Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy/Archive 18

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Ancient Egyptian race controversy edits

Moved into here from user talk page:

Hi Wdford,

I am still in the process of making few final revisions to the AE RC article. I just want to run-by these changes with you so you don't remove it later since none of the other editors have responded to my recent proposals.

1. DNA testing of the Ancient Egyptian mummies remains controversial due to methodological and sampling bias, I think this should be stated in the genetic studies sub-section. This inclusion should be fine without dispute ?.

2. I think another Egyptologist should be considered in the modern scholarship sub-section for further context, I was thinking either Stephen Quirke or Sally Ann-Ashton. This should not be a problem either ?.

3. Why was the sub-section on the Land of Punt removed from the article ?. This location still remains a source of debate ?.

WikiUser4020 (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Everything about this topic remains controversial – that's all that makes it noteworthy. The very existence of the topic is controversial in itself. Although most specialists accept that "race" does not actually exist, and the ancient Egyptians therefore were neither black nor white as per modern social usage, Afrocentrists and a few other people continue to stir the pot for their own purposes. Egyptians themselves do not consider themselves to be black or white, but Afrocentrists do not pay attention to what the Egyptians themselves think.

Keita is quick to complain about "methodological and sampling bias" whenever a paper goes against his POV, but Diop's work suffers massively from "methodological and sampling bias", and Keita says nothing about that at all. Diop's "melanin tests" specifically sampled mummies which were already known to have been Nubian wives. No tests ever conducted, whether on DNA or limb ratios or teeth or whatever, have considered even the most minute fraction of the population over time – yet you are happy to include such studies if they seem to support your POV. Typical cherry-picking. This is not purely a "black vs white" issue - Arabian limb ratios are also "tropical", as are Arabian skulls shapes. However Afrocentrists have a racial axe to grind, and any inconvenient facts are simply by-passed.

NB: Measuring skull shapes has been debunked long ago as a reliable indicator of race or origin, but some people still cling to it, and you are happy to include those few studies which seem to support your POV. Petrie based his entire Dynastic race theory on the fact that skeletal remains found at pre-dynastic sites at Naqada (Upper Egypt) indicated the presence of two different races, with one race differentiated physically by a noticeably larger skeletal structure and cranial capacity. Petrie also noted strong "cultural links" to Mesopotamia such as architectural styles, pottery styles, cylinder seals and artworks, as well as numerous Predynastic rock and tomb paintings depicting Mesopotamian style boats, symbols, and figures. However this multitude of evidence was disregarded, in that physical differences in skeletal structure and cranial capacity are no longer considered to be an indication of race, and neither are "cultural links".

We can include any modern scholar in the modern scholarship sub-section, provided they are reliable sources (i.e. WP:V), they are actually dealing with the topic on hand (i.e. no WP:SYNTH) and there is no cherry-picking of statements (i.e. WP:NPOV).

I don't recall exactly why the sub-section on the Land of Punt was removed from the article. However I do recall arguments that Punt was not relevant to the AE Race debate, in that the AE's were Egyptians not Puntites. I also recall that there is still no agreement on where was Punt – the mummified baboons and birds etc seem to be African, but the actual Ancient Egyptian inscriptions point to a land in Arabia. The current "compromise" is that Punt was probably on both coasts of the Red Sea, but it is also possible that Punt ships from Arabian bases traded baboons etc from the Somalis as they sailed up and down the coast. Obviously a few people still continue to push their various political and social agendas. Since the "debate" is still unsettled, and since it is not relevant to this topic anyway, the paragraph was simply removed.

Wdford (talk) 10:30, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Is this a political tirade or a serious answer to the questions posed ?. The "controversy" over the Ancient Egyptian ethnicity arose from racialist, Eurocentric scholarship which was the dominant strain of historiography from the early modern era. This was reflected in the various, racist propositions such as the Dynastic and Hamitic hypothesis which have no support. Afrocentrism arose in response to the dominant Eurocentric view in scholarship which attributed a range of African civilisations including Ancient Egypt, Nubia, Great Zimbabwe and Benin artefacts to external, foreign origins. This history of biased scholarship has been criticised in both historical and modern scholarship, which has been in part due to African and Afrocentric scholarship. The Ancient Egyptians emerged from a Black African context with strong connections to the Sahara and Sudan as various studies have shown. This has been part of the criticism of modern scholars that have been reluctant to admit the African origin of Ancient Egypt and present a false binary between white and black social categories in which a race-blind, neutral view can be upheld despite the colonial history of Egyptology.

I'm assuming your point on the self-identification of Egyptians, is referring to the modern population, but that does not address the question of the origins and ethnic composition of the Ancient civilisation as current identities fluctuate and change over time. You can pose the same question to current populations in North America or Australia but would you seriously suggest the majority, European populations have the same cultural, ethnic identity or the same phenotypes as the indigenous populations that inhabited those regions over the past millennium ?.

Diop's view on the tropical body plans of Ancient Egyptians (especially Upper Egyptians) has been corroborated with the various authors of that era (Trikhanus (1981), Robins and Shute (1986) and Nancy Lovell (1999) although more recent studies such as the 2013 study by Bleuze suggest that this cannot be generalised for the entire population as "negroid".

In contrast, Middle Easterners from subtropical desert climates comparable to Egypt's do not have the Egyptians' African-like limb proportions (Holliday2000, Smith 2002). This means that the ancient Egyptians' ancestors must have migratedfrom a tropical region further south, such as Sudan, which is consistent with the archaeological data. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/683538) (Smith, P. "The palaeo-biological evidence for admixture between populations in thesouthern Levant and Egypt in the fourth to third millennia BCE." In Egypt and the Levant: interrelations from the 4th through the 3rd millenium BCE. Edited by E. C.Mvan den Brink and T. E. Levy., 118-28. Leicester, UK: Leicester Univ Press, 2002).

You were cherry-picking as you were reluctant to change the title of the DNA sub-section and would permit the section to that general, misleading title "Near-Eastern Affinities" until I corrected you and that was subsequently removed. The evidence is overwhelming that the Ancient Egyptian civilisation emerged from the African context with strong ties to the Saharan and Sudanese populations. I'm not requesting opposing DNA studies be included in the sub-section, but a sentence as a word of caution to general readers that the DNA studies have been criticised due to the methodological and sampling bias. That is a neutral view. I can provide several peer-reviewed studies and sources to affirm this.

