--
_B_a_r_b_a_r_o_s_s_a_ ;^{>
Encinitas, California
X-Face by "Saving Face" <http://www.santafe.edu/~smfr/utils.html>
David Freeman
All of the geological histories I've read recently indicate this. The
Med was a lake, and the Strait was the 'dam' blocking the Med from the
Atlantic. Several thousand years ago, a massive earthquake dissplace
the rock and earth forming the dam, and the Atlantic poured in. The Med
is between tectonic plates moving away from each other, so the Med was
alittle bit narrower, too. (not that it would have made a difference)
Also, several thouand years ago, the Sahara was well-watered savannah,
with forests, grasslands, and abundant wildlife. A river system larger
than the Nile drained the central area, and early peoples marked their
presence with cave and rock paintings.
It is obvious that early humans (who originate in africa) migrated
through the Sahara, across the Med to Europ, and through Sinai to the
Middle East. Whether or not they were black can't be told, more likely
than not they were dark-skinned. Who cares?
As the Med filled with water from the Atlantic, and the Sahara slowly
dried out, the two populations lost any contact with each other, and
over the years, certain physical characteristics diverged. At the same
time, the Saharan population moved north towards the coast (I don't know
times for the Med and Sahara, possibility that these refugees were the
main colonizing wave to hit Europe), south, and remained in the East,
where the Nile continued to flow.
The ancient Egyptians were more 'African' than 'European' since they had
more contact with the south than the north. However, they were also
heavily influenced by Semitic tribes that periodically invaded Egypt.
The original Egyptian stock may not have been 'black,' per se, either.
Since ancient peoples didn't seem to make much of a deal about skin
color, we really don't know all that much.
What about the Berber? Lighter-skinned than their southern neighbors,
they were present throughout northern Africa before the Arabs showed up,
and I haven't seen much history about them. Could they descendants o
the original Saharan people, as the Egyptians could have been? Were
they refugees from the coastal cities of Carthage?
Does anybody actually care what color skin the Egyptians had? I mean,
if anybody does care, I would imagine that they ran the gamut from
Semitic to Nubian, with the 'average' Egyptian being lighter-skinned
than the Nubians, or black Africans to the south, but darker-skinned
than the Semitic tribes to the northeast.
Gisele wrote:
>
>
> Wells wrote that the Mediterranean is a 'sea of evaporation' meaning that the rivers
> that flow into it do not make up for the evaporation from its surface. He
> concluded, for this reason, that the Mediterranean must have been previously closed
> at the location of the Strait of Gibraltar and further speculated that the earlier
> Mediterranean area had been two seas - a freshwater one in the eastern depression
> which drained into the another in the western depression. Wells further stated that
> there was evidence of the Strait of Gibralter being opened up as there is an
> "enormous valley running up from the Mediterranean deep right through the Straits
> and trenching some distance out on the Atlantic shelf. He believed that this valley
> or gorge was the work of inflowing waters at the termination of the last ice age
> which he placed between 15,000 and 10,000 BC.
>
> What are the latest thoughts on this?
>
> Gisele
--
David Freeman |*| WPILA [beaver.wpi.edu/linux/] (VP)
fre...@earthling.net |*| ISO [www.wpi.edu/~iso/]
(508) 831-6947 |*| CIA [www.wpi.edu/~cia/]
100 Institute Rd. #2202 |*| ISC [www.wpi.edu/~isc/]
Worcester, MA 01609 |*| SOMA [www.wpi.edu/~soma/]
www.wpi.edu/~free779/ |*| AFROTC [www.wpi.edu/~afcadets/]
Major: MIS |*| CBF [www.wpi.edu/~cbf/]
Minor: CS, IS |*| LEAP, Philosopher's Circle
Doug Weller
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:32:11 -0700, in sci.archaeology, Wayne B. Hewitt
wrote:
>Unfortunately, a little to early except for Science Fiction writers like
>Julian May.
But he did manage to write a great story (or stories) out of the idea!
Doug
Katherine Griffis
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:34:14 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <3548ec9f....@news.mindspring.com>,
> gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
>>
>[snip]
>>
>> This means that, at best, the forensic artist can go with some "middle
>> ground" assumptions about his subject, and in this case of the rather
>> diverse nature of the ancient Egyptian populace of the 19th Dynasty
>> (attested to by text and art of the period), then I don't think that
>> one should be surprised that Natsef-Amun appears "negroid", as it is
>> shown that Nubians had been well-absorbed into Egyptian society by
>> that time.
>>
>
>In an earlier thread, the question was asked, "Were the Egyptians a basically
>white people who later became intermixed with blacks, or a basically black
>people who later became intermixed with whites?"
>
>Your explanation for Natsef-Amun's negroid appearance seems to suggest that
>you adhere to the former hypothesis -- that the Egyptians were white, and
>that negroid traits such as those of Natsef-Amun came later, through "Nubian"
>immigration.
Actually, I don't adhere to such a theory at all...I tend to hold, as
does Michael Hoffman in his _Egypt Before the Pharaohs_, that the
entire Nile Valley populations were very diverse from the very
beginning, which makes sense based upon its geographic location and
natural resources for migration of peoples: I believe that I have
stated this all along.
Since I have made this clear, I will also say that I do not believe
that such statements as "white" and "black" [used in the US defined
terms] apply to the civilization of Egypt, due to its population
diversity during the pre-dynastic and dynastic periods, going back to
at least 8000 - 5000 BCE. As another poster indicated, the flow of
migration into Egypt came from all sides, from areas in Eurasia (such
as Turkey, Mesopotamia (for which we have artifact proof), etc.),
Libyan influences from the west (in the adoption of certain gods), as
well as influences from the south with Nubia and central Africa.
So, if you think that somewhere I have said that I adhere to strictly
a "white v. black" argument, I believe you are mistaken.
>Going back even further in time, Keita states:
>
>"...late paleolithic remains from Egypt indicate characteristics which
>distinguish them clearly from their European counterparts at 30,000 and
>20,000 years BP... These distinguishing characteristics, commonly called
>`Negroid,' are shared with later Nile valley and more southerly groups...
>Epipaleolithic `mesolithic' Nile valley remains have these characteristics
>and diverge notably from their Maghreban and European counterparts in key
>craniofacial characteristics."
>
>(S.O.Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological
>Relationships", History in Africa 20 (1993), page 135).
Be that as it may, I am not talking about 30,000 - 20,000 BP, nor am I
denying that possibility. Historically, I am talking about 19th
Dynasty (NK) Egypt [which is the time that Natsef-Amun lived], and the
political reality that Nubia was isolated from the rest of Egyptian
culture through a series of economic and political measures by Egypt
in the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms that caused the two cultures to
diverge [See Hoffman: _Egypt Before the Pharaohs_ for a detailed
account of this]. Egypt began exploiting the natural resources of
Nubia (Lower) as far back as the early OK dynasties, and to maintain
its economic control over them and the use of its waterways for trade
purposes, set up the boundary fortresses, first in the Old Kingdom,
and then, more extensively in the Middle Kingdoms. However, it was
when the Nubians affiliated with the Hyksos during the SIP that an
adversarial relationship occured between the two cultures, and the
Nubians were made into a vassal state during the New Kingdom. But
this relationship was always tempered as being more "familiar" than
with other ANE cultures with which Egypt had similar vassal or trade
relationships.
I think Prof. Yurco had stated quite well earlier in another thread on
the Egyptian relationship to Nubia:
"Next, the relationship with Nubia, underwent a whole range of
experiences from exploitation, to co-operation, to hostility.
Initially when the pharaonic state arose, it attacked A-Group in Lower
Nubia and destroyed it by the time of Sneferu's serious raid. Next
though, by Dynasty V-VI, Egyptians had contacted Yam (Kerma in Upper
Nubia) and started recruiting Yamites as mercenaries to serve in
Egypt's armies. What they valued them for was their archery which was
suberb. In Lower Nubia, by Khasekhemwy's time Buhen was built as an
Egyptian base, and mineral exploitation began. In Dynasty V-VI times,
the Lower Nubians, the C-Group, were under a loose hegemony of Egypt.
Thus when pharaoh Merenre appeared at Aswan, the C-Group chieftains
came to do him homage. Harkhuf travelled through their lands and
reported on political developments to the Egyptian court. A
later governor of Aswan, Pepy-nakht was sent to hack up Lower Nubia,
and hauled off several chiefs to Memphis to do obeisance to pharaoh.
In the First Intermediate Period, the Nubians served all over Egypt in
the nomarchs armies, and they also played a role in Montuhotep II's
war of unification when he sacked Heracleopolis. The Twelfth Dynasty
was itself of part Nubian origin as the Prophecy of Neferti records,
but they came into conflict with Kerma now called Kush, by Senwosret I
for the first time. This king also expanded into Lower Nubia in force,
building a number of forts. His prospectors discovered gold in the
Wady Allaqi region and then the Egyptians decided to control Lower
Nubia in force. Senwosret III extended operations against Kush to the
southern end of Cataract Two, with three strong forts, Semna, Kumma,
and Semna South. Yet he also encouraged the Kushites to trade with
Egypt, at Iken, now known to be Mirgissa, a Senwosret I fortress that
Senwosret III transformed into a huge trade entrepot.
After the decline of the Middle Kingdom, the Kushite Kingdom waxed
mighty and when the Hyksos seized Egypt, they (the Kushites)
penetrated Lower Nubia up to Aswan, and allied themselves with the
Hyksos. As Kamose second stela records, he learned of this alliance
when he captured a Hyksos messenger headed south to invite the Kushite
King to attack Egypt in the rear. This was what decided the Egyptians
on destroying both the Hyksos and the Kushites as well. After
expelling the Hyksos, under Amenhotep I they invaded Kush. Thutmose I
brought a Kushite ruler hanging head down on his flagship to Thebes,
and his daughter Hatshepsut led three campaigns to Kush and finally
utterly destroyed its power. Then under Thutmose III, the Egyptians
discovered that the Kushites around Napata-Gebel Barqal worshipped a
ram deity, and voila, there arose religious symbiosis, for was not
Amun of Karnak also worshipped in ram form? Thutmose III promptly
built a temple to Amun of Napata in ram form below Gebel Barqal, and
suddenly the Nubians were co-religionists. This led eventually after
the collapse of the New Kingdom, to the rise of the Napatan Kushite
state in the 8th-9th centuries B.C. Worshipping Amun, they penetrated
Egypt, and the Thebans saw them as saviors. So alone among foreigners,
the Kushites when they occupied Memphis and sat on the throne of the
pharaohs were acknowledged as true pharaohs. " Frank J. Yurco,
02/25/98 Message-ID: <Eoy7M...@midway.uchicago.edu>
In another post. Prof. Yurco pointed out the various relationships
with Egypt's other neighbors:
"So, by Nile river, and by the Oasis road over the desert, the
Egyptians and the Nubians traded extensively. There is also the Darb
el-Arbain, the Road of Forty Days, from the Oasis route southwest to
Darfur deep in the Sudan. That is a very ancient trade route, that
really flourished after the camel came to Egypt, in the Persian Era.
All these routes kept Egypt connected to its African hinterland, but
the contacts were closest with the Nubians. Also, the Egyptians were
in contact with the Libyans, whom they called Libu and Meshwesh, and
with whom they fought periodically. The Libyans are a relict
population from the Saharans who had spread over the Sahara during the
Neolithic Wet Period." Frank J. Yurco, 02/17/98 Message-ID:
<EoJEB...@midway.uchicago.edu>
>
>All this would suggest that people resembling Natsef-Amun were living in
>Egypt thousands of years before "Egypt" even existed as a political entity.
Very likely: as were all other groups represented in the Egyptian
culture as well.
richa...@aol.com
In article <199804291333...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Wouldn't it be ironic if all this talk
> about two brothers of mixed races and the mother having two
> different men were nothing more than the result of an artist
> having run out of light pigment when painting the coffin?
>
Just for the record, the forensic reconstructions of the Two Brothers were
made from their skulls, not from the painted faces on their sarcophagi.
In the reconstructions, one brother clearly looks "Caucasoid" while the other
looks "Negroid". The distinction is obvious to any objective observer, and is
based upon Richard Neave's evaluation of their skull structure.
The real question is whether or not you trust Richard Neave to have
reconstructed the faces accurately. Personally, I trust him. Clearly, you do
not.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
___________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
richa...@aol.com
In article <01bd7331$be123d20$LocalHost@Pmarho>,
"Mark Richardson" <ma...@iafrica.com> wrote:
>
>
> richa...@aol.com wrote in article <6i2fvj$30d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>
> >
> > In the tomb inscriptions, both brothers were identified as the sons of a
> > woman named Khnum-aa, who was apparently an heiress of a land-owning
> > family. The "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht, was further identified as the
> > son of a local mayor. However, the father of Nekht-Ankh -- the "white"
> > brother -- was not specifically mentioned. This led some Egyptologists
> > to speculate that the two brothers might have had two different fathers,
> > one of whom might have been a Nubian.
