Resemblance of Faces of Ancient Egyptian Statues to those of Sub-Saharan Africans

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

I wonder why some of the faces of ancient Egyptian statues I saw some years ago in the British Museum looked like the faces of people I knew in Nigeria in terms of the bone structure.

I also wonder why so many of the noses of ancient statues, including the Sphinx,   were cut off at the nostrils.

The various explanations Ive read of these disfigurements don't look plausible to me.

I realize this is an old issue but would like to read from people who have explored the subject.

Thanks

Toyin

[Chika Okeke-Agulu]

Toyin,

Only the bone structures of figures from Upper Egypt (Nubia) (or mixed race origins) are likely to resemble those from Nigeria/black Africa, not so much those from Lower Egypt, who were mostly Semitic types. On the broken noses, this was an ancient way of "killing" or disempowering statues (said to embody the spirit/soul/persona of the subject). In Roman times, it was referred to as "damnatio" (a former colleague at Emory, Eric Varner, wrote a book on Roman damnatio memorae https://brill.com/display/title/8735). Only few original portraits of Nero, for instance, exist with their noses intact; a few of Augustus, the good emperor, do. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans practiced it. And it usually happened at the end of the regime of any particularly despised ruler, or who had an unfriendly successor.

Nero

[Gloria Emeagwali]

Before you jump to this 

conclusion you should have a look at

Ehret , C. Ancient Africa. ch 5.

Princeton Univ Press, 2023.

Ehret points out that the Egyptians 

were basically of East African and

Horn of Africa origin related to

the M35/215 Y- chromosome 

lineage with a heavy input of ethnic

Nubian ancestry as well.

Other scholars have argued as much.

A recent genetics article pointing 

to Levantine origin is discussed 

on page 84 of the text. The 

sample is not representative of the foundation era and most of Egypt,

the author points out.

The Levantine Hyksos conquered

Egypt  during the 15th dynasty 

and set up their headquarters at Avaris.This is located in the Delta

region which constitutes a small

fraction of Lower (Northern) 

Egypt - and not all of it.

I had the pleasure of looking

at hundreds of depictions in Egypt 

on walls, and numerous statues 

on the East and West banks of

the Nile - from Cairo  to Luxor to

Elephantine Island -early this year

 and actually 

came to the same conclusion 

as Toyin. Some of these

Images are depicted in

Magnificent Luxor

https://vimeo.com/833807044

Amenotep III

Mother of Pharaoh Akhenaten and

grandmother of Tutankhamen.

Gloria Emeagwali 

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

During the middle ages,or sooner, christian rulers/crusaders etc, disfigured ancient statues so as to discourage paganism. This was probably almost universal. 

Ken

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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Resemblance of Faces of Ancient Egyptian Statues to those of Sub-Saharan Africans

 

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Chika

I'm beginning to  feel a little better on the subject.

Your response also helps me better understand who the ancient Egyptians were.

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Great thanks Gloria.

I am better educated about who the ancient Egyptians, our great ancestors, could have been.

One needs to see such wonders as Egypt for oneself.

I need to work out a travel itinerary with Egypt as being strategic to this.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Ken

Why the focus on the nose though?

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[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Please do that ( to Egypt but not just for the pyramids...there's a very vibrant Islamic Egypt and The Desert Fathers etc etc waiting to be discovered by you. I'm prepared to commit $1,000 to your travel  itinerary right now....

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Later in history, probably for the same reasons ( "christian rulers/crusaders etc, disfigured ancient statues so as to discourage paganism.") :

Taliban destroyed Buddha statues

Islamic State destroyed the statutes in Palmyra

[Harrow, Kenneth]

Arms got lopped off, penises especially were cut off. Consider the venus de milo, the apotheosis of ancient beauty—armless. Maybe there was more to it, but considering the long period of transition to christian dominance and the vast regions involved, it probably was simply a broad notion of disfigurement… (my guess)

Ken

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, September 11, 2023 2:43:52 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Resemblance of Faces of Ancient Egyptian Statues to those of Sub-Saharan Africans

 

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

To add to this dismal practice, in the war in syria timeless treasures got bombed to pieces, and of courses museums were looted. Not just ancient religious prejudices, but the full horrors of war destroying the beauty and creativity of humans. 