Keita is an authoritative anthropologist and has not stated his political views, although you are presuming this because it does not align with your POV. His peer-reviewed work with other academics have echoed this similar criticism on study design, racial classifications and data methods. I'm not cherry-picking but providing summaries of their views on the specified subject. I will include another scholar (Stephen Quirke or Sally Ashton) who comments on this specific issue soon and a summary sentence on criticism of DNA studies to be included in the genetic sub-section. This will serve as a notice of caution to general readers to avoid misleading judgement.

I have stated before I do not want an extensive back and forth.WikiUser4020 (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

what's sad is that as a result of your crusade, Rationalwiki of all places has a better article on this whole thing that Wikipedia. Maybe cool your jets and stop projecting your racism onto others. 137.195.110.8 (talk) 13:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Well you have certainly shown your POV openly now. Accusing me of a political tirade, and then producing this race-based Afrocentrist tirade above. Your POV was never really in doubt, but now at least you are being honest about it. No more pretence of neutrality, it seems.

Sally-Ann Ashton is a "Senior Assistant Keeper" who "looks after material". Hardly an expert. She does have a PhD, as do a great many people, but you cannot stack a "keeper's assistant" like Ashton against a Professor Emeritus of Egyptology like Barry Kemp or a Professor Emerita of Classical Studies like Mary Lefkowitz, and consider it "neutral".

Trenton W. Holliday (2000) was discussing samples from 100,000 years ago, and noted that some of them predated the Neanderthals – thus hardly relevant to this debate. You really are scratching for cherries to pick now, are you not? Patricia Smith was comparing Neolithic samples against the Neolithic Levant (more north even than northern Egypt, and much cooler), rather than against Arabia (equal latitudes to Egypt, with a desert climate), so again, Smith is not representative of the argument. She admitted in her conclusion that the sample sizes available were very small, but she noted physiological differences across the length of Egypt and concluded that they were most likely a result of long-term adaptation to different ecological niches, rather than "race". The only time she actually said that ancient Egyptians resembled sub-Saharan Africans was when she was summarising Keita. She also summarised other sources who said very different things – but you skipped over all of those in your desperate search for cherries, didn’t you?

You claim that Diop's views have been corroborated, and yet those authors have concluded (from very unrepresentative samples) that the ancient Egyptian body plans were NOT sub-Saharan as Diop claimed, but rather "super-Negroid", i.e. "larger than Negroid", and not actually the same. You also continue to avoid the hard and inconvenient FACT that Petrie used body shapes and cultural ties to support his Dynastic Race hypothesis, and that his mountain of evidence in that direction outweighs Keita's evidence in your direction. You also avoid the FACT that the modern scholarly position is that ancient Egyptians came in all shapes and sizes, that differences in shapes and sizes do not indicate differences in race and that the presence of neighbouring cultural material indicates trade not racial intermingling. If Ethiopians wear English suits and drink Scottish whisky and use Finnish cell-phones, it doesn’t make them white – does it?

The studies you lean on are more controversial than the studies which refute your POV. Colonialism was undoubtedly a crime, but that doesn’t mean you now have a license to rewrite real scientific facts to suit your POV. Science has upheld repeatedly that the current Egyptians are the direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians – unlike the white Americans or the black Americans, who everyone accepts are foreigners in America. Your claims here are false, and blatantly so.

You claim to have included a "short, neutral sentence … to prevent a misleading impression of the genetic studies". Instead you actually included an entire extra paragraph, entirely cited to Keita (of course) and purely repeating Keita's standard spiel in defence of his POV. Since we now have two huge and complicated paragraphs from Keita which are both trying to oppose this DNA study, this material needs to be summarised, and not in Wikipedia's voice – so as to preserve neutrality.

Perhaps we need a separate sub-sub-section for non-expert PhD people to vent about racial injustice in academia – like Ashton and Uros Matic? We can call it Modern opinions about racial bias in academia. What do you think?

Wdford (talk) 12:31, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

You continue with this accusatory and inflammatory language with limited rebuttal on the basis of evidence. I never stated my political views, although you interjected your views on "Wokeism" which was criticised by Generalrelative and myself. However, because I do not dismiss African-centred studies because it does cannot be equated with the dominant Eurocentric view in historiography therefore makes me an Afrocentrist. This reveals more about your assumptions and viewpoints than anything else.

I have another recent study (2020) produced by Goode which again re-iterates tht same point, that pre-dynastic Egyptians clustered with Nubian groups than Middle Eastern groups. In this craniometric study, she analysed a series of carnia, including two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Nagada series), a series of A-Group Nubians and a Bronze Age series from Lachish, Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest afffinities, followed by closeness between the Nagada and the Nubian series. Overall, both Egyptian samples were more similar to the Nubian series than to the Lachish series. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337001806_A_biological_perspective_of_the_relationship_between_Egypt_Nubia_and_the_Near_East_during_the_Predynastic_period).

How I am desperately cherry-picking ?. I have produced so much meticulous, overwhelming evidence from a range of scholars that I have revised several articles over a single month. The articles, publications and references on the origins and cultural context of Ancient Egypt are abundant.

Are you seriously referencing Flinders Petrie ?. A colonial-era Egyptologist that infamously constructed the racialist Dynastic theory and was known for eugenic views. Flinders lacked any academic qualifications in archaeology or anthropology in comparison to Keita who has made several peer-reviewed, cited work on the biological anthropological remains of pre-dynastic Egyptians. Petrie's Dynastic theory has long been discarded and abandoned. (Tony Wilkinson Early Dynastic Egypt p1-40). This reflects again much about your judgement and why neutrality is badly needed for this article.

Sally Ashton has a PhD, but neither Barbara Mertz or Frank Yurco held positions as distinguished Professors in that department yet both are included. Barbara Mertz only has a PhD and was a mystery author yet she is cited repeatedly throughout the article. Is that not cherry-picking ?.

One study by Robins and Shute made that reference that "super-negroid" does not translate into Sub-Saharan ancestry but that was criticised by Keita as suggesting they were not part of the Saharo-tropical group which included Black Africans. Nancy Lovell shares Keita's view that those skeletal remains are "within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa".

Nobody is disputing that a north-south gradient existed, this reflects the wider physical diversity of African populations. However, the southern region was dominant through the dynastic period in which nearly all the major dynasties emerged from either Thebes or Aswan (1, 11th, 12th, 17th, 18th dynasties) and Upper Egypt has been shown to have strong cultural and biological ties to Sudan and the Sahara in various studies. The acknowledgement of a north-south gradient if anything indirectly emphasises this view further.

You seem to have a confused understanding of cultural ties with the reference to modern aesthetics i.e Ethopians wearing English suits. The shared cultural practice between Ancient Egyptians and other African populations in areas of religious ceremony, pottery, mummification has been viewed among anthropologist to show a common ancestral connection. The fact these specific cultural traits are not shared in other regions at this same time would further emphasise that. This should not be confused with trade connnections.

How are the studies cited "controversial" and by what criteria ?. I have cited all peer-reviewed studies or publications that feature a range of scholars. You have asserted this without providing supporting evidence.

The reference includes Keita and colloborating scholars i.e. Rick Kittles and A.J. Boyce. These are biological anthropologists and the studies are peer-reviewed.

Yes, we could have a sub-section about Modern views on racial bias in Egyptology. That could be a compromise position. However, as I have stated before stop with the accusatory language and present your criticism on the basis of evidence. WikiUser4020 (talk) 14:16, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Seriously? The first paragraph of your tirade was a text-book campus introduction to Afrocentrism.

As has been explained by virtually every source you have cited on this topic, crania shapes and body plans are deeply influenced by climate and nutrition. They do not represent race. Naqada is in the Sahara desert (like Nubia), while Lachish is in the Palestine hill country. Naqada is at 26 degrees north latitude, while Lachish is at 31 degrees north latitude – 550 kms north of Nagada, and further north than any part of Egypt, in a completely different climatic region, and a completely different time period. The samples are not comparable. Citing this as evidence relevant to the debate is misleading to the point of mendacity, and is cherry-picking to an absurd extent.

On the other hand, both Lachish and Naqada would have spoken an Afro-Asiatic language, while the Nubian language was completely different, even though they were comparatively close to Naqada. Interesting?

I mentioned Petrie's Dynastic theory specifically BECAUSE it has long been discarded and abandoned. Petrie's Dynastic theory was based on mountains of evidence of body shapes and cultural ties, and it was discarded and abandoned because body shapes and cultural ties are NOT an indication of race. However Keita's theory is also based on body shapes and cultural ties, even though it has long been agreed that body shapes and cultural ties are NOT an indication of race. Read for comprehension, not for cherries.

Barbara Mertz and Frank Yurco make scientific conclusions based on evidence, and they happen to agree with Barry Kemp and Mary Lefkowitz. In your citation, Ashton is making a socio-political statement, not a scientific statement. She even uses the phrase "The fact that Ancient Egypt is forced to justify its African identity", although in reality Egyptians themselves do NOT consider themselves to be Black, and do not have to "justify" anything to anybody.

So you cite Robins and Shute as supporting Keita's POV, when actually they did not, and now you mention that Keita had to criticize them – for what? Criticize them for stating the obvious based on evidence? Lovell stated correctly that those skeletal remains are "within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa". However they are also "within the range of variation" for any other group which developed in similar climatic conditions. Lovell also noted (correctly) that the range of variation could be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighbouring populations – i.e. some Nubians intermarrying with some Egyptians, rather than Nubians and Egyptians being the same people from the beginning. Your personal conclusions are highly synthetic.

Your selection of "major dynasties" is once again highly selective. Who built the pyramids? Egypt invaded and subjugated Nubia for eons, and such a subjugation always leaves "strong cultural and biological ties". Once again, this does NOT mean that Nubians and Egyptians were the same people from the beginning. All once-colonised countries have mixed-race populations, as you well know. All once-colonised countries retain the use of the language of their colonial occupier, and many of their customs. In India today, they speak English, and they play cricket - better than the English themselves can do today. In Mexico today, they speak Spanish and they enjoy bullfighting. The official language of Senegal is French. Diop was a Muslim, although Islam did not originate in West Africa, but was brought in by foreigners. This is obvious to all open-minded people.

Christianity is today the largest religion in Ethiopia, but Ethiopians learned Christianity from foreigners – they are not the same race as the Romans or the Byzantines. Islam is the second-largest religion in Ethiopia after Christianity, but it too was brought into the country by foreigners. Fewer than 2% of Ethiopian people today follow an "indigenous" religion. Ethiopian people follow the same burial practices as most people around the world, even though nobody suggests any ancient linkages. Ethiopian people eat off plates and drink from cups, as do most people around the world, even though nobody suggests any ancient linkages. Pottery was invented independently all over the world, and was frequently traded – and styles were imitated. As still happens today. None of this has anything to do with race.

Wdford (talk) 20:15, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

You continue with these assertations and claims of "text-book" Afrocentrism, when I have not stated my political views whereas you have clearly stated your tirade against Wokeism.

The Godde study is far from misleading as she has made similar conclusions across various studies which show a close biological affinities between pre-dynastic Upper Egyptian and Nubian samples. Her work is peer-reviewed and published and unless you can provide countering evidence from other scholars, you are simply interjecting your personal view on an academic study which does not align with your POV. This is the same, baseless criticism you have made of Keita in which his work has been widely cited as an authoritative academic.

Petrie's work was discarded because his 1) hypothesis was marred by a confusion of race, language, and culture and by an accompanying racism, 2) his methodology was unscientific as it was partly due to his deductions of two different "races" at pre-dynastic sites at Naqada. This was even contested at the time by other scholars such as Wallis Budge that the religion of the Egyptians was essentially identical to the religions of the people of northeastern and central Africa.

This does not mean that general and modern cranial studies have no anthropological value. This is highly dependent on methodology as has been reflected in the adoption of an evolutionary approach for conducing comparative anatomical studies. This seeks to identify a range of traits controlled by independent genetic loci and recognise that traits evolve in line with environmental and gene glow. Indeed, non-metric craniometric analysis investigate traits which are subject to environmental selection and reflect this in with cranial measurements as Godde notes in her work. Keita uses a multiple discriminant functions in his craniometric approach which is far more accurate than the speculative, deductive approach of a colonial-era, Egyptologist.

The majority of Afro-Asiatic Languages are spoken on the African continent and many scholars argue the oldest speakers were located on the north-eastern region, although the specific location remains a source of dispute.

Barbara Mertz does not make a scientific judgement she simply asserts that "Egyptians was not Mediterranean or African" which is a vague term and you permitted her selection precisely because she agrees with noted critics of African-centered studies such as Mary Lefkowitz. You originally disagreed with Sally Ashton's selection because she was not an expert with the same credentials as Barry Kemp, but neither does Barbara Mertz have the equivalent credentials and now you claiming the issue is due to the nature of statement which does not align with your POV. You are clearly cherry-picking quotes and have permitted the selection of Barbara Mertz repeatedly throughout the article. Yurco himself noted that the Nubians were closest ethnically to Egyptians shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonic political structure in an earlier publciation (Yurco; 1989; Are the Egyptians Black or White ?).

Have you read (or deliberately misinterpreted) Novell's full statement as she states the bio-geographical fact that "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas" and "within variation ofancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa". She does not make any reference to neighbouring populations in the Near East with similar climatic zones. The statement is explicitly clear and corresponds with Keita's view that Upper Egyptian along with Sudanese and Saharan groups have close biological/cultural affinities.

The origin of the dynasties I listed are clear facts and not subjective judgments. The 1st dynasty was the progenitor of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation, 11th and 12th dyansty have been classifed among mainstream academics as the peak era/ "Golden Era" of the Middle Kingdom and 17th and 18th facilitated the development of the New Kingdom which represented a new peak. In fact, the 3rd dynasty has been described by some scholars to have Sudanic origins but this remains contested. Aside from the 4th and 19th dynasties, all other major dynasties (i.e not the dynasties which represented periods of decline such as the First Intermediate Period) had southern origins. That is a universal fact acknowledged by all historians.

Egypt conquered Nubia in the 1st dynasty but cultural and biological ties have been noted prior in the Neolithic and pre-dynastic era. Various craniometric studies has shown close biological affinities between Badarians, Naqadarians and Nubians. Nubians are not the only comparable, African populations. Saharan communities that extended from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and have migrated into the Nile Valley from the interior of the continent. Various academics have recognised the strong cultural similarities between the interior, Saharan communities and later Pharonic Egypt such as the mummification with the Black Libyan mummy which preceded mummification in Dynastic Egypt by 1,000 years, Nabta Playa, and petroglyphs that extend across the Eastern Desert. Tony Wilkinson, Fred Wendorff both argue that Nabta Playa site was reflective of Sub-Saharan pastoral culture and ethnic populations. Overall, shared cultural traits existed long prior to the dynastic, Egyptian colonisation of Nubia.

Anthropologists have noted that Egypt shared cultural practices with other African populations in which it did not seem to have directly colonised such as the practice of divine rainmaker which is widespread across modern,tropical Africa. Stuart Smith (the cited archaeologist in current sub-section) noted in 2018 that Egypt shared cultural features common to North-Eastern Africa but not Western Asia including ritual practices, the use of headrests and the incorproation of bull's tail into royal regalia. This would clearly show a common, ancestral origin in a localised, indigenous context.

Although pottery emerged independently, several scholars have noted the similar styles of grave good, diffusion of mace heads from Sudan to Egypt and and shared pastoral complex along the Nile Valley in whcih pottery styles were transmitted from Northern Sudan and Eastern Sahara during the Neolithic period. The Sahara was green until 3000-2400 BC, which would have facilitated migration from the interior into the Nile Valley as has been supported by the archaeological evidence.

The craniometric, archaeological, biological, linguistic, historical evidence all show that Pre-Dynastic/Early Egypt emerged from a Black African, indigenous context and this is a pointless tirade as the mainstream consensus is that Sahara and Sudan were the sources of population flow and cultural development in the Pre-Dynastic Era (especially Upper Egypt which was closest in proximity and would dominate the Northern regions). In other words, both ethnic origins and cultural ties were derived from the Sahara and Sudan as I have repeatedly stated several times beforehand.

Rather than having this pointless back and forth, let's aim to reach a compromise position on the inclusion as all the evidence I have provided derives from academics in peer-reviewed articles or publications.WikiUser4020 (talk) 21:34, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

You don't need to state your political views. However when you rant about "racist colonial" experts and shamelessly cherry-pick "evidence", your POV becomes obvious.

You repeatedly challenge me to provide "evidence" that the ancient Egyptians were not Black. The article is already full of such evidence, from experts such as Barry J. Kemp. Kathryn A. Bard, Nicky Nielsen, Mary Lefkowitz, etc.

Godde – and almost every other credible scientist – has made no conclusions about the race of the ancient Egyptians. Obviously there are close biological affinities between pre-dynastic Upper Egyptian and Nubian samples – they lived for millennia in the same climate. I have pointed this out many times already. However living in the same climate is no indication of race, and accordingly Godde makes no such assertion. Your constant attempts to create that misleading impression is a contravention of WP:SYNTH, and needs to be corrected please.

Similarly, Lovell is correct that the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had biological affinity with people of the Sahara – because they shared a climate. Obvious. You then stated of Lovell that "She does not make any reference to neighbouring populations in the Near East with similar climatic zones." However this is dishonest. Also in Lovell's paper, in between the very statements which you chose to use, Lovell calls for examinations of skeletal evidence to "determine whether the archaeological evidence for Egyptian contact with Syro-Palestine during the late Predynastic/Early Dynastic can be ascribed to trade relations or actual population movements. The archaeological and inscriptional evidence for contact suggests that gene flow between these areas was very likely. The biological affinity between people of Upper Egypt and the Sinai is also an important research question since archaeological evidence suggests a connection, presumably via the Red Sea." You once again skipped over this part of the evidence, in your eternal search for Afrocentrist cherries.

You have quoted Marc Van De Mieroop correctly, but once again very selectively. On that same page, Mieroop also writes that "While ancient Egypt was clearly 'in Africa', it was not so clearly 'of Africa'." he also writes that "Some scholars have tried to determine what Egyptians could have looked like by comparing their skeletal remains with those of recent populations, but the samples are so limited and the interpretations so fraught with uncertainties that this is an unreliable approach". This is why you have developed a reputation as a cherry-picker.

Many cultures venerated cattle, in particular the Sacred bull – including the religions of Mesopotamia. Çatalhöyük (in Turkey) venerated cattle, going back to 7000BC – i.e. long before Naqada - and they were not Black either. Do you think that Africans learn to venerate cattle from the Turks?

The religion of ancient Egypt was very similar to that of the Mesopotamian civilisations – and to others across the oceans. The religion of most Ethiopians today is essentially identical to the religions of most of the people of Europe. However this causes no confusion about race. The practice of the divine rainmaker was widespread across the entire world, not just Africa. Many cultures across the world have built pyramids, and nobody thinks they are all the same race. Many cultures across the world have very similar institutions of royalty, but nobody thinks they are all the same race. Many cultures across the world have very similar institutions of politics and commerce, and nobody thinks they are all the same race. This is not an indication of "a common, ancestral origin". Please stop with the WP:SYNTH.

However language is a key indicator of cultural origin. While many peoples will adopt a "more useful" foreign language in addition to their own language for the sake of convenience, there is no record of any case where half of a people abandoned their mother tongue and created from scratch a completely new language with completely different roots, even though they continued to live next door to the rest of their people. The Nubian language is vastly different to that of the Egyptians. They are not the same culture, and although they have the same body shapes due to sharing a climate, and although they have traded extensively over millennia and have learned from each other, the language difference proves conclusively that they do not share "a common, ancestral origin".

There is no actual link between the Black Libyan mummy and the mummification in Egypt. The earliest known Egyptian mummies date to about two thousand years later, and that is a very long time-gap for a cultural practice to leap over, with zero evidence of any continuity in between. Yet more WP:SYNTH on your part. Mummification was also independently developed and practised across the world, from Chile to Peru to Mexico to China to Australasia and to the Philippines, often dating to earlier than ancient Egypt. Are you going to claim that these are all Black people as well, based on a "shared cultural practice"?

Many of the petroglyphs in the Eastern Desert actually show Mesopotamian people dragging Mesopotamian boats from the Red Sea to the Nile River. Do these not count?

Re Ashton, I actually stated that "you cannot stack a "keeper's assistant" like Ashton against a Professor Emeritus of Egyptology like Barry Kemp or a Professor Emerita of Classical Studies like Mary Lefkowitz, and consider it "neutral"." The correctness of that statement is self-evident. Barbara Mertz has been retained because she agrees with the mainstream experts, not because she agrees with the "critics of African-centered studies". Your POV is showing again. Mertz was making a statement directly related to the race of the ancient Egyptians, whereas Ashton (as quoted by you) is going off on a socio-political tangent. Quirke said it better than Ashton, but you desperately wanted Ashton's quote instead – why?

Wdford (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

How many times do I have to correct you on these points ?. Your assumptions and perceptions do not make my POV "obvious". You have clearly and explicitly stated your position on Woke culture, I have provided a historically correct summary of the dominanet Eurocentric scholarship which was widespread among major Egyptologists and anthropologists such as such as Flinders Petrie, Charles Seligman, George Reisner, G. Elliot Smith during the colonial era.

Those selected amount of experts you cited in the article have differing positions, whereas Stuart Smith describes as it as reasonable to characterise Ancient Egyptians as Black, other scholars view traditional race categories as anachronistic. However, this does not mean they do dispute the notion that Ancient Egypt emerged from Sahara and Sudanese localised context, which is essentially a bio-geographical fact. That sources of population flow during the Pre-Dynastic Era derived from these regions especially in relation to Upper Egypt.

Biological ties demonstrate population affinities which in effect show a shared base of ancestral origins. I just stated previously that modern craniometric studies have controlled settings and statistical approaches to identify a range of traits controlled by independent genetic loci. That provides strong evidence that Ancient Egyptians are ethnically related to other African populations as Yurco stated in the 1989 article above. I did not synthesis Godde, her 2009 craniometric study showed a short biological distance between Egyptian and Nubian populations. I did not state Godde made "conclusions about race", I stated she showed close biological relationships between Pre-Dynastic Egyptians and Nubians through a number of studies. You are misrepresenting what I stated and then claiming it is violating Wikipedia guidelines since you cannot provide an argumentative rebuttal on the evidence provided.

I was referring to the Lovell statement listed in the "Population History of Egypt" article as she states that the existing, established evidence show close biological affinities between Upper Egyptians and other African populations. On the other hand, she states the evidence remains skant on Lower Egyptians "In contrast, reliable interpretations of the biological affinities of the people of Lower Egypt are currently hampered by lack of well preserved skeletal material.. Examinations of the biological relatedness of skeletal populations of Lower Egypt to those other areas are needed, however, because they should determine whether the archaeological evidence for Egyptian contact with Syro-Palestine during the late Predynastic/Early dynastic can be ascribed to trade relations or actual populations movements"."

The quotation from Marc Van De Mieroop considers views from both African-diaspora communities and traditional, European scholarship. I just summarised his view on this constant dispute over the ethnicity of Ancient Egyptians and pointed out in the concluding sentence (if you read it properly) that "He summarises that "We cannot imagine an Egyptian population that was of uniform appearance, and the inhabitants of the north probably looked different from those of the south of the country". In essence, his shares the position of a north-south gradient. The additional quotations you mentioned do not provide a firm judgement/summary but rather adds a speculative view on the fact that samples of skeletons are limited and interpreations can be ambigious. This could possibly be added onto a sub-section criticism the methodology of craniometric and DNA studies.

Stuart Smith (an authoritative scholar that is cited in the page sub-section) in his 2018 work "Gift of the Nile ? Climate Change, the origins of Egyptian Civilizations and its interactions within North-East Africa" notes these strong cultural similarities betweeen Ancient Egypt and North-Eastern Africa. This builds on the previous scholarship below.

The Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508 "A large number of gods go back to prehistoric times. The images of a cow and star goddess (Hathor), the falcon (Horus), and the human-shaped figures of the fertility god (Min) can be traced back to that period. Some rites, such as the "running of the Apil-bull," the "hoeing of the ground," and other fertility and hunting rites (e.g., the hippopotamus hunt) presumably date from early times.. Connections with the religions in southwest Asia cannot be traced with certainty.""It is doubtful whether Osiris can be regarded as equal to Tammuz or Adonis, or whether Hathor is related to the "Great Mother." There are closer relations with northeast African religions. The numerous animal cults (especially bovine cults and panther gods) and details of ritual dresses (animal tails, masks, grass aprons, etc) probably are of African origin. The kinship in particular shows some African elements, such as the king as the head ritualist (i.e., medicine man), the limitations and renewal of the reign (jubilees, regicide), and the position of the king's mother (a matriarchal element). Some of them can be found among the Ethiopians in Napata and Meroe, others among the Prenilotic tribes (Shilluk).

You can clearly read the statement above right ?.

Scholars have suggested the Black Mummy in Libya (during the Green Sahara period) was part of a larger Saharan communities that migrated to the Nile Valley during desertification. Miroslav Barta and S.O.Y Keita have made this reference to cultural similarities. I have the sources and already cited them in the "Population history of Egypt" article page, so how is that original research when they among several other scholars note the strong cultural referencs between Saharan populations and Ancient Egypt. In fact, archaeological evidence is directly referenced in Keita's article on the spread of pottery from the Saharan Highlands into the Nile Valley.

Hieroglyphics have stated to be of African origin, as Gamal Mokhtar, the editor of the UNESCO II, History of Africa notes that "the fauna and flora used in the signs are essentially African" and in "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality". pp11-12. You have provided no supporting evidence, publications or references but merely asserted Egyptians were very similar to Mesopotamian civilisation and other cultural practices were shared worldwide. I have cited authoritative sources above and have many sources to silence you on this subject, so how can this be claimed to be original research. All edits I have made, are backed up and summarised from the sources listed.

Mary Lefkowtiz is a noted critic of African-centred studies. Her 1996 work is titled "Not Out of Africa". The mainstream experts do not have the same uniform position, that is why this page exists, there is consensus on a north-south gradient. Some view race categories as anachronistic, others acknowledge that western scholarship has been traditionally dominated by Eurocentric attitudes. Ashton is providing historical context that the colonial climate influenced atttitudes among early Egyptologists (a fact i.e Dynastic race/Hamitic theories) and the discipline has been dominated by North America and European academic institutions. That is acknowledged by Stephen Quirke in the same publication. I did state previously I would include either Quirke or Ashton but I could replace Ashton with Quirke although they both make similar judgements on the biased, Eurocentric scholarship in relation to Ancient Egypt.

On the other hand, you have made permitted clear cherry-picking to run rampant as a "senior editor/contributor" of this page. You permitted:

-A single quote from Bernard Montellano in an (fairly old) 1993 article criticising African-centred studies to be featured in the introductory, opening paragraph which presented a misleading and conclusive view on the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians.

-You permitted a single, 2017 DNA study to be labelled with the clearly, misleading title "Near-Eastern genetic affinity of Egyptian mummies" to suggest this was a conclusive study. In spite of the fact that the study derived from one single site, specific time period and was unrepresentative of the southern regions. You were greatly reluctant to correct this until I raised repeated objections and I seriously doubt you would have made any changes to this error to reflect the more accurate title of "Ancient Egyptian genetic studies".

-You interjected your political views explicitly and made non-related criticism of Wokeism in reference to a 2017 documentary that is associated with UNESCO and BBC News. General relative and myself had to correct you on this and you changed this to Afrocentrism.

-You have made baseless criticisms of Keita without any supporting academic evidence. Keita is not a controversial, fringe figure but an authoritative academic and his studies are widely cited. You disapprove of his criticism solely because they do not align with your POV. In fact, provide a list of academic peer-reviewed rebuttals to Keita's criticism on DNA methods and sampling bias.

You have cited violations of Wiki guidelines when I have provided specific publications, page references in all the edits made (In contrast, you have cited a few authors to make your own assertions). You mischaracterised my words in reference to the Godde paper and presumed I made original research on the Black Mummy of Libya when Keita's article explicitly references the Saharan mummy along with other scholars. Maria Gatto (archaeologist and specialist in Nubian studies) notes the strong similarities between Western Desert Neolithic cultural material and Badarian material and concludes that "Nubia is Egypt's African ancestor" and was a key origin for the origin of the African pastoral complex. A clear reference for the ancestoral connection made between neighbouring populations with similar cultural and biological ties. That is one example among several scholars.

In contrast, I have repeatedly sought to achieve a compromise position and stated I do not want a pointless back and forth debate. I was willing to agree on the following actions:

-Include a new sub-section titled "Modern Views on Bias in Egyptology/Scholarship". -Willingness to substitute Ashton for Quirke in the same publication. A further point, the sub-section on modern scholarship is not cited in reference to scientific evidence on the ethnicity of the Ancient Egyptians, that is strictly discussed in the "Population History of Egypt" article page. This sub-section involving the scholars simply discusses the history of controversy over the ethnicity, hence Ashton's statement is not fundamentally out of place but I will replace her with Quirke who makes similar statements.

I'm not going back and forth on this point anymore because it is clearly a waste of time. Just state what areas can be agreed for a compromise position to ensure permanent edits. WikiUser4020 (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Cool. I created the new sub-section on the racial bias view-point. I corrected your cherry-picking by adding more from Lovell and Van De Mieroop. I added some relevant stuff from another respected expert.

I also read your beloved Gatto source. I note that she specifically states that: " .. to what extent and in what way Egypt interacted with the African world still remains to be clarified. What the archaeological work is bringing to light, though, is the irrelevance of the race-based theory, as cultural identities do not necessarily match or relate to race." [1] You leave no cherry unpicked, do you?

Wdford (talk) 14:50, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

You at least made the necessary concessions and acccepted the recommended corrections to the article. I'm not sure which source you are citing from Gatto but I am referring to her article "The Nubian Pstoral Culture as Link between Egypt and Africa: A View from Archaeological Record". in the Egypt in its African Context publication whihc features Stephen Quirke and Sally Ashton. She states in her conclusion: "To sum up, Nubia is Egypt's African ancestor. What linked Ancient Egypt to the rest of the North African cultures is this strong tie with the Nubian pastoral nomadic lifestyle, the same pastoral background commonly shared by most of the ancient Saharan and mdoern sub-Saharan societies. Thus, not only did Nubia have a prominent role in the origin of ANcient Egypt, it was also a key area for the origin of the entire African pastoral tradition" (p26).

The weight of the evidence speaks for itself. Ancient Egypt derived from the Sahara and Sudan, in relation to population flow and cultural context. The archaeological and anthropological evidence show close biological affinities between Upper Egyptians and these neighbouring regions. I have cited various scholars from Stuart Smith, Keita, Mario Gatto, Nancy Lovell, Kanya Godde etc which echoe these connections in origins and shared culture. However, you have made barely any citations and continue to make assertions and tirades against African-centred perspectives.

I have already pointed out your history of cherry-picking (or negligence of this as a editor) and having to force you to make several revisions to the article. I'm not going to be discuss this further.

On the other hand, at least you have included the sub-section on "Bias in Egyptology". That is at least a constructive step and this section can be expanded upon further. I was thinking about possibly adding the differing criticisms from Uros, Keith Crawford and Diop in this area ?.WikiUser4020 (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

You keep saying you are not going to discuss this further, and then you set off on yet another POV rant.

I have corrected the blatantly biased edits you made, by inserting all the material you left out as part of pushing your POV, so as to improve neutrality. As far as concessions go, I still stand with the many expert sources, who maintain unambiguously that the ancient Egyptians were not black.

The "biological ties" you obsess about are affinities which demonstrate evolution in a matching climate. This is stated by all sources, but your eyes cannot see that. None of them gave any conclusions about race. Obviously. You introduced Van De Mieroop into the article, with a cherry-picked quote to support your POV, and when I highlighted his real views, you now claim this expert's conclusions are "a speculative view", and you search out stuff from others to undermine him. You cherry-picked from Lovell to support your POV, then lied about what she actually wrote, and when I highlighted her real views you simply ignored it. When DNA evidence showed a lot of genetic input from Asia, exactly as had been noted by Lovell herself, you started a fresh rant to discredit the DNA, focusing on the scope of the samples. Of course you ignored the scope of the samples when citing sources about limb ratios etc, even though Gatto and others have written repeatedly that at the border the Egyptian people and the Nubian people mixed freely, and were "entangled". Diop himself selectively chose known Nubian mummies for his "melanin tests" but you happily ignore that bias as well.

You also yammered on for pages about "cultural similarities", but ignored my obvious point that cultural similarities are not an indication of race, and when I cited this obvious fact from your own source Gatto who openly states that cultural similarities are no indication of race and that the race-based theory is irrelevant, you ignored that too. Even though it was in the same paper you used. Further evidence of extreme cherry-picking. And you completely ignore all the Egyptian art, where the Egyptian artists show Egyptian woman as more pale-skinned even than Asians, but the Nubian women as totally black.

You cite that Gatto referred to Nubia as the ancestor of African pastoral cultures. The Nubian section of the Nile Valley is the section nearest to the Saharan Highlands, so this is probably valid, although there can be a debate about where the culture started and where it migrated to. These areas share the Nilo-Saharan language group as well. Of course the Nubia-Highland latitude is south of Egypt. The most likely Saharan people to have migrated into Egypt are the North African Berbers – who are not black either. And who do not use the Nilo-Saharan language group.

At the same time you cite "cultural ties" with Saharan communities in Libya, where the so-called Black Mummy was found. The so-called Black Mummy was found 1500 miles from Egypt, but that is merely a fact. Linking this one very isolated case of mummification (if indeed that was even their objective) to the formalised religion-based mummifications of dynastic Egypt a thousand years later, is WP:SYNTH.

The religion of ancient Egypt involved pantheons of deities, with complex family structures and inter-familial conflicts. It involved gods going on journeys, it involved relationships with the stars, it required building statues and temples, and it required maintaining large and complex priesthoods. This is very similar to that of the various Mesopotamian civilisations, although the Mesopotamian religions are not identical to Egypt or to each other. The Greeks and Romans also had similar pantheons of divine family trees, and statues and temples and priesthoods etc etc. Ditto the various ancient religions of Central and South America. None of them was identical to another, but all were very similar, in design and in practice. It is well known that the peoples of Northern Nubia adopted Egyptian religious practices from the Egyptians, but did the pastoral African communities independently create similar complex religious structures and practices?

Religion and pottery are easily transmitted, as we have seen throughout history. However language is a key indicator of cultural origin. There is no evidence – or logic – for half of the Nilotic people to abandon their mother tongue and create from scratch a completely new language with completely different roots, while the others around them all carry on with the original mother tongue. The Nubian language is vastly different to that of the Egyptians, so they are not the same culture. They share the same body shapes due to sharing a climate, they have traded extensively over millennia and they have "entangled", but the language difference proves conclusively that they do not share "a common, ancestral origin". And they are not the same race.

Wdford (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

You have been corrected on numerous points for your personal antagonism (arguably ignorance) towards woke politics, African-centred studies and claim to be a neutral editor. You have provided little references and continue to make assertions. The experts i.e Stuart Smith, S.O.Y. Keita etc clearly state they were of Black African and had strong connections to the Sahara and Sudan. I corrected your quotation of Mario Gatto in a separate article as she states explicitly in her conclusion that "Nubia is Egypt's African ancestor".

-I stated repeatedly that modern craniometric studies have incorporated non-metric methodologies to have controlled settings for environmental adaptation and identify genetic loci regardless. You have either ignored the previous posts above or seek to continue this tirade.

The origin of Saharan communities is accepted to be among of Sub-Saharan origin. You are factually incorrect as these communities extended from the Atlantic to the Red Sea during the Green Sahara, in essence the entire continent. -The Saharan communities are held to be of Sub-Saharan origin. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629380500336680?journalCode=fnas20) - "More cautiously, the first genetic data on Saharan palaeo-populations also indicate a sub-Saharan affinity.Evidence for a southern provenance of the first Holocene Saharans might also be seen in from rock art, although the subjective nature of such interpretations must be recognised: in the Tassili60 and Acacus massif depictions of figures with what appear to be black African features have been interpreted as indicating the possible presence of populations originating in sub-Saharan regions".

-The Central Sahara stretches from southern Libya, Algeria to Mali and Chad and would have included much of the geographical locations of Black African populations. -Nabta Playa which is found in the Eastern Desert was constructed by Saharan Neolithic populations characterised as Sub-Saharan (Wilkinson, Wendorf etc) -The Tashwinat Mummy which dated to 56000 was a Black Saharan child in an archaeological site that was populated by pre-historic communities of pastoral populations. -Haratins (Black Africans) in Mauritania and North-West Africa are held to be the original inhabitants of the Saharans (Keita 1993 - Biological Relationships)

"The most likely Saharan likely Saharan people to have migrated into Egypt are the North African Berbers – who are not black either. And who do not use the Nilo-Saharan language group". You have provided no reference and just inserted your POV onto that. This is a factually incorrect statement on a number of accounts. 1) migrations into the Nile Valley derived from various directions i.e west, south, east. Upper Egypt was closest to the borders of Nubia, Central Sahara and inner Africa 2) proto-Berber populations derived from various sources. Berber does not translate into non-Black as modern Berber communities extended from Niger to Mauritania.

Basil Davidson, British Africanist "The ancient Egyptians belonged, that is, not to any specific Egyptian region or Near Eastern heritage but to that wide community of peoples who lived between the Red Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, shared a common Saharan-Sudanese culture, and drew their reinforcements from the same great source, even though, as time went by, they also absorbed a number of wanderers from the Near East" Africa in History (pg 15). Essentially, restating my previous points that population flow/material culture derived from Saharan-Sudanese region initially.

I just provided Keita's reference where he states that as an authoriative academic, since clearly you have not read the article: "The evidence for the basis of a root commonality is substantial. Specific prehistoric central African tool designs manifest themselves in Naqada, Badari, and Fayum sites (de Heinzelin 1%2:109; Arkell and Ucko 1965:146, 150). Shaw (1976:156) states that ”the early cultures of Merimde, the Fayum, Badari, Naqada I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of the ancient Egyptian way of life.” Pottery usage probably spread from the central Saharan Highlands to the Nile Valley, as it seems to have been made there first (Flight 1973:554). The motifs of Saharan rock paintings show similarities to those in pharaonic art. This is probably due to the former influencing or being the progenitor of the latter (Mori 19W230, 243, 244; Blanc 1964:183-184) via Saharans leaving a desiccating land to, in part, people the Nile Valley and other parts of Africa. The oldest mummy in Africa is of a black Saharan child (Donadoni 1964385-188; Blanc 1964:184). Frankfort (195639-40) points out the possibility of understanding the pharaonic world view by reference to beliefs extant in various African populations". I already cited other authors above that made similar connections in more recent publications. That is not Synth as you continue to ignore my references and points to repeat baseless assertions.

-Both Stuart Smith in 2018 and the earlier Encyclopedia Britannia (authoritative sources) has stated that the religious beliefs of Ancient Egypt were closer to North-Eastern African culture and evidence with West Asian were either skant or weaker in comparison. You have ignored both those references and continue this tirade. You have provided no reference to the affinities between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamian civilisations.

-You claim that Diop only referenced Nubian mummies, but can you at least provide a reference ?. I was referring to Diop's comments on anthropological limb ratios and body measurements not his melanin dosage tests (which he acknowleges had only been applied to a limited amount of mummies, partly because of the reluctance of the Egyptian authorities to permit external testing of the mummy of Rameses II and other royal mummies). He states during the presentation of his paper to the UNESCO 1974 conference:

"Melanin (eumelanin), the chemical body responsible for skin pigmentation, is, broadly speaking, insoluble and is preserved for millions of years in the skins of fossil animals. There is thus all the more reason for it to be readily recoverable in the skins of Egyptian mummies, despite a tenacious legend that the skin of mummies, tainted by the embalming material, is no longer susceptible of any analysis. Although the epidermis is the main site of the melanin, the melanocytes penetrating the derm at the boundary between it and the epidermis, even where the latter has mostly been destroyed by the embalming materials, show a melanin level which is non-existent in the white-skinned races. The samples I myself analyzed were taken in the physical anthropology laboratory of the Musee de l'Homme in Paris off the mummies from the Marietta excavations in Egypt. The same method is perfectly suitable for use on the royal mummies of Thutmoses III, Seti I and Ramses II in the Cairo Museum, which are in an excel state of preservation. For two years past I have been vainly begging the curator of the Cairo Museum for similar samples to analyze. No more than a few square millimetres of skin would be required to mount a specimen, the preparations being a few um in thickness and lightened with ethyl benzoate".

I have referenced other anthropological studies (Keita, Godde) which have shown that Upper Egyptians and Nubians were closely related. Nancy Lovell Prowse in 1996 reported the presence of individual rulers buried at Naqada in what they interpreted to be elite, high status tombs, showing them to be more closely related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia than those in Southern Egypt

-Colour was symbolic in Egyptian iconography. Various pharoahs and royal figures i.e. Mentuhotep II and Ahmose-Nefertari were represented as black which was indicated divinity rather than skin colour. Why would this same view not be applied to Nubians who were represented in Tutankhamun and Rameses II's paintings to be of various colours from copper-red to jet black. A wooden model of Egyptian and Nubian army regiments from a 11th dynasty tomb shows that both groups had clear, African features, the Egyptian had dark brown complexion with white tunics and the latter had jet black complexion with red, stripped tunics. Check sub-section Infantry in this associated Wikipedia article for Egyptian depiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_ancient_Egypt and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nubian_Archers.jpg for Nubian depiction in the same period.

-Edits: I have made a extensive edits because you are clearly unable to present/ensure a neutral representation of the AE race controversy and have enabled cherry-picking as a supposed editor. This has been pointed out above along with the corrections recently made. You could barely revise any of the changes I have made because the range of sources I have provided are clear and authoriative.WikiUser4020 (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

-Language. All experts acknowledge that Ancient Egypt shared linguistic connections with Afro-Asiatic speaking populations across Africa. I stated before Nubia was not only the comparable African populations as it shared similarities with the Chadic languages of west and central Africa, the Cushitic languages of northeast Africa, and the Ethio-Semitic languages, which are found in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Cushitic language is spoken in Sudan and various authors argue that the language family derived from Africa as an origin source due to the fact that 5/6 language familiies are spoken there with the Semitic language the only exception.

-This is my last counter-response to your assertions that lack any supporting reference/evidence. You are have been corrected on various points and interjected your personal assertions without any supporting references throughout the exchange above. Aside from commentary on the extensive sources and evidence (I have provided) which clearly shows that the AE was of Black African origin with population flow/cultural ties to the Sudan and Sahara. Hence, why this article has been revised in so many areas. Your lack of knowledge on anthropological and historical evidence is revealing. Especially your confused, generalised discussion on modern aesthetics between England and Ethiopia which is projected back onto classical civilisations in close, geographical proximity and their cultural origins.

-Why change the title from "Modern Views on Bias" to "Some Modern Bias". You agreed on the original title and I have provided an extensive range of scholars across various decades on this point. Although, the article is still a work in progress and anticipate additional authors will be included. The range of scholars listed is comparable in length to the "Modern Scholarship" sub-section so why this additional change ?.WikiUser4020 (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

All experts acknowledge that Ancient Egypt shared linguistic connections with Afro-Asiatic speaking populations across Africa... Add "...and the Levant". No expert on historical linguistics would exclude mention of the Semitic languages in a summary statement about the Afroasiatic languages. And is definitely false to say that there is a special relation of Ancient Egyptian and the Ethiosemitic languages in particular to the exclusion of the other Semitic languages spoken in West Asia.

No comment on the "race" debate except for this: races don't exist except as a crude folk classification of arbitrarily selected visible phenotypic differences between individuals; a folk classification with a long history of abuse for the sake of power and oppression. In a scientific/encyclopedic discussion about the origin of a people and its culture, this concept is meritless, and its application to the study of human remains or the artistic depiction of humans is outright dehumanizing. –Austronesier (talk) 21:10, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn’t “and southwest Asia” be more accurate? RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 20:33, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my statement. I was stating that a majority of the Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken on the African continenent with the exception being Semitic (spoken both in Africa and Asia).(ref/Daniel, Mc Call) "The Afroasiatic Language Phylum: African in Origin, or Asian?". The argument in context was about Ancient Egypt's cultural, linguistic and ethnic ties to the African populations. Especially, in response to the suggestion that because Nubians spoke Nilo-Saharan languages and AE spoke Afro-Asiatic language then this implies that AE was not of Black African origin or derived from the Sahara and Sudan.

Yes, racial categorisation do not exist, I have referenced this in the sub-section on genetic studies and how misleading interpretations arise from these traditional interpretations. However, the history of colonialism and racial classifications have shaped the approach of Egyptology and how AE is perceived and represented. This biased scholarship extended to Nubia, Great Zimbabwe