>
> Obviously the most likely explanation.
>
Actually, this is not the most likely explanation at all. It only *seems* the
most likely if we conceive of ancient Egypt as a country -- much like the USA
or South Africa -- in which strong social inhibitions have made "interracial"
marriage an oddity, and resulted in a profound separation of the "negroid"
gene pools from the "caucasoid" ones.
In places such as Puerto Rico or Egypt, where the population is thoroughly
mixed, it is inappropriate to assume that a "negroid"-looking person has a
different father, simply because his brother's features happen to appear a
bit more "caucasoid".
> Why the query, "might have been a
> Nubian?", that would also seem to be a given in the situation.
>
That Khum-Nakht had "Nubian" ancestry only becomes a "given" if we assume
that negroid features, such as his, could not possibly have been native to
Egypt. Most anthropologists would disagree with this assumption.
> It also begs
> the question but it is presumably taken for granted that Mrs Khnum-aa was
> "white".
>
Personally, I am not convinced that "Mrs. Khnum-aa" or any other substantial
portion of the ancient Egyptian population was "white", in the way that we
use that term here in New York.
The assumption made by some Egyptologists and anatomists was that Khnum-aa
had a more caucasoid-looking skull than her son Khnum-Nakht. This says
nothing about her possible skin color, hair texture, lip thickness or other
evidences of biological "Africanness" that she might have had. It simply
means that she may have had features that veered in a more "caucasoid"
direction than those of her son Khnum-Nakht. However, the same could be said
about Haile Selassie or Iman. They too have skulls that seem to be
anthropologically "caucasoid." Yet, they are universally regarded as "black".
>
> > Others have suggested that the "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht,
> > may have been adopted.
>
> A very good possibility and not, I would imagine, altogether uncommon.
>
There seems to be a clear family resemblance between the Two Brothers (at
least, as Richard Neave has reconstructed them). In any case, the assumption
that one brother was adopted only becomes necessary if we imagine Egypt as a
racially segregated society, as discussed above.
> >
[snip]
>
>
> ... the obvious answer is usually the correct one and Mrs -aa probably had a > roving eye.
>
Again, Khnum-aa's alleged infidelity only becomes "obvious" if we view Egypt
as a racially segregated society.
> > Even if Khnum-Nakht was only the half-brother of Nekht-Ankh, this would
> > still mean that his (allegedly) "Nubian" father would have been mayor of
> > an Egyptian town and husband to a wealthy Egyptian heiress.
>
> I do not think that there would be serious argument about the possibility
> of a Nubian mayor from the period 1200BC onwards. However, you did not
> state where the tomb was and to which period it was dated. Obviously if it
> came from the period of, say, the 25th Dynasty and was located in Upper
> Egypt the fact of a Nubian mayor would not be the occasion for any comment
> at all.
In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever for assuming that Khnum-Nakht's
father -- or any of his ancestors -- were "Nubian". That is why I call him
"allegedly Nubian."
It is common practice, among Egyptologists, to label any particularly
negroid-looking mummies or artistic portraits as "Nubian." However,
bioanthropologists do not agree with this practice. "Negroid" types have
abounded in Egypt for at least 20,000 years. Why, then, should we assume that
every "negroid"-looking person in Egypt was descended from Nubian immigrants?
Khnum-Nakht's father may indeed have been "negroid" in appearance. But there
is no compelling reason to believe that he was anything but a native
Egyptian. There is also no reason to assume that he was not the father of
both Khnum-Nakht and Nekht-Ankh.
As for the provenance of the Two Brothers, they were found in a Middle
Kingdom tomb (2040 - 1674 BC) in the town of Rifeh. There was no "Nubian
pharaoh" in office, as far as I am aware, when their father was appointed
mayor.
>
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
richa...@aol.com
In article <35483794....@news.mindspring.com>,
gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:34:14 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
> >In article <3548ec9f....@news.mindspring.com>,
> > gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
> >>
> >[snip]
> >>
> >> one should be surprised that Natsef-Amun appears "negroid", as it is
> >> shown that Nubians had been well-absorbed into Egyptian society by
> >> that time.
> >>
> >
> >In an earlier thread, the question was asked, "Were the Egyptians a basically
> >white people who later became intermixed with blacks, or a basically black
> >people who later became intermixed with whites?"
> >
> >Your explanation for Natsef-Amun's negroid appearance seems to suggest that
> >you adhere to the former hypothesis -- that the Egyptians were white, and
> >that negroid traits such as those of Natsef-Amun came later, through "Nubian"
> >immigration.
>
> Actually, I don't adhere to such a theory at all...I tend to hold, as
> does Michael Hoffman in his _Egypt Before the Pharaohs_, that the
> entire Nile Valley populations were very diverse from the very
>
[snip]
>
> I believe that I have stated this all along.
You have indeed stated this all along, but your explanation of Natsef-Amun's
"negroid" appearance seems to reflect a different set of assumptions.
If you truly believe that Egypt's population was racially diverse "from the
very beginning", that implies that people resembling Natsef-Amun were present
in Egypt "from the very beginning."
Why, then, do you link his "negroid" appearance to the absorption of
"Nubians" during the late dynastic period? Natsef-Amun is just as likely to
have been a direct descendant of some negroid-looking proto-Egyptians from
the Paleolithic period.
M.C.Harrison
FKoe wrote:
>
> The Mediterranean was closed sometime, I think it was the Eocene, a
> mere 40 million years ago. The water that filled it, did not flow
> through the Strait of Gibraltar which remained closed then, but across
> southern Spain, to enter the Mediterranean basin about at Alicante.
> The mountains west of Alicante have been uplifted since then.
ten k ago depending on where you draw the line, in some senses it is
still ending today) meant the lifting of a great weight of ice from the
northern european area.
The way this was presented was that a direct result is the lifting up of
the land mass which had been pressed down formerly, and a matching
lowering of the land mass in the southern area. This was over the last
several thousand years, and hasn't finished yet (you can go to the greek
islands and regions in Italy, former Yugoslavia, Albania which suffer
quite bad earth tremors and bits regularily slip under the water.)
This isn't quite the same thing as creating the med, which would come
about when the european movement away from the african continent had
lowered the mediterranean rift area below the level of the atlantic,
which is a much longer timescale and pre-human.
Is this about right, which I read?
Katherine Griffis
On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 10:41:13 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <35483794....@news.mindspring.com>,
> gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:34:14 -0600, richa...@aol.com wrote:
>> >Your explanation for Natsef-Amun's negroid appearance seems to suggest that
>> >you adhere to the former hypothesis -- that the Egyptians were white, and
>> >that negroid traits such as those of Natsef-Amun came later, through "Nubian"
>> >immigration.
>>
>> Actually, I don't adhere to such a theory at all...I tend to hold, as
>> does Michael Hoffman in his _Egypt Before the Pharaohs_, that the
>> entire Nile Valley populations were very diverse from the very
>> beginning...
>>
>[snip]
>>
>> I believe that I have stated this all along.
>
>You have indeed stated this all along, but your explanation of Natsef-Amun's
>"negroid" appearance seems to reflect a different set of assumptions.
>
>If you truly believe that Egypt's population was racially diverse "from the
>very beginning", that implies that people resembling Natsef-Amun were present
>in Egypt "from the very beginning."
>
>Why, then, do you link his "negroid" appearance to the absorption of
>"Nubians" during the late dynastic period? Natsef-Amun is just as likely to
>have been a direct descendant of some negroid-looking proto-Egyptians from
>the Paleolithic period.
I believe that the issue of Nubians in relation to the Natsef-Amun
reconstruction came up in this thread earlier, and was in fact,
referenced by you in Message ID <6i2dde$v7e$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> in
which you said:
"...We can quibble ad infinitum over whether the Egyptians themselves
were "black". However, there is no question that the Nubians were. One
does not have to go as far as "Central Africa" to find people who are
"black" by anyone's definition..."
It was to this thought, based upon the historical context in which
Nubia was positioned in the 19th Dynasty (as a full absorbed vassal
state to Egypt), that I made the statements on the possible
ancestry/origin point of Natsef-Amun. You must realize that I look at
this as a historian, primarily, for while I do not deny the
multiplicity of groups within the Nile Valley, there is a _very good_
argument to be made that Natsef-Amun was full Egyptian OR a Nubian,
_based upon the time period_ in which he lived. In reality, we can
speculate all we want here, but nothing can be proven _either_ way
from the mummy/bones or the reconstruction alone, beyond noting the
diverse nature of Egyptian culture: I believe in just presenting an
alternative view to yours. It in no way says that mine is the _only_
way to view it, of course.
The reality is that the 19th Dynasty is a very late period in Egyptian
history, after the Nubians were politically given full access to all
functions within the Egyptian society, which was not true in earlier
periods, as Yurco's quotes, which you clipped, noted. This does not
mean that "negroid-looking Egyptians" were not present in the society
at the time of the 19th Dynasty (for it was quite mixed
population-wise, as I have said), but it is ALSO just as likely that
Natsef-Amun could have been of direct Nubian ancestry as well.
I thought it needed to be stated here that such a possibility exists,
alongside your assertions that somehow Natsef-Amun "proves" a
"...negroid-looking proto-Egyptian[s]", which you seem to assert is
the _primary_ base to all Egyptian groups. Your assertion is possible,
but so is the assertion that there are just as many other peoples
present (as shown by archaeological remains and artistic evidence) in
19th Dynasty Egypt, beyond the "negroid-type" (your terms here), as
well from the predynastic phases onward, which I am not clear that you
wish to acknowledge.
For example, Keita's assertions, which you quoted earlier, did note
that _many_ (but not all) anthropologists agree to a "fundamentally
negroid" base even to Badari culture. This implies that there is no
total agreement on this assertion as "fact" for all of Badari culture,
and possibly even some acknowledgement of the "mix" within Egyptian
culture even at that time. Such is the nature of academic assertions,
and the interplay of observation of different researchers: they leave
open a wide range of interpretations, such that new information, as it
becomes available, can totally rewrite what was asserted before. As
such, academics are wary of making steadfast assertions where
information is still incomplete, such as the quote you made from Roth,
in an earlier post Message-ID: <6i2bk8$skh$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>.
As I have made my position clear on the diversity of the ancient
Egyptian culture from the pre- and dynastic phases, and the historical
context for those assertions, I hold to Dr. Roth's assertions that we
are still learning, and cannot make hard statements until _all
information/alternative explanation_ is explored. Until that time, I
think that this otherwise engaging discussion has now come to impasse.
Frank Joseph Yurco
It would help if we knew from where in Egypt Natsef-Amun came, as I have
repeatedly noted that the southern Upper Egyptians merge imperceptably
into the population of Nubia. As I have already stated, there is also
another family that shows such diversity, I refer to the family of
the nomarch Ny-ankh Pepy Kem, who is depicted as a dark brown individual
with an elongated build, such as many Nubians had. However he had
relatives who were nicknamed, desher, or "red" in Egyptian, and thus
here we have an Old Kingdom nomarchs family where the people ranged from
kem to desher, "black" to "red", so that the diversity of Natsef-Amun
also and his brother would come as no surprise if both were from southern
Upper Egypt. Ny-ankh-Pepy Kem, whose statue of wood is in the Cairo
Museum, was nomarch at Meir in Middle Egypt.
Most sincerely,
Frank J. Yurco
University of Chicago.
--
Frank Joseph Yurco fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu
Gisele
Thanks to all who replied to my questions on this topic. I'm beginning to get the
impression that the water levels in the Mediterranean is another one of those 'grey' areas
in history.
I'm trying to come to terms with the reason that there are very old sites (hundreds of
thousands of years old) north of the Mediterranean and none, to my knowledge, directly
south of the Mediterranean. Realizing that most settlements are near water, could one
extrapolate from this that the earliest occupied sites on the southern coast of the
Mediterranean are currently underwater?
Also, the Neanderthal sites are primarily North of the Mediterranean although a few have
been identified on the east and south coasts. How is this explained? Did the Neanderthal
occupy the current region of the Mediterranean Sea and become flooded or, considering
that Spain is said to be the location of the Proto-Neanderthal, did the Neanderthals
radiate from Spain all the way around the Mediterranean to Cyrenaica?
The Barbary ape, which is said to be the only species of wild ape in Europe, is found on
both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. Can this fact be used to obtain a more specific
date? Or, considering that the Barbary Ape is a close relative to the common Rhesus
monkey of India, does this suggest that the ape was brought to Spain from India as many
monkeys are depicted on the earliest Egyptian ships (Did these monkeys perform a specific
purpose on the ships?) Whether or not Hercules is related to the Pillars of Hercules,
the Perseus website included information that a bas-relief depicts an Assyrian Hercules
bringing apes or monkeys and the commentator further suggested that 'cecrops' (tailed)
referred to monkey- men instead of men who were snake-like below. A few islands off the
coast of Naples were called 'Ape Island' suggesting that apes were once found elsewhere
North of the Mediterranean.
David Freeman wrote:
> All of the geological histories I've read recently indicate this. The
> Med was a lake, and the Strait was the 'dam' blocking the Med from the
> Atlantic. Several thousand years ago, a massive earthquake dissplace
> the rock and earth forming the dam, and the Atlantic poured in. The Med
> is between tectonic plates moving away from each other, so the Med was
> alittle bit narrower, too. (not that it would have made a difference)
60 million years ago, in accordance with the theory of Continental Drift, it is thought
that Europe and Africa were separated by a wider channel of water in the Mediterranean
location. Do you think the suggestion is being made that the two continents slowly moved
together and are now moving apart?
> Also, several thouand years ago, the Sahara was well-watered savannah,
> with forests, grasslands, and abundant wildlife. A river system larger
> than the Nile drained the central area, and early peoples marked their
> presence with cave and rock paintings.
I'm still wondering about the lack of ancient sites. I have not found mention of any
pre-10,000 BC archaeological sites in Northern Africa at all.
> It is obvious that early humans (who originate in africa) migrated
> through the Sahara, across the Med to Europ, and through Sinai to the
> Middle East.
It seems as though archaeological data is lacking to support that.
> Whether or not they were black can't be told, more likely
> than not they were dark-skinned. Who cares?
If a person wishes to trace movements of peoples since the beginning of time, it's another
avenue over and above archaeological findings and linguistics.
> As the Med filled with water from the Atlantic, and the Sahara slowly
> dried out, the two populations lost any contact with each other, and
> over the years, certain physical characteristics diverged. At the same
> time, the Saharan population moved north towards the coast (I don't know
> times for the Med and Sahara, possibility that these refugees were the
> main colonizing wave to hit Europe), south, and remained in the East,
> where the Nile continued to flow.
There appears to be a huge gap in time between the arcaheological findings in South Africa
and the findings of North Africa. This seems problematic to me. Perhaps North Africa has
not been sufficiently explored?
> The ancient Egyptians were more 'African' than 'European' since they had
> more contact with the south than the north.
If the Egyptian written records are as old as the Egyptians claimed, then there is no
place on this earth that fits the location of the first Egyptians, archaeologically. With
regards to the Pillars of Hercules, I've found mention of an Assyrian, Phoenician and
Egyptian Hercules over and above the 'Greek' one. Herodotus wrote that the Egyptians had
told him that they had added Hercules to their Pantheon of Gods 17,000 years before Amasis
(!) This could be a fantastic story, however, why did the Greeks seem to have such a
fascination with these pillars - did they signify the end of their 'world' or the
'beginning'?
> However, they were also
> heavily influenced by Semitic tribes that periodically invaded Egypt.
> The original Egyptian stock may not have been 'black,' per se, either.
> Since ancient peoples didn't seem to make much of a deal about skin
> color, we really don't know all that much.
According to HG Wells, there was a narrow band all around the world of 'dark whites' whom
ushered in all the Mesolithic innovations. If this is not an extreme generalization, it
would be good to know if climate is related to innovations and if so, why these same
climatic conditions have not occurred in the past?
The Mediterranean Sea is almost 3 miles deep in the Ionian region and perhaps the
remainder of the Sea is a couple of miles deep. I cannot imagine what this location would
look like without much water. I presume some erosian is involved? :-) Where's Paul
Heinrich?
Gisele
Doug Weller
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:51:37 -0400, in sci.archaeology, David Freeman
wrote:
>All of the geological histories I've read recently indicate this. The
>Med was a lake, and the Strait was the 'dam' blocking the Med from the
>Atlantic. Several thousand years ago, a massive earthquake dissplace
>the rock and earth forming the dam, and the Atlantic poured in.
Not thousands, millions. About three million years ago, I believe (I've
read the original research, but that was quite a while ago!)
In any case, long before homo sap.
Doug
P. V. Heinrich
In article <3546D6B8...@oanet.com>,
Gisele <horv...@oanet.com> wrote:
.... material deleted ......
> Wells wrote that the Mediterranean is a 'sea of evaporation'
> meaning that the rivers that flow into it do not make up for
> the evaporation from its surface. He concluded, for this
> reason, that the Mediterranean must have been previously
> closed at the location of the Strait of Gibraltar and
> further speculated that the earlier Mediterranean area
> had been two seas - a freshwater one in the eastern depression
> which drained into the another in the western depression.
> Wells further stated that there was evidence of the Strait
> of Gibralter being opened up as there is an "enormous
> valley running up from the Mediterranean deep right through
> the Straits and trenching some distance out on the Atlantic
> shelf. He believed that this valley or gorge was the work
> of inflowing waters at the termination of the last ice age
> which he placed between 15,000 and 10,000 BC.
>
> What are the latest thoughts on this?
The dessication of the Mediterranean happened during the
Messinian Age of the Miocene Epoch. Thus, it dates to
around 6.5 to 5.3 million years. Although sea level varied
substantially during the Pleistocene, the Mediterranean
Basin was always occupied by the Mediterranean Sea during
it and the Pliocene.
For the Miocene "drying" up of the Mediterranean, critical
papers and "latest thoughts" of it include:
Cita, Maria B., 1982, The Messinian salinity crisis in the
Mediterranean; a review. In Berckhemer, H., and Hsu,
K. J. (eds.), pp. 113-140, Alpine-Mediterranean geodynamics.
Geodynamics Series. no. 7, American Geophysical Union.
Washington, DC, United States.
Clauzon, G., 1982, Le canyon messinien du Rhone; une preuve
decive du "desiccated deep-basin model" (Hsue, Cita and
Ryan, 1973) [The Messinian Canyon of the Rhone; a decisive proof
of a "desiccated deep-basin model"; Hsu, Cita and Ryan, 1973.]
Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France. vol. 24, no. 3,
pp. 597-610.
Clauzon, G., Suc, J. P., and others, 1996, Alternate
interpretation of the Messinian salinity crisis; controversy
resolved?. Geology. vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 363-366.
Hsu, K.J., 1983, The Mediterranean Was a Desert. Princeton
Univ. Press, New Jersey.
Hsu, K. J., Montadert, L., and others, 1975, History of the
Mediterranean salinity crisis. In: Leg 42, Part 1, of the cruises
of the Drilling Vessel Glomar Challenger; Malaga, Spain, to
Istanbul, Turkey, April-May 1975. Initial Reports of the Deep
Sea Drilling Project. vol. 42, Part 1, pp. 1053-1078. Texas
A & M University, Ocean Drilling Program. College Station,
TX.
Hsu, K. J., Montadert, L., and others, 1977, History of the
Mediterranean salinity crisis. Nature vol. 267, no. 5610,
pp 399-403.
For the Pleistocene Mediterranean, the papers include:
Buckley, H. A., and Johnson, L. R., 1988, Late Pleistocene
to Recent sediment deposition in the central and western
Mediterranean. Deep-Sea Research. Part A: Oceanographic
Research Papers. vol. 35, no. 5A, pp. 749-766.
Emeis, K. C., Camerlenghi, A., and others 1991, The
occurrence and significance of Pleistocene and upper Pliocene
sapropels in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Marine Geology. vol. 100,
no. 1-4, pp. 155-182.
Muerdter, D. R., Kennett, J. P., and Thunell, R. C.,
1984, Late Quaternary sapropel sediments in the eastern
Mediterranean Sea; faunal variations and chronology.
Quaternary Research. vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 385-403.
Nolet-Gilbert-J; Corliss-Bruce-H, 1990, Benthic foraminiferal
evidence for reduced deep-water circulation during sapropel
deposition in the eastern Mediterranean. Marine Geology.
vol. 94, no. 1-2, pp. 109-130.
Perissoratis, C., and Piper, D. J. W., 1992, Age, regional
variation, and shallowest occurrence of S1 sapropel in the
northern Aegean Sea. Geo-Marine Letters. vol. 12, no. 1,
pp. 49-53.
Sancetta-Constance, 1993, Oceanography; green sea, black
mud. Nature. vol. 362, no. 6416, pp. 108.
Troelstra, S. R., and van Hinte, J. E., 1995, The Younger
Dryas-sapropel S1 connection in the Mediterranean Sea.
Geologie en Mijnbouw. vol. 74, no. 3, pp. 275-280.
Detailed discussions of this can be found using Dejas
News at:
http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml
Sincerely,
Paul V. Heinrich All comments are the
hein...@intersurf.com personal opinion of the writer and
Baton Rouge, LA do not constitute policy and/or
opinion of government or corporate
entities. This includes my employer.
"To persons uninstructed in natural history, their country
or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with
wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces
turned to the wall."
- T. H. Huxley
Mark Richardson
richa...@aol.com wrote in article <6ia5g2$kkb$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <01bd7331$be123d20$LocalHost@Pmarho>,
> "Mark Richardson" <ma...@iafrica.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > richa...@aol.com wrote in article
<6i2fvj$30d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> > >. This led some Egyptologists
> > > to speculate that the two brothers might have had two different
fathers,
> > > one of whom might have been a Nubian.
> >
> > Obviously the most likely explanation.
> >
>
> Actually, this is not the most likely explanation at all. It only *seems*
the
> most likely if we conceive of ancient Egypt as a country -- much like the
USA
> or South Africa -- in which strong social inhibitions have made
"interracial"
> marriage an oddity, and resulted in a profound separation of the
"negroid"
> gene pools from the "caucasoid" ones.
This is quite obviously incorrect. One of the features of both US and South
African society is the high level of "white" input into "Black" (US) and
"Coloured" (SA) gene pools. There is also and quite clearly a level of
"Black" or "Coloured" input into the "White" gene pool in both countries. I
am sure that someone with more genetic expertise than either of us could be
more specific.
>
> In places such as Puerto Rico or Egypt, where the population is >
thoroughly mixed, it is inappropriate to assume that a "negroid"-looking >
person has a different father, simply because his brother's features happen
> to appear a bit more "caucasoid".
This is obviously a question of degree. Of course, within the same family,
within a highly mixed population, it is possible for one sibling to display
the characteristics of one group to some extent more than another. He or
she will however be recognisably a member of that family. However, in the
context of this thread, we were talking of identification of two "brothers"
(of whatever category) from their skeletal remains. This is a completely
different kettle of fish and if one was clearly and undeniably "negroid"
and the other "caucasoid" then I still think that Mrs Khnum-aa may have
spread her favours around a little.
>
> > Why the query, "might have been a
> > Nubian?", that would also seem to be a given in the situation.
> >
>
> That Khum-Nakht had "Nubian" ancestry only becomes a "given" if we assume
> that negroid features, such as his, could not possibly have been native
to
> Egypt. Most anthropologists would disagree with this assumption.
As I have said elsewhere, given his high office and the time at which he
lived, it is not an unreasonable assumption.
> > It also begs
> > the question but it is presumably taken for granted that Mrs Khnum-aa >
> was "white".
> >
>
> Personally, I am not convinced that "Mrs. Khnum-aa" or any other >
substantial portion of the ancient Egyptian population was "white", in the
> way that we use that term here in New York.
I believe that a "one-drop" rule is, or was, applied in the USA to
determine race. This is extreme to say the least and not generally applied
elsewhere. Even in South Africa, in our recent past, the rule that was
applied was, firstly the actual appearance of a person and secondly, but
very importantly, the group with which he or she was associated.
>
> The assumption made by some Egyptologists and anatomists was that >
Khnum-aa had a more caucasoid-looking skull than her son Khnum-Nakht. This
says nothing about her possible skin color, hair texture, lip thickness or
other
> evidences of biological "Africanness" that she might have had.
Again, one would have to apply a "most reasonable" explanation and if Mrs
Knhum-aa had a "caucasoid" skull and if the convention was to portray
Egyptian women in biscuit shades, the balance of probabilities is that the
would have looked like a sallow "caucasoid". You could be absolutely
correct and she could have been as black as the proverbial ace of spades
but at this remove in time Occam's Razor is the best tool to apply.
> However, the same could be said
> about Haile Selassie or Iman. They too have skulls that seem to be
> anthropologically "caucasoid." Yet, they are universally regarded as
"black".
They are however, both representative of the people who live in the
North-Eastern part of Africa and no albino Somali or Ethiopian is going to
be mistaken for an albino Swede. If the skull of the "caucasoid brother ,
in the case in point, resembles that of a modern Somali or Ethiopian, then
I would imagine that there are points of comparison which could be used to
indicate that this was his most likely "racial" origin. That this is not
done brings us back to square one.
>
> >
> > > Others have suggested that the "black" brother, Khnum-Nakht,
> > > may have been adopted.
> >
> > A very good possibility and not, I would imagine, altogether uncommon.
> >
>
> There seems to be a clear family resemblance between the Two Brothers (at
> least, as Richard Neave has reconstructed them). In any case, the
assumption
> that one brother was adopted only becomes necessary if we imagine Egypt
as a
> racially segregated society, as discussed above.
Might this not be a case of artistic licence on the part of Richard Neave,
and applied because he was aware of the relationship between the two? As to
adoption, why should this be regarded as an outside possibility? It would
seem to be a very logical answer regardless of the segregation or otherwise
of the society. In fact, and to take what would be an absurd example, if
Egypt had maintained a strict code of racial segregation, adoption across
the colour line would be unusual and worthy of specific comment. Adoption
across the colour line in an unsegregated society would be simply a normal
and ordinary fact of life.
>
> > ... the obvious answer is usually the correct one and Mrs -aa probably
had a > roving eye.
> >
>
> Again, Khnum-aa's alleged infidelity only becomes "obvious" if we view
Egypt
> as a racially segregated society.
Not at all, just the opposite.
> It is common practice, among Egyptologists, to label any particularly
> negroid-looking mummies or artistic portraits as "Nubian." However,
> bioanthropologists do not agree with this practice. "Negroid" types have
> abounded in Egypt for at least 20,000 years. Why, then, should we assume
that
> every "negroid"-looking person in Egypt was descended from Nubian
immigrants?
I would not see the point as particularly vital in this instance. As
before, if he held office under a Nubian, or non-Egyptian administration,
the chances of his being Nubian seem to be pretty good. No more than that.
If anyone wishes to stress that he was "negroid" but not Nubian then so be
it, but good cause should be shown.
>
> As for the provenance of the Two Brothers, they were found in a Middle
> Kingdom tomb (2040 - 1674 BC) in the town of Rifeh. There was no >"Nubian
pharaoh" in office, as far as I am aware, when their father was > appointed
mayor.
Who was the Pharoah in office? Difficult?
The 400 year period in question covers that of the Hyksos not the MIddle
Kingdom. When foreigners rule it is entirely likely that they will choose
from amongst themselves or from non-native appointees to take
administrative office because there is a certain safety in doing so. The
fact is we do not know and if it has been considered reasonable up to this
point to label the mayor as "Nubian" it is presumably because that is
considered to be the most likely situation. Until something far more
definite comes along I would consider that that is where it is likely to
stay.
Mark Richardson
Mark Richardson
richa...@aol.com wrote in article <6ia62r$lbt$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <35483794....@news.mindspring.com>,
> gri...@mindspring.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > Actually, I don't adhere to such a theory at all...I tend to hold, as
> > does Michael Hoffman in his _Egypt Before the Pharaohs_, that the
> > entire Nile Valley populations were very diverse from the very
> > beginning...
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > I believe that I have stated this all along.
>
> You have indeed stated this all along, but your explanation of
Natsef-Amun's
> "negroid" appearance seems to reflect a different set of assumptions.
>
> If you truly believe that Egypt's population was racially diverse "from
the
> very beginning", that implies that people resembling Natsef-Amun were
present
> in Egypt "from the very beginning."
>
> Why, then, do you link his "negroid" appearance to the absorption of
> "Nubians" during the late dynastic period? Natsef-Amun is just as likely
to
> have been a direct descendant of some negroid-looking proto-Egyptians
from
> the Paleolithic period.
Surely the assumption, which is all that it can be, would be related to the
time at which Natsef-Amun held a high office. If it is a given that this
was during a period of Nubian control of the "Executive" it is, on balance
of probabilities, likely that he was a Nubian.
All along on this thread it is generally accepted that the Egyptians were a
mixed race people and the location of Egypt at the land access between
Africa and Asia would seem to provide a very rational explanation. However,
and without wishing to pick at scabs, why was the colour convention in
Egyptian art to portray Egyptian men in red/brown and Egyptian women in
biscuit shades? The simple explanation would be that this was what most of
them looked like because men spent more time in the sun than women.
Please, do not all whizz round the room like demented bats because it is
not a matter of vital importance, but if there is another logical
explanation it would be interesting to hear it.
Mark Richardson
ke...@jps.net
In article <Es8Mw...@midway.uchicago.edu>#1/1,
fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank Joseph Yurco) wrote:
>
> It would help if we knew from where in Egypt Natsef-Amun came, as I have
> repeatedly noted that the southern Upper Egyptians merge imperceptably
> into the population of Nubia. As I have already stated, there is also
> another family that shows such diversity, I refer to the family of
> the nomarch Ny-ankh Pepy Kem, who is depicted as a dark brown individual
> with an elongated build, such as many Nubians had. However he had
> relatives who were nicknamed, desher, or "red" in Egyptian, and thus
> here we have an Old Kingdom nomarchs family where the people ranged from
> kem to desher, "black" to "red",
Hmmm, does this mean you now accept the proposition that "kmt," a plural
form of "kem" that sometimes occurs with the determinative for "men and
women," does in fact mean "black people" (when it occurs with that
determinative). At other times, when kmt is used to denote Egyptian
nationality it occurs with the determinative for "towns and cities"
and thus would translate "the black nation."
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
ke...@jps.net
In article <01bd74ac$e2328300$LocalHost@Pmarho>#1/1,
"Mark Richardson" <ma...@iafrica.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> All along on this thread it is generally accepted that the Egyptians were a
> mixed race people and the location of Egypt at the land access between
> Africa and Asia would seem to provide a very rational explanation. However,
> and without wishing to pick at scabs, why was the colour convention in
> Egyptian art to portray Egyptian men in red/brown and Egyptian women in
> biscuit shades? The simple explanation would be that this was what most of
> them looked like because men spent more time in the sun than women.
Not really. The coloration of the body most often had spiritual connotation.
Egytpians even painted male mummies red and female mummies yellow. This
had nothing to do with staying out in the sun. The painting of the body red is
common in Africa. Tumeric is used to stain the body yellowish from South Asia
through SE Asia into Polynesia. India has an interesting and similar
polarization of colors. The male deity is usually portrayed as dark or red,
while the female deity is usually 'gaur' or 'yellow'.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Michael Apple
Hell, I'd heard more like 5 mya. Happened in the Miocene. Long
before Egyptians transported Rhesus monkies from India to Gibralter via
funicular or trapese, or whatever method is assumbed to have been in
vogue at the time...
Mike
LDavis
In the 60s when I was in a local so called black university, I had a
prof. who taught that about 60 % of the so called black people of the
South were at least part white and that 40% of the so called white
people were at least part black. I dont know if I recall his numbers
correctly but you get the point. He was a black fellow who had studied
the situation.
In doing research on my genealogy I have indeed found cousins who would
are considered black and I am white.
richa...@aol.com
In article <199804301826...@ladder03.news.aol.com>#1/1,
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>
> >Just for the record, the forensic reconstructions of the Two Brothers were
> >made from their skulls, not from the painted faces on their sarcophagi.
> >
> >In the reconstructions, one brother clearly looks "Caucasoid" while the other
> >looks "Negroid". The distinction is obvious to any objective observer, and is
> >based upon Richard Neave's evaluation of their skull structure.
>
>
> Did Neave tell
> you he did these reconstructions?
>
Yes.
> So just where does the
> "Negroid" come in? Do you mean to say that Caucasoid people
> can't have full lips? Have you ever seen a photo of Kim Bassinger?
>
I have. And I am certainly aware that Caucasoid people can have full lips.
Nevertheless, every expert that I am aware of who has ever examined the
skeletal remains of the Two Brothers has drawn the same conclusion -- that
one looked "negroid" and the other "caucasoid."
The anatomist John Cameron, for example, who first unwrapped and examined the
mummies in 1908, commented that there was "a remarkable racial difference in
the features presented by each. These differences are so pronounced that it
is almost impossible to convince oneself that they belong to the same race,
far less to the same family."
Another reference can be found in the British Museum Dictionary of Ancient
Egypt (1995), page 239-240:
"Clearly... it was nevertheless possible for many different racial types to
consider themselves Egyptian. Perhaps the clearest example of this is the
case of the skeletal remains from the `tomb of two brothers' at Rifeh, dating
to the Middle Kingdom (2055 - 1650 BC), where the physical appearance of one
of the men was negroid, while that of his brother was more European."
And yes, Neave himself considers the brother Khnum-Nakht to be "negroid" in
appearance.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
______________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
ke...@jps.net
In article <6i6c66$vra$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
Jame...@aol.com wrote:
>
> I
> Please understand, I did not make an opinion as to whether the first
> Egyptians were "white" or "black". Instead, I stated that they were
> genetically closer to those living in Eurasia, near the Mediterranean, than
> to central Africans.
Your contention on genetics is disputable. One might also use the same logic
and imply that Nubians are closer to "Eurasiatic Mediterraneans" also.
Are the the latter then closer to Nubians as compared to the British or
Scandinavians? Most people living in southern Spain are geographically
closer to Mali than to Russia or Denmark. Does that also imply closer
genetic relationships?
In considering ancient Egypt and its relationship to Central Africa, you
have to consider the Nile River that stretches from the Great Lakes region
to the Mediterranean. Look at the language distribution along the Nile.
You have the Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic languages extending from or near
the Great Lakes to Nubia or Egypt.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Alex
ke...@jps.net heeft geschreven in bericht <6icues$qv5$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <01bd74ac$e2328300$LocalHost@Pmarho>#1/1,
> "Mark Richardson" <ma...@iafrica.com> wrote:
> All along on this thread it is generally accepted that the Egyptians were a
> mixed race people and the location of Egypt at the land access between
> Africa and Asia would seem to provide a very rational explanation. However,
> and without wishing to pick at scabs, why was the colour convention in
> Egyptian art to portray Egyptian men in red/brown and Egyptian women in
> biscuit shades? The simple explanation would be that this was what most of
> them looked like because men spent more time in the sun than women.
Actually, you can make the reverse point, assuming that women were lighter
because they stayed _out_ of the sun. Black people go paler as well, when
they don't get enough direct sunlight. Considering the way houses and
streets are/were built in the region, and the fact that the rich had the resources
to keep their women indoors, this seems more likely than what you had suggested.
Alex van Deelen
Gisele
Michael Apple wrote:
> Egyptians transported Rhesus monkies from India to Gibralter via
> funicular or trapese, or whatever method is assumbed to have been in
> vogue at the time...
Mike, is there anything you can add to the above comment? How do we know
that the Egyptians brought monkeys to Gibraltar and why would they do that?
Gisele
Errol Back-Cunningham
This thread is really stretching it as to it's
soc.culture.south-africa relevance.
Errol
Errol Back-Cunningham
This thread doesn't belong on soc.culture.south-africa -
we're at the other end, not remotely close.
richa...@aol.com
> ...why was the colour convention in
> Egyptian art to portray Egyptian men in red/brown and Egyptian women in
> biscuit shades? The simple explanation would be that this was what most of
> them looked like because men spent more time in the sun than women.
> not a matter of vital importance, but if there is another logical
> explanation it would be interesting to hear it.
>
On the tombs of Ramesses III and Seti I, Egyptian artists painted murals
portraying the different varieties of mankind. In these murals, the Egyptians
are shown with red-brown skin, the Syro-Palestinians with yellowish skin and
the Libyans with white skin.
Should we assume, from this, that the Egyptians spent a lot of time in the
sun, the Syro-Palestinians slightly less time in the sun, and the Libyans no
time in the sun whatsoever? Please.
I frankly don't know why Egyptian women were often (but not always) painted a
lighter shade than men. I do know that this color convention was largely
abandoned after the Old Kingdom. In New Kingdom artwork, such as the famous
portraits of Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamun, the husband and wife are
often shown with the same reddish-brown skin tone.
Does this mean that the princess Ankhesenamun was inclined to labor everyday
in the hot sun? I doubt it.
Since outdoor labor has traditionally been the prerogative of men in every
culture (including, presumably, the Syro-Palestinian and Libyan cultures
cited above), then we would expect to see women portrayed with lighter skin
in virtually every culture. But we don't see this.
Virtually all Egyptologists, as far as I am aware, believe that the color
convention had some symbolic meaning. They employ this same "symbolic
meaning" argument, by the way, whenever they find Egyptians painted black, as
often happens in Egyptian art. I see no reason to question this theory. The
sun-tan business seems a bit far-fetched to me.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
______________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
richa...@aol.com
In the threads entitled "Natsef-Amun" and "Blacks & Whites: Who Civilized
Whom?", I have noticed repeated references being made to the fact that the
pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty were "white" or, at least, somewhat more
"caucasoid" in appearance than pharaohs in other dynasties.
It was during the Fourth Dynasty that Egypt's greatest pyramids were built,
so the question is an important one.
Shall I assume, from these references, that the "Dynastic Race" is still
alive and well on the Internet?
This theory, first proposed by turn-of-the century British anatomist Grafton
Elliot Smith, proposes that a Herrenvolk or "Master Race" of white people
invaded Egypt, conquered the Negroid people who lived there, and made
themselves kings. These white pharaohs then allegedly set their new subjects
to work building pyramids. Egypt's greatest monuments were thus attributed to
the genius and energy of a white "Master Race".
Is this, in fact, what all of you are trying to imply by these repeated
references to the supposedly "white" pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty?
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
________________________________________________________________________
Alex
richa...@aol.com heeft geschreven in bericht <6idcng$esn$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <199804301826...@ladder03.news.aol.com>#1/1,
> nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>>
>> >Just for the record, the forensic reconstructions of the Two Brothers were
>> >made from their skulls, not from the painted faces on their sarcophagi.
>> >
>> >In the reconstructions, one brother clearly looks "Caucasoid" while the other
>> >looks "Negroid". The distinction is obvious to any objective observer, and is
>> >based upon Richard Neave's evaluation of their skull structure.
>>
>[snip]
>>
>> Did Neave tell
>> you he did these reconstructions?
>>
>
>Yes.
>
>> So just where does the
>> "Negroid" come in? Do you mean to say that Caucasoid people
>> can't have full lips? Have you ever seen a photo of Kim Bassinger?
Yes, but _why_ does Kim Basinger (Bay-Singarr, as I once heard her
prefer it pronounced) have full lips? ;-)
Alex van Deelen
ke...@jps.net
In article <6ifao8$269$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In the threads entitled "Natsef-Amun" and "Blacks & Whites: Who Civilized
> Whom?", I have noticed repeated references being made to the fact that the
> pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty were "white" or, at least, somewhat more
> "caucasoid" in appearance than pharaohs in other dynasties.
>
At my website, in the Image Gallery, there are some newly-loaded images
of IV Dynasty Pharaohs. Included is the head proposed by Cyril Aldred
to be that of Sneferu, and a portrait statue of Khafre that looks much
like the Sphinx. I have always thought the colossal statues were the
best examples of how the Pharaohs looked like.
Take, for example, the colossal statues of Ramses II at the Ramesseum, the
Temple of Amum and Abu Simbel. They all look very similar to each other
and to some of the smaller portrait statues. However, there are many smaller
statues that are very different, and most have some obvious markings
where new hieroglyphs were written over others that were scratched out. The
guides at the Egyptian Museum will even show you these markings.
In the Image Gallery, there are also links to pictures of Khufu, Radedef
(Redjedef) and Mycerium (Menkaure). Radedef looks even more like the Sphinx
than Khafre. All these statues bear some resemblance to each other and to
the colossal Sphinx.
>
> Shall I assume, from these references, that the "Dynastic Race" is still
> alive and well on the Internet?
>
> This theory, first proposed by turn-of-the century British anatomist Grafton
> Elliot Smith, proposes that a Herrenvolk or "Master Race" of white people
> invaded Egypt, conquered the Negroid people who lived there, and made
> themselves kings. These white pharaohs then allegedly set their new subjects
> to work building pyramids. Egypt's greatest monuments were thus attributed
to
> the genius and energy of a white "Master Race".
I might have Smith's New Race mixed up with Petrie's, but didn't Smith propose
that stocky Tasian types represented this new Herrenvolk?
Although we don't have mummies of the IV Dynasty Pharaohs, there is
little (or no) skeletal evidence of any of the thin-nosed, orthognathous,
fair-skinned people as mentioned by Frank Yurco.
According to Robins and Shute the early dynastic skeletons were
"supernegroid." The Tasians themselves had broad,low noses and high
frequency of pronounced alveolar prognathism. Like other "Mechtoids",
they often had pronounced cheekbones, sometimes with low orbits. You
can find this today most often in the south as amongst the people of
Mongalla. The Tasians also had flaring gonial angles. Keita notes that
in addition to this element, there were more typical Nubian types among
the Old Kingdom elite remains.
However, if you put aside the "Cro-Magnoid" Mecta-Afalou argument, there
is nothing to suggest a leptorrhine, orthognathous, fair-skinned Levantine
population in the Old Kingdom.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
richa...@aol.com
In article <6ifimn$d6g$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
ke...@jps.net wrote:
>
> In article <6ifao8$269$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> richa...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > Shall I assume, from these references, that the "Dynastic Race" is still
> > alive and well on the Internet?
> >
> > This theory, first proposed by turn-of-the century British anatomist Grafton
> > Elliot Smith, proposes that a Herrenvolk or "Master Race" of white people
> > invaded Egypt, conquered the Negroid people who lived there, and made
> > themselves kings. These white pharaohs then allegedly set their new subjects
> > to work building pyramids. Egypt's greatest monuments were thus attributed
> to
> > the genius and energy of a white "Master Race".
>
> I might have Smith's New Race mixed up with Petrie's, but didn't Smith propose
> that stocky Tasian types represented this new Herrenvolk?
>
Petrie believed in a white Dynastic Race too, but I don't know many details
on his theory.
I must confess that I don't know exactly what a "stocky Tasian type". In the
papers I've read, Elliot Smith referred to his Master Race as "Armenoids."
(Perhaps that's the same thing?) Smith believed that these Armenoids started
infiltrating Egypt as early as the First Dynasty, around 3,000 BC. By the
Second Dynasty, he claimed that they were running the country.
"The aristocracy was permeated with the influence of these foreigners," he
wrote.
Smith pointed to these white supermen as the catalyst that sparked the
Pyramid Age. He attributed Egypt's later decline to the gradual
mongrelization of the Dynastic Race with black blood.
"The singular lack of originality," he wrote, "and the slavish devotion to
convention, which are the outstanding features of the modern Egyptian, are
sure tokens that the former abilties of the race have been affected by fifty
centuries of negro admixture, which has more than counterbalanced the
infusion of virile northern blood that in some measure helps to explain the
greatness of Egypt's achievements in the zenith of her power and influence."
(G. Elliot Smith, "The Influence of Racial Admixture in Egypt," The Eugenics
Review, vol. 7, April 1915-January 1916, pages 177-178, 183)
Judging by the number of references, in this newsgroup, to a "caucasoid"
Fourth Dynasty, it appears to me that Smith's ideas are still influencing a
lot of people these days, whether directly or indirectly.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
________________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
> Although we don't have mummies of the IV Dynasty Pharaohs, there is
> little (or no) skeletal evidence of any of the thin-nosed, orthognathous,
> fair-skinned people as mentioned by Frank Yurco.
>
> According to Robins and Shute the early dynastic skeletons were
> "supernegroid." The Tasians themselves had broad,low noses and high
> frequency of pronounced alveolar prognathism. Like other "Mechtoids",
> they often had pronounced cheekbones, sometimes with low orbits. You
> can find this today most often in the south as amongst the people of
> Mongalla. The Tasians also had flaring gonial angles. Keita notes that
> in addition to this element, there were more typical Nubian types among
> the Old Kingdom elite remains.
>
> However, if you put aside the "Cro-Magnoid" Mecta-Afalou argument, there
> is nothing to suggest a leptorrhine, orthognathous, fair-skinned Levantine
> population in the Old Kingdom.
>
> Regards,
> Paul Kekai Manansala
> The Royal Mummies
> http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
>
Jame...@aol.com
> Whom?", I have noticed repeated references being made to the fact that the
> pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty were "white" or, at least, somewhat more
> "caucasoid" in appearance than pharaohs in other dynasties.
>
> so the question is an important one.
>
> alive and well on the Internet?
>
> This theory, first proposed by turn-of-the century British anatomist Grafton
> Elliot Smith, proposes that a Herrenvolk or "Master Race" of white people
> invaded Egypt, conquered the Negroid people who lived there, and made
> themselves kings. These white pharaohs then allegedly set their new subjects
> to work building pyramids. Egypt's greatest monuments were thus attributed to
> the genius and energy of a white "Master Race".
>
> references to the supposedly "white" pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty?
>
Richard, I assume you are referring to my post (I was the only one on
the"Natsef-Amun" thread who made a reference to this dynasty, and did so only
once). I can honestly say, that I have no knowledge of this particular
"master race" theory. My statement was based upon my objective opinion after
viewing sculpture portraits of some of the kings and queens of this dynasty.
Remember, I was one of those who agreed that Natsef-Amun was "negroid", and I
have made my opinion very clear that the Egyptians were racially mixed, and
looked very much like they do today. I'm sorry you took this the wrong way.
Sincerely,
James Kalohelani
P.S. If you are interested in viewing the sculpture portrait of king
Menkaure (Mycerinus) and his queen, you can do so by visiting the Mueseum of
Fine Arts, Boston. Or, you may contact me via E-Mail, and I will send you a
high-res JPG of the statue. Thanks!
Sekhem-Ka-Ra
In a TV interview, Basinger noted that she had lip injections to puff
them up a bit more than her original lips. Standards of beauty come
and go: this also explains Barbara Hershey's looks as well, when she
appeared in "Beaches". Basinger is from the Southern U.S., and until
her troubles over contract for the film, "Boxing Helena", owned the
small town in Georgia where she grew up.
ke...@jps.net
In article <6ifujr$vec$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
richa...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > I might have Smith's New Race mixed up with Petrie's, but didn't Smith
propose
> > that stocky Tasian types represented this new Herrenvolk?
> >
>
> Petrie believed in a white Dynastic Race too, but I don't know many details
> on his theory.
>
> I must confess that I don't know exactly what a "stocky Tasian type". In the
> papers I've read, Elliot Smith referred to his Master Race as "Armenoids."
> (Perhaps that's the same thing?)
The "Armenoids" are the supposed broad-headed stock that eventually mixed
with the Mechta-Afalou, who in Egypt were sometimes called Tasians.
Back then, it was a popular theory that these Armenoids also influenced
Sumerian and Harappan civilizations. However, one could find Armenoids,
Mediterraneans, or just about any other people in any population by using
a sorting technique. Roland Dixon did this in attempting to prove that
Chinese ruling classes and nobility were "Alpine." Hulse followed Dixon and
tried to prove that the Japanese elite were Alpines. Even C. Loring Brace
has attempted to prove that the Samurai classes were more related to the
Ainu, with the obvious implication Ainu=Australoid=Caucasoid.
>Smith believed that these Armenoids started
> infiltrating Egypt as early as the First Dynasty, around 3,000 BC. By the
> Second Dynasty, he claimed that they were running the country.
>
> "The aristocracy was permeated with the influence of these foreigners," he
> wrote.
>
Strange how neither the ancient Egyptians nor the people of the
Levant/Mesopotamia, whence the Armenoids came, have any history or tradition
of this event. Neither do the ancient Greeks ever mention anything of this
sort. The Egyptians themselves stated their dynasties started with the
Mesniu of Lower Nubia. I'm not aware of a single Egyptian tradition that
indicates the northeast as a place of ancestry of either common or elite
Egyptians.
Egyptians most often claimed that Punt was the land of the gods and
ancestors (amani). According to Kitchen in _African Archaeology_ (1993),
the main surviving theories on Punt locate it either in coastal Sudan,
Eritria or Somalia. Kitchen prefers the Sudanese location between
the Middle Nile and the Red Sea. Budge thought Punt was located in Uganda
based on the early skeletal and archaeological remains. Egyptians also
saw the Western Desert as a place of the ancestors. Maybe this refers to
places like Nabta Playa near the Egypt-Sudan border, where the solar
alignment of megaliths was recently found.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
Wayne B. Hewitt
>All of the geological histories I've read recently indicate this. The
>Med was a lake, and the Strait was the 'dam' blocking the Med from the
>Atlantic. Several thousand years ago, a massive earthquake displaced
>the rock and earth forming the dam, ....
I don't know what "geological histories" you've been reading but you're
off by three orders of magnitude. That's "several MILLION years ago,"
long, LONG before any modern human beings.
--
_B_a_r_b_a_r_o_s_s_a_ ;^{>
Encinitas, California
X-Face by "Saving Face" <http://www.santafe.edu/~smfr/utils.html>
Alex
Sekhem-Ka-Ra heeft geschreven in bericht <354b8915...@news.mindspring.com>...
>On Sat, 2 May 1998 17:15:59 +0200, "Alex" <avde...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>>
>>richa...@aol.com heeft geschreven in bericht <6idcng$esn$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>>>In article <199804301826...@ladder03.news.aol.com>#1/1,
>>> nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>
>>>> So just where does the
>>>> "Negroid" come in? Do you mean to say that Caucasoid people
>>>> can't have full lips? Have you ever seen a photo of Kim Bassinger?
>>
>>
>>Yes, but _why_ does Kim Basinger (Bay-Singarr, as I once heard her
>>prefer it pronounced) have full lips? ;-)
>
>In a TV interview, Basinger noted that she had lip injections to puff
>them up a bit more than her original lips.
I thought that was a trend _she_ started when she became famous?
(By the way, I don't think she's a natural blonde either.)
>Standards of beauty come
>and go: this also explains Barbara Hershey's looks as well, when she
>appeared in "Beaches". Basinger is from the Southern U.S.,
'nough said...
I haven't seen Beaches, though (I'm more of a horror and action movie fan).
Alex van Deelen
bigdon
richa...@aol.com wrote:
> [...]
> Smith pointed to these white supermen as the catalyst that sparked the
> Pyramid Age. He attributed Egypt's later decline to the gradual
> mongrelization of the Dynastic Race with black blood.
LOOT_History is doomed to repeat itself...
Big Don
No Wildly_OOW_Breeding IQ-75 Violence-prone PS8Scum LOOTers ~!!~
richa...@aol.com
In article <6ig5sa$c1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
ke...@jps.net wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Even C. Loring Brace
> has attempted to prove that the Samurai classes were more related to the
> Ainu, with the obvious implication Ainu=Australoid=Caucasoid.
Really!
I know that Brace has expended a lot of energy trying to prove that the
Egyptians were more closely related to Europeans than to other Africans. But
I didn't know that this kind of thinking was part of a larger pattern in his
work. Do you have a reference on that Ainu business?
>
[snip]
>
The Egyptians themselves stated their dynasties started with the
> Mesniu of Lower Nubia.
>
[snip]
>
I would love to get some primary sources on this, from Egyptian records.
> Egyptians most often claimed that Punt was the land of the gods and
> ancestors (amani)...
>
[snip]
>
> Egyptians also
> saw the Western Desert as a place of the ancestors. Maybe this refers to
> places like Nabta Playa near the Egypt-Sudan border, where the solar
> alignment of megaliths was recently found.
The best Egyptian references I was able to find on Punt were rather
ambiguous. For example, there is this passage from Hatshepsut's mortuary
temple:
"I have assigned to you the whole of Punt, as far as the lands of the gods,
God's lands. It had been heard of... in the reports of the ancestors."
I know that Petrie felt very strongly that the original Egyptians migrated
northward from Punt (though he also believed that the Puntites were white
colonists from Asia).
But where does this idea of a Puntite origin come from? Passages such as the
above seem a slender thread on which to hang such a heavy idea. Do you know
if there's anything stronger out there? Any primary sources you could point
me to, regarding these lands of the "ancestors" would be appreciated.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
________________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
Errol Back-Cunningham
In <6ihh6m$e...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> bigdon <big...@eskimo.com>
writes:
>richa...@aol.com wrote:
>> [...]
>> Smith pointed to these white supermen as the catalyst that sparked
the
>> Pyramid Age. He attributed Egypt's later decline to the gradual
>> mongrelization of the Dynastic Race with black blood.
>
>LOOT_History is doomed to repeat itself...
Why don't you guys go to a museum sometime and take a look at mummies,
pictures of mummies and all their artifacts, hair wigs, statues.
It's pretty plain they are neither Aryan nor Ndebele/Bantu - but
pretty much the same as the Egyptians you see walking the streets
of Cairo today - and why wouldn't they be?
Errol
richa...@aol.com
On 5/2, James Kalohelani wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Richard, I assume you are referring to my post (I was the only one on
> the"Natsef-Amun" thread who made a reference to this dynasty, and did so
> only once).
>
Actually, I didn't have any particular person in mind. It just seemed to me
that the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs kept popping up as examples of more
"caucasoid" types of Egyptians, and I thought the idea was worth examining.
> I can honestly say that I have no knowledge of this particular
> "master race" theory. My statement was based upon my objective opinion after
> viewing sculpture portraits of some of the kings and queens of this dynasty.
> Remember, I was one of those who agreed that Natsef-Amun was "negroid", and I
> have made my opinion very clear that the Egyptians were racially mixed, and
> looked very much like they do today. I'm sorry you took this the wrong way.
>
I appreciate your civility. You have indeed made your position clear, and to
the extent that I understand your position, I think we disagree mainly on
semantics.
Moreover, I really didn't take this Fourth Dynasty business in any
particularly bad way. Actually, I'm a bit disappointed that no one stepped
forward to defend the "Dynastic Race" theory. It would have made for a lively
discussion.
In general, it is not my habit to point fingers at people, in discussions
such as this. Crying "racist" is not only an ineffective communication
strategy, it is also unfair, usually inaccurate and almost always
hypocritical.
It is my firm belief that most people living in the world today harbor some
sort of racial prejudice (however unconsciously), and that most of us have
been influenced in our education (also subconsciously) by those fading
remnants of the Master Race Theory that continue to haunt our textbooks.
Martin Bernal, for example, the author of Black Athena, admitted that he had
been conditioned to think of Greece as having been hermetically sealed from
any African cultural influence. This conditioning created a mental block that
prevented him, for years, from grasping the significance of the evidence he
had found for the "Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization."
In short, Bernal -- leftwing liberal and "Red Diaper Baby" that he was -- had
been conditioned unconsciously to accept one of the major tenets of the
Master Race Theory; that Greece was racially and culturally "pure" and
utterly insulated from any non-white civilization.
Since both you and I have (presumably) received conventional Western
educations, I assume that we are both influenced by the Master Race Theory in
more ways than we can imagine.
It is in the quest to identify and root out such unconscious presuppositions
that I raise points like the one about the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs -- not in
order to criticize any particular person.
So I, in my turn, am *also* sorry if you took my words in the wrong way.
And, by the way, if someone can show me reliable forensic evidence that the
Fourth Dynasty kings and aristocrats really *were* more caucasoid, as a
group, than those of other dynasties, I'll publicly eat my words!
Errol Back-Cunningham
In <6ihnqn$ffv$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> richa...@aol.com writes:
>
>In article <6ig5sa$c1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> ke...@jps.net wrote:
>>
>[snip]
>>
>> Even C. Loring Brace
>> has attempted to prove that the Samurai classes were more related to
the
>> Ainu, with the obvious implication Ainu=Australoid=Caucasoid.
>
>Really!
>
>I know that Brace has expended a lot of energy trying to prove that
the
>Egyptians were more closely related to Europeans than to other
Africans. But
>I didn't know that this kind of thinking was part of a larger pattern
in his
>work. Do you have a reference on that Ainu business?
Seriously guys - what relevance does this have for anyone today?
Do you think that anyone in Africa cares about this? People in
Africa are way too involved in day to day life and death struggles
for survival than to worry about who the Egyptians really came from,
and the racist overtones of all of this are quite frankly sickening.
Racists come in all colours, white, black, you name it.
Ethnocentricism knows no ethnic boundaries and this constant harping
on 'my race was better than your race' degrades any serious meaning
this thread may have from a archeopathology angle.
Errol
Errol Back-Cunningham
Your search for meaning and relevance is obviously sincere,
but why you are spamming all this stuff across ng's that don't have
the faintest interest is beyond me.
Errol
x-c...@webtv.net
In article <6ifao8$269$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In the threads entitled "Natsef-Amun" and "Blacks & Whites: Who Civilized
> Whom?", I have noticed repeated references being made to the fact that the
> pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty were "white" or, at least, somewhat more
> "caucasoid" in appearance than pharaohs in other dynasties.
>
> It was during the Fourth Dynasty that Egypt's greatest pyramids were built,
> so the question is an important one.
>
> Shall I assume, from these references, that the "Dynastic Race" is still
> alive and well on the Internet?
>
> This theory, first proposed by turn-of-the century British anatomist Grafton
> Elliot Smith, proposes that a Herrenvolk or "Master Race" of white people
> invaded Egypt, conquered the Negroid people who lived there, and made
> themselves kings. These white pharaohs then allegedly set their new subjects
> to work building pyramids. Egypt's greatest monuments were thus attributed to
> the genius and energy of a white "Master Race".
>
> Is this, in fact, what all of you are trying to imply by these repeated
> references to the supposedly "white" pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty?
>
> Richard Poe
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
> by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
> http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
>
> -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
>
Where is this clown getting his information? There's not one WHITE face
painted on any of those hyro's. Just because Devil want to label Egypt WHITE,
Does'nt make it so!
Jame...@aol.com
In article <6ihqqq$id0$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
>
> Since both you and I have (presumably) received conventional Western
> educations, I assume that we are both influenced by the Master Race Theory in
> more ways than we can imagine.
>
> It is in the quest to identify and root out such unconscious presuppositions
> that I raise points like the one about the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs -- not in
> order to criticize any particular person.
>
> So I, in my turn, am *also* sorry if you took my words in the wrong way.
>
Thank you for clarifying that.
> And, by the way, if someone can show me reliable forensic evidence that the
> Fourth Dynasty kings and aristocrats really *were* more caucasoid, as a
> group, than those of other dynasties, I'll publicly eat my words!
By forensic evidence, I assume you mean some type of human remains (there are
no human remains from this dynasty), preferably a skull such as that of
Natsef-Amun. Well, I agree that Richard Neave is a great forensic artist,
but all he had to go by in the Natsef-Amun reconstruction, was a
3,000-year-old skull. That's not to say that the reconstruction wasn't
accurate, but I'm sure he'll agree that it would have been even more accurate
if he had an actual photograph of Natsef-Amun, or better yet, Natsef-Amun
himself in the living flesh.
The artists of the fourth dynasty actually had living models (unlike forensic
artists), and these artists were tremendously skilled to boot. Their skills
are displayed in some of Egypt's most famous sculptures. These sculptures
are in no way abstract, and display a very lifelike quality. I'm sure these
are accurate depictions of the actual living models; they are, at least, no
less accurate than Richard Neave's reconstruction of Natsef-Amun, and I would
also say, no less forensic.
Again, if you would like to view the sculpture of king Menkaure (Mycerinus)
and his queen, you may do so by visiting the Mueseum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Or, you may contact me via E-Mail, and I'll send you a high-res image.
Please do, as I would be very interested in hearing your response after your
viewing of this particular sculpture.
Sincerely,
James Kalohelani
ke...@jps.net
In article <6ihnqn$ffv$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In article <6ig5sa$c1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> ke...@jps.net wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > Even C. Loring Brace
> > has attempted to prove that the Samurai classes were more related to the
> > Ainu, with the obvious implication Ainu=Australoid=Caucasoid.
>
> Really!
>
> I know that Brace has expended a lot of energy trying to prove that the
> Egyptians were more closely related to Europeans than to other Africans. But
> I didn't know that this kind of thinking was part of a larger pattern in his
> work. Do you have a reference on that Ainu business?
>
Brace doesn't compare the Samurai directly to Europeans but to "Australoids,"
one of the common cryptic terms for "Caucasoid." Specifically he mentions
Micronesians and Polynesians who are sometimes considered Pacific
"Mediterraneans." The first article below asserts a significant Ainu
contribution to the Samurai ruling classes. The second article deals with
some of the research used in the first.
Brace CL; Brace ML; Leonard WR
| ADDRESS: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
| 48109.
| TITLE: Reflections on the face of Japan: a multivariate
| craniofacial and odontometric perspective.
| SOURCE: Am J Phys Anthropol (3T0), 1989 Jan; 78 (1): 93-113
83150159
| AUTHOR: Brace CL; Nagai M
| TITLE: Japanese tooth size: past and present.
| SOURCE: Am J Phys Anthropol (3T0), 1982 Dec; 59 (4): 399-411
> >
> [snip]
> >
> The Egyptians themselves stated their dynasties started with the
> > Mesniu of Lower Nubia.
> >
> [snip]
> >
>
> I would love to get some primary sources on this, from Egyptian records.
>
The primary sources are temple inscriptions at Edfu. Bruce Williams mentions
these inscriptions in some of his works, but I can't remember which ones. Sir
E.A. Wallis Budge mentions the inscriptions and translates parts of them
in _A Short History of the Egyptian People_ (1914, 1978). You could email
Bruce Williams for more info.
> > Egyptians most often claimed that Punt was the land of the gods and
> > ancestors (amani)...
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > Egyptians also
> > saw the Western Desert as a place of the ancestors. Maybe this refers to
> > places like Nabta Playa near the Egypt-Sudan border, where the solar
> > alignment of megaliths was recently found.
>
> The best Egyptian references I was able to find on Punt were rather
> ambiguous. For example, there is this passage from Hatshepsut's mortuary
> temple:
>
> "I have assigned to you the whole of Punt, as far as the lands of the gods,
> God's lands. It had been heard of... in the reports of the ancestors."
>
> I know that Petrie felt very strongly that the original Egyptians migrated
> northward from Punt (though he also believed that the Puntites were white
> colonists from Asia).
>
Budge felt the same way, although he thought Punt was in Uganda. Still,
he states that ancient Egyptians were in no way connected with the
"Negro."
> But where does this idea of a Puntite origin come from? Passages such as the
> above seem a slender thread on which to hang such a heavy idea. Do you know
> if there's anything stronger out there? Any primary sources you could point
> me to, regarding these lands of the "ancestors" would be appreciated.
>
Let me get back to you on this one.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
H.W.M.
> >> So just where does the
> >> "Negroid" come in? Do you mean to say that Caucasoid people
> >> can't have full lips? Have you ever seen a photo of Kim Bassinger?
>
> Yes, but _why_ does Kim Basinger (Bay-Singarr, as I once heard her
> prefer it pronounced) have full lips? ;-)
>
Ach zo hier we have direct evidenze dat de ancient Ägyptians also
did silicone implants.
"The Mad Professor" HWM ;-)
Errol Back-Cunningham
Crossposting this stuff to unrelated ng's is really irritating.
stick to anthro and arche.
Errol
Errol Back-Cunningham
Why aren't these threads restricted to anthro and arche ngs?
Why are you spamming unrelated newsgroups?
Errol
Bilk Linton
Jame...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In article <6ifao8$269$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> richa...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > Shall I assume, from these references, that the "Dynastic Race" is still
> > alive and well on the Internet?
> >
> > Poe, proposes that a Herrenvolk or "Master Race" of black people
> > invaded Greece, conquered the Caucasoid people who lived there, and made
> > themselves kings. These black kings then allegedly set their new subjects
> > to work building civilization. Greece's greatest achievements were thus
> > attributed to the genius and energy of a black "Master Race".
> >
> > Is this, in fact, what all of you are trying to imply by these repeated
> > references
> >
>
> the"Natsef-Amun" thread who made a reference to this dynasty, and did so only
> once).
I believe that not only you but also Frank Yurco made references to
4th-5th dynasty folks in Giza being lighter or more Caucasoid than the
average Egyptian. I believe his rationale is that Giza is in the
northern part of Egypt, and northern Egyptians are generally lighter
(and less Nubian-like) than southern ones. I doubt that the dynastic
race theory played a part in the formation of his opinion.
>
> P.S. If you are interested in viewing the sculpture portrait of king
> Menkaure (Mycerinus) and his queen, you can do so by visiting the Mueseum of
> Fine Arts, Boston. Or, you may contact me via E-Mail, and I will send you a
> high-res JPG of the statue. Thanks!
>
Another naturalistic white-looking portrait from Old Kingdom Giza is
that of Hem-iunu -- the same Hemiunu who headed the construction of the
Great Pyramid. Here is a link to an image.
http://www.pam.org/images/pam/pam-exhib-egypt-01.jpg
The prophet Ranofer also comes to mind...
http://www.wisc.edu/arth-bin/get/id=110157th.gif
http://www.wisc.edu/arth-bin/get/id=110158th.gif
http://www.wisc.edu/arth-bin/get/id=154194th.gif
http://edunet.nmc.nm.kr/ray/edutain/picture/west/wonsi/w53.htm
I believe Yurco also pointed out the numerous limestone reserve heads
found in tombs of the period, very few of which appear Negroid.
mys...@dorsai.org
x-c...@webtv.net wrote:
>In article <6ifao8$269$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> richa...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>> In the threads entitled "Natsef-Amun" and "Blacks & Whites: Who Civilized
>> Whom?", I have noticed repeated references being made to the fact that the
>> pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty were "white" or, at least, somewhat more
>> "caucasoid" in appearance than pharaohs in other dynasties.
>>
>> It was during the Fourth Dynasty that Egypt's greatest pyramids were built,
>> so the question is an important one.
As a point of curiosity, I remember that there was an Egyptian Dynasty
that was the result of a Hittite invasion of Egypt, but don't recall
which one it was. Could someone inform me about this and perhaps how
this "fact" might relate to this present threrad as the Hittites,
originating from Anatolia, would tend to be "caucasoid."
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
On Mon, 04 May 1998 09:19:28 GMT, mys...@dorsai.org wrote:
> As a point of curiosity, I remember that there was an Egyptian Dynasty
>that was the result of a Hittite invasion of Egypt
There wasn't.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@wxs.nl |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
richa...@aol.com
In article <6ihmv8$c...@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com>#1/1,
e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Why don't you guys go to a museum sometime and take a look at mummies,
> pictures of mummies and all their artifacts, hair wigs, statues.
> It's pretty plain they are neither Aryan nor Ndebele/Bantu - but
> pretty much the same as the Egyptians you see walking the streets
> of Cairo today - and why wouldn't they be?
>
Who ever said that the Egyptians were Ndebele/Bantu?
And what do you mean when you refer to "the Egyptians you see walking the
streets of Cairo today"? Do you mean the more caucasoid-looking Egyptians or
the more negroid-looking Egyptians?
Having travelled in Egypt myself, I noted quite a wide variety of physical
types walking the streets. The vast majority of people, in the southern part
of Egypt, would certainly be called "black", in the United States, without a
moment's hesitation.
I don't know where you hail from, Errol, but in these parts, you don't have
to be Ndebele/Bantu to be considered "black". Are we quibbling over semantics
here?
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
_____________________________________________________________________
Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?
by Richard Poe (Prima, 1998)
http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black.html
richa...@aol.com
In article <6ihpvq$h...@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>#1/1,
e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
>
> In <6ihnqn$ffv$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> richa...@aol.com writes:
> >
> >In article <6ig5sa$c1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> > ke...@jps.net wrote:
> >>
> >[snip]
> >>
> >> Even C. Loring Brace
> >> has attempted to prove that the Samurai classes were more related to
> the
> >> Ainu, with the obvious implication Ainu=Australoid=Caucasoid.
> >
> >Really!
> >
> >I know that Brace has expended a lot of energy trying to prove that
> the
> >Egyptians were more closely related to Europeans than to other
> Africans. But
> >I didn't know that this kind of thinking was part of a larger pattern
> in his
> >work. Do you have a reference on that Ainu business?
>
What relevance does the Master Race Theory have for anyone today? Do we
seriously need to ask this question?
As so many all-too-recent events have shown (World War II, for example, and
the struggle over apartheid, more recently), the Master Race Theory is a
matter of acute, life-and-death relevance for anyone living on this planet.
Whether you're for it, or against it, you've got to deal with it. Of course,
there's always the third approach, that of the ostrich sticking its
proverbial head in the sand.
> Do you think that anyone in Africa cares about this? People in
> Africa are way too involved in day to day life and death struggles
> for survival than to worry about who the Egyptians really came from,
Actually, I've gotten quite a bit of interest in my book from Africa,
including from certain people high up in some African governments.
> and the racist overtones of all of this are quite frankly sickening.
> Racists come in all colours, white, black, you name it.
> Ethnocentricism knows no ethnic boundaries and this constant harping
> on 'my race was better than your race' degrades any serious meaning
> this thread may have from a archeopathology angle.
>
Racism is indeed sickening. But your anger here doesn't seem to be directed
toward racists. It seems to be directed toward the very evenhanded discussion
now in progress, on this newsgroup, concerning the ancestry and genetic
relationships of the ancient Egyptians.
I don't believe that anyone has been so crude as to state that "my race is
better than your race" or even to imply it. If anyone in this discussion
holds such views privately, they have been polite enough to keep those
sentiments to themselves.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
______________________________________________________________________
Bilk Linton
Bilk Linton wrote:
>
> Jame...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > In article <6ifao8$269$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> > richa...@aol.com wrote:
> > >
> > > alive and well on the Internet?
> > >
> > > Is this, in fact, what all of you are trying to imply by these repeated
> > > references
> > >
> >
> > Richard, I assume you are referring to my post (I was the only one on
> > the"Natsef-Amun" thread who made a reference to this dynasty, and did so only
> > once).
>
> I believe that not only you but also Frank Yurco made references to
> 4th-5th dynasty folks in Giza
Sorry. I meant, the general area around Memphis
richa...@aol.com
In article <6ihrhr$o...@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>#1/1,
e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Your search for meaning and relevance is obviously sincere,
>
Well, thanks for the compliment, as far it as goes. I suppose, like all of
us, I do yearn for more "meaning" and "relevance" in my life, from time to
time.
However, my participation in this particular discussion has very little to do
with such metaphysical issues. If there is a "search" in progress, in this
thread, it is a search for the *truth*.
The question underlying all these threads is a simple one: Is the Master Race
Theory true or is it hogwash?
All the evidence being presented in these threads bears directly on this
question.
> but why you are spamming all this stuff across ng's that don't have
> the faintest interest is beyond me.
Since this discussion has been proceeding, virtually non-stop, both with and
without my participation, through various different threads and newsgroups,
since at least January, I am led to conclude that there is, in fact, a great
deal of interest in the subject.
I notice that you are consistently excluding soc.culture.south-africa from
your posts, so maybe that is the newsgroup to which you are referring most
directly, when you speak of "ng's that don't have the faintest interest" in
the subject.
I can't speak for everyone else who is cross-posting to
soc.culture.south-africa, but I can tell you why I am doing it. It is because
the most recent phase of his four-month discussion actually *originated* in
soc.culture.south-africa, about three or four threads ago. I stumbled on it
while searching DejaNews for "Afrocentrism". And I have continued
cross-posting to the original newsgroup ever since.
In addition, I have noticed that many of the most articulate and interesting
comments have come from people in South Africa. I have very much enjoyed
these interactions, even when I disagreed with them (which was often the
case).
All of this suggests to me that many people in South Africa, both black and
white, are far more interested in the subject than you realize.
Best wishes,
Richard Poe
_______________________________________________________________________
Errol Back-Cunningham
Shouldn't you restrict your posting to the anthro, arche, nazi
and 'master race' news groups - why not cross-post to
soc.culture.zimbabwe and soc.culture.africa as well?
The master race theory is totally discredited - why don't you
stop spamming inapprorpriate newsgroups?
Errol
Errol Back-Cunningham
In <6ikijc$t2c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> richa...@aol.com writes:
>
>In article <6ihrhr$o...@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>#1/1,
> e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
>>
>[snip]
>>
>> Your search for meaning and relevance is obviously sincere,
>>
>
>Well, thanks for the compliment, as far it as goes. I suppose, like
all of
>us, I do yearn for more "meaning" and "relevance" in my life, from
time to
>time.
>
>However, my participation in this particular discussion has very
little to do
>with such metaphysical issues. If there is a "search" in progress, in
this
>thread, it is a search for the *truth*.
>
>The question underlying all these threads is a simple one: Is the
Master Race
>Theory true or is it hogwash?
Okay - it's hogwash. Now, please pick the Nazi newsgroups to
convince them.
Errol
J.R. Pelmont
David Freeman <fre...@earthling.net> wrote:
> All of the geological histories I've read recently indicate this. The
> Med was a lake, and the Strait was the 'dam' blocking the Med from the
> Atlantic. Several thousand years ago, a massive earthquake dissplace
> the rock and earth forming the dam, and the Atlantic poured in. The Med
> is between tectonic plates moving away from each other, so the Med was
> alittle bit narrower, too. (not that it would have made a difference)
> ................................
Who said that ? The tectonic plates are reported to move toward each
other, the Mediterranean sea is slowly narrowing. Consequence : rise of
the Alpine mountains, earthquakes in Italy, balkanic countries .... That
is what we are taught. And Atlantic ocean suddenly pouring into the
lake, I can't believe. What is the scientific evidence ? Most probably
very slow variations compared to human history, which is comparatively
still very short.
--
J. Pelmont, Biochimie
Univ. Grenoble I
Paul Kekai Manansala
In article <6ihpvq$h...@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>,
e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
>In <6ihnqn$ffv$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> richa...@aol.com writes:
>>
>>In article <6ig5sa$c1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
>> ke...@jps.net wrote:
>>>
>>[snip]
>>>
>>> Even C. Loring Brace
>>> has attempted to prove that the Samurai classes were more related to
>the
>>> Ainu, with the obvious implication Ainu=Australoid=Caucasoid.
>>
>>Really!
>>
>>I know that Brace has expended a lot of energy trying to prove that
>the
>>Egyptians were more closely related to Europeans than to other
>Africans. But
>>I didn't know that this kind of thinking was part of a larger pattern
>in his
>>work. Do you have a reference on that Ainu business?
>
> Seriously guys - what relevance does this have for anyone today?
I believe you're a bit misinformed. Try reading _The Bell Curve_ or some
articles on the Pioneer Fund, or on the Human Genome Project from a bioethical
standpoint. You can easily detect the same types of attitudes that have existed
long ago. I found it interesting that Elliot Smith's article on the
Egyptian "master race" was published in the Eugenics Review.
> Do you think that anyone in Africa cares about this? People in
> Africa are way too involved in day to day life and death struggles
> for survival than to worry about who the Egyptians really came from,
> and the racist overtones of all of this are quite frankly sickening.
People everywhere are engaged in life and death struggles for survival.
The modern Africentric argument is, in fact, usually credited to African scholars
like Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga. Both of these scholars are highly
respected in Africa and have advanced educational institutions named after them.
> Racists come in all colours, white, black, you name it.
> Ethnocentricism knows no ethnic boundaries and this constant harping
> on 'my race was better than your race' degrades any serious meaning
> this thread may have from a archeopathology angle.
Are you serious? Your comments would only make sense if there was not
a serious problem of ethnocentrism and racism in this field today. Do think
because racism comes "in all colours" that we should just ignore the problem?
Regards,
Alex
Crossposting this discussion to soc.culture.african.american is really irritating?
I know scaa has become an outpost of alt.politics.white-power, but this is
pushing in a little.
If you want to cut back on irritation, I suggest you limit crosspostings from
the aforementioned groups.
Errol Back-Cunningham heeft geschreven in bericht <6ijclj$j...@dfw-ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>...
Frank Joseph Yurco
To clear one point up, just because the IVth Dynasty individuals may not
be as dark as those of Dynasties I-III, does not make of them white
people!!! As Shomarka Keita has noted, in northern Africa environmental
factors developed a different variety of Africans than those of
sub-Saharan Africa, but nonetheless, those people were still Africans.
So the notion that some pharaohs were "white" is utter nonsense. They
were not Caucasians!!! To this day, northern Egyptians are lighter in
complexion and southern ones, are darker. This partly reflects the
original diversity of the population, and no, this was not a mixed race
as so many have asserted, another piece of old racist argument. What
helped this diversity was a slow steady inflow of Canaanites and other
Semitic peoples from the northeast, and Nubian-Kushites people in the
south. In no period did these slow migrations become a flood as some
have asserted that utterly transformed the Egyptian people. Yes, in
some periods there was heavier immigration, and in the Ptolemaic Era,
many Greeks and Jews settled in Egypt, but very few Romans.
Again even in the Muslim Period, sure there were Arabs who settled in
Egypt, but most settled around Cairo, save for a few tribes imported into
Middle Egypt. All the political action was in Cairo, and that's where
the society was awash with all sorts of foreigners, Kurds, Turks, and
all the other ethnic types these brought with them. The rulers though
disdained the fellahin as the peasantry were known and never even dreamed
of intermingling with them. The overwhelming mass of Egyptian people
derive from the peasantry. Note that the Copts, who have not intermingled
also come light to dark. Copts from Luxor and Aswan look exactly like
their Muslim neighbors in that part of Egypt, dark brown.
That is the real history of Egypt and its people.
Most sincerely,
Frank J. Yurco
University of Chicago
--
Frank Joseph Yurco fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu
Michael Apple
Gisele wrote:
>
> Michael Apple wrote:
>
> > Egyptians transported Rhesus monkies from India to Gibralter via
> > funicular or trapese, or whatever method is assumbed to have been in
> > vogue at the time...
>
> Mike, is there anything you can add to the above comment?
Sure. I'm personally in favor of the proposed method of trapese,
though I don't think we can positively date Egyptian trapeses before the
start of the Middle Kingdom. Noting the rather impresive gap in time
between our first trapese artifacts and the dispersal of proto-barbary
apes from Hindoostan, I still favor this method, though it remains to
this day speculative. Check out C. Vallis Drudge's _Highwire in
Antiquity_ ( 1932 ) or B.S Dart's _Monkey Business: from Sterkfontain to
Piltdown_ ( 1947 )for classic accounts that still retain their
relevancy...
How do we know
> that the Egyptians brought monkeys to Gibraltar and why would they do that?
We don't, they didn't and naturally why on earth would they?
I thought the tone of that half of the post was clear. Apparantly
not.
Best
Mike Apple
Alex
e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
> Do you think that anyone in Africa cares about this? People in
> Africa are way too involved in day to day life and death struggles
> for survival than to worry about who the Egyptians really came from,
Erroll seems to think that everyone in Africa is involved in some sort
of life and death struggle (which is perhaps the impression you'll
be left with if you only watch CNN and the rest of the crisis-media.
Perhaps he should go there sometime.
And "racist overtones"? I think that you're just sickened by the challenge to
racism, and what it implies.
Alex van Deelen
Errol Back-Cunningham
In <6il0lr$4hq$1...@news2.xs4all.nl> "Alex" <avde...@xs4all.nl> writes:
>
>
>e...@ix.netcom.com(Errol Back-Cunningham) wrote:
>
>
>> Do you think that anyone in Africa cares about this? People in
>> Africa are way too involved in day to day life and death struggles
>> for survival than to worry about who the Egyptians really came
from,
>
>
>Erroll seems to think that everyone in Africa is involved in some sort
>of life and death struggle (which is perhaps the impression you'll
>be left with if you only watch CNN and the rest of the crisis-media.
>Perhaps he should go there sometime.
I'm from there you idiot!
Errol
Bilk Linton
richa...@aol.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On the tombs of Ramesses III and Seti I, Egyptian artists painted murals
> portraying the different varieties of mankind. In these murals, the Egyptians
> are shown with red-brown skin, the Syro-Palestinians with yellowish skin and
> the Libyans with white skin.
>
Of course in these same murals, the Nubians are portrayed very
differently from the Egyptians.
> Should we assume, from this, that the Egyptians spent a lot of time in the
> sun, the Syro-Palestinians slightly less time in the sun,
For a new twist, here is a relief that shows the Syro-Palestinian with
the exact same skin color as the Egyptian
http://alaike.lcc.hawaii.edu/sg/101images/nub.jpeg
Apparently the artist used the same pigment to depict both the Syrian
captive (the middle one) and the Egyptian captor at the right of the
picture. The Nubian(?) on the far left, by contrast, is given a
blackish tint.
Just something to throw into the mix.
Errol Back-Cunningham
Miskien is julle heeltemaal gerook of iets dat jy dink hierdie
thread iets beteken op die Suid-Afrikaanse nuusgroep.
Of is dit dat jy dink jy sal jou 'Afrikan' broers edukeer?
Errol
Errol Back-Cunningham
challenge to
>racism, and what it implies.
What does it imply? That you haven't the faintest idea what
you're talking about? I am from Africa - you're obviously not.
We're sick of racism!
Errol
ke...@jps.net
In article <6ij2v7$51p$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
ke...@jps.net wrote:
>
> In article <6ihnqn$ffv$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1,
> richa...@aol.com wrote:
> >
>
>
> > But where does this idea of a Puntite origin come from? Passages such as
the above seem a slender thread on which to hang such a heavy idea. Do you
know if there's anything stronger out there? Any primary sources you could
point me to, regarding these lands of the "ancestors" would be appreciated.
> >
>
> Let me get back to you on this one.
>
Still haven't found the 'land of the ancestors' reference, but Budge
mentions in his hieroglypic dictionary that a region south of Egypt on the
Nile was known as Ta Aakhu "the land of the soul-spirits." Budge thinks
that Ta Aakhu was in either Central or South Sudan.
Budge also mentions in his _A history of Egypt from the end of the Neolithic
period to the death of Cleopatra VII., B.C. 30_, vol. 1, p. 46, that the word
"Punt" always occurred without the throwstick determinative for "foreign,
foreigner." Apparently no other country was treated in the same way.
That at least one location known as Punt was in Africa is obvious
since wild giraffes and rhinoceros are mentioned and/or depicted as inhabiting
the region.
I also found that the Egyptian word for "royal ancestor" = "nesu" has the
meaning "Prince of Kush/Nubia" when used with different determinatives. Nesu
also refers to Upper Egyptian royalty.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Royal Mummies
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
Alex
Errol Back-Cunningham heeft geschreven in bericht <6il6mn$8...@sjx-ixn10.ix.netcom.com>...
All 1 billion of you? Gee, where did I hear such sweeping statements
before, mun? And who elected you to be anyone's mouthpiece?
Anyway, the point is that Richard Poe and Paul Manansala have
every right in the world to say what they want, even if you personally
don't want to hear it.
Cheers,
Alex van Deelen
> Errol
Jame...@aol.com
In article <EsFz9...@midway.uchicago.edu>#1/1,
fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank Joseph Yurco) wrote:
>
> To clear one point up, just because the IVth Dynasty individuals may not
> be as dark as those of Dynasties I-III, does not make of them white
> people!!!
This is true. My observation was based upon facial features alone. In fact,
the Menkaure sculpture I made reference to, is not painted.
As Shomarka Keita has noted, in northern Africa environmental
> factors developed a different variety of Africans than those of
> sub-Saharan Africa, but nonetheless, those people were still Africans.
This is also true. However, the term "caucasoid" does not mean "non
African". As you noted above, there are a variety of racial types in Africa
due to the range of environmental factors across the continent.
> So the notion that some pharaohs were "white" is utter nonsense. They
> were not Caucasians!!!
Obviously, your definition of "caucasoid" is not the same as mine. How you
can view the images supplied by B. Linton (see the links provided in his
post), and conclude they are "negroid", is beyond me.
To this day, northern Egyptians are lighter in
> complexion and southern ones, are darker. This partly reflects the
> original diversity of the population, and no, this was not a mixed race
> as so many have asserted, another piece of old racist argument.
I agree with this, but why do you consider the "mixed race" assertion racist?
What
> helped this diversity was a slow steady inflow of Canaanites and other
> Semitic peoples from the northeast, and Nubian-Kushites people in the
> south. In no period did these slow migrations become a flood as some
> have asserted that utterly transformed the Egyptian people. Yes, in
> some periods there was heavier immigration, and in the Ptolemaic Era,
> many Greeks and Jews settled in Egypt, but very few Romans.
>
> Again even in the Muslim Period, sure there were Arabs who settled in
> Egypt, but most settled around Cairo, save for a few tribes imported into
> Middle Egypt. All the political action was in Cairo, and that's where
> the society was awash with all sorts of foreigners, Kurds, Turks, and
> all the other ethnic types these brought with them. The rulers though
> disdained the fellahin as the peasantry were known and never even dreamed
> of intermingling with them. The overwhelming mass of Egyptian people
> derive from the peasantry. Note that the Copts, who have not intermingled
> also come light to dark. Copts from Luxor and Aswan look exactly like
> their Muslim neighbors in that part of Egypt, dark brown.
Again, I agree, and I do appreciate your contribution. Thank you, professor
Yurco.
mys...@dorsai.org
m...@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>On Mon, 04 May 1998 09:19:28 GMT, mys...@dorsai.org wrote:
>> As a point of curiosity, I remember that there was an Egyptian Dynasty
>>that was the result of a Hittite invasion of Egypt
>There wasn't.
Then who were the Hyksos?
mys...@dorsai.org
David O'Bedlam <thed...@earthling.net> wrote:
>Let's recall one fact: the native peoples of the Caribbean died out
>from diseases brought by the Spaniards and from genocide inflicted
>on them by the Spaniards -- so the Spaniards imported West Africans
>to serve as slaves instead.
The Tainos and the Caribs, the original indigenous populations of the
Caribbean, STILL exists as separate peoples contrary to popular
misinformation. Though many have mixed with either Spanish and/or
West Africans, there are today many families and clans of Tainos and
Caribs that are "pure blood."
Errol Back-Cunningham
Please stop cross-posting this stuff on the Caribs
to soc.culture.south-africa. If you would like to debate
the San, Zulu, Xhosa, Khoi etc. etc. - we do
that here and would welcome discussion. West Africans
are a little different, and are in fact a great source
of irritation to the local black clans as illegal immigrants,
so their movement to the Caribbean is of little interest.
Errol
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
People from the Near East. Semites, not Hittites.
Errol Back-Cunningham
>All 1 billion of you? Gee, where did I hear such sweeping statements
>before, mun? And who elected you to be anyone's mouthpiece?
>Anyway, the point is that Richard Poe and Paul Manansala have
>every right in the world to say what they want, even if you personally
>don't want to hear it.
My complaint was about cross-posting this crap to an inappropriate
newsgroup. soc.culture.south-africa is where we discuss
the San, Khoi, Xhosa, Zulu and other Southern African tribes
and clans - or did you somehow imagine that South Africa is
ADJACENT to Egypt?? If you would care to discuss the future of the
San, the current illegal Mocambique immigrant situation,
problems at South African schools or items of our culture
that would be different. Please notice that the scs-a ng has now been
trimmed.
Errol