We humans create beautiful thoughts and values, and translate into scultures and art and music, and joy.’

And then we have the opposite.

Two sides to us. 

Ken

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Resemblance of Faces of Ancient Egyptian Statues to those of Sub-Saharan Africans

 

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

Meant to say war in iraq, but syria too, if not as much. Main point: we as humans are destructive, but also creative. Two sides, hard to reconcile

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[Victor Okafor]

Hi Dr. Adepoju, I suggest that the following books would answer your important questions elaborately.

1. Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Westport: Lawrence Hill, 1974. 
2. Diop, Cheikh Anta. Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. Westport: Lawrence Hill, 1991.
3. Davidson, Basil. African Civilization Revisited. Trenton: Africa WP, 1991.

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Sincerely,

Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.

Professor and Head

Department of Africology and African American Studies

Eastern Michigan University

Email: vok...@emich.edu

https://www.emich.edu/aaas/

https://www.facebook.com/DAAASEMU/

Tel: 734.487.9594 

Food for Thought: 

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Oluwatoyin asks,” Why the focus on the nose though?”

Ever heard the expression “Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face”?

A feature of Christianity : statues in churches 

Erasing history 

Traces of history erased

Another placed in Egypt, loaded with history : Alexandria 

Philo of Alexandria

The conflict between Arius and Athanasius took place in Alexandria

Magnificent : The Mosques of Egypt

 

On Monday, 11 September 2023 at 21:55:32 UTC+2 Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

great thanks Victor.

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

great thanks for all assistance to help me understand this puzzle

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[cornelius...@gmail.com]

“The triumph of Christianity brought with it the near destruction of classical civilization. Libraries and museums,temples and statues were demolished or defaced at a large scale in what has been described as " the largest  destruction of art the world has ever seen" 

t.ly/we5AQ

Footnote to “ the largest  destruction of art the world has ever seen" 

Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age : The Christian Destruction of the Classical World ,London, Macmillan,2017, xxxvii

On Monday, 11 September 2023 at 18:58:54 UTC+2 Harrow, Kenneth wrote:

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Not Islam but Christianity 

“The triumph of Christianity brought with it the near-destruction of classical civilization.”

[gbemisoye tijani]

...what a critical observation and well deserved too...no wonder why trivial s can't find a place in historical and archeology research ..Kudos for your digging deep on those statues.

Gbemi Tijani MST,Paul Harris Fellow & former Unesco club leader in the 70s in Ogun State School.714/

[Harrow, Kenneth]

This attribution to the fall of the ancient world to christianity seems too simple to me. Didn’t rome “fall” because of the “barbarians,” the various gothic and other peoples who eventually conquered much of their extended territories? Didn’t the rise of “barbarism” come with vikings etc; the fall of large urban states and replacement by feudal states; wasn’t ancient philosophy and literature largely preserved, saved, by the muslim thinkers? Wasn’t it the shift to local rulers, the rise of local feudal lords, that came in the 5th 6th 7th centuries etc? 

If ancient art declined, wasn’t it supplanted by the rise of local christian art, that became magnificent over time, the great byzantine empire, the rise of romanesque and gothic cathedrals and their art.

We are the barbarians who have replaced our predecessors, just as they did to their forefathers. We don’t stay static in this world.

Some regret this as loss, and use words like barbaric and decline; the “fall and decline” of this kingdom and that empire. 

I took it that the major achievement of Things Fall Apart was to demonstrate how the small and local was just another form of “civilization,” with its own palm oil and words with which its cathedrals of thoughts were built. 

Ken

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Resemblance of Faces of Ancient Egyptian Statues to those of Sub-Saharan Africans

 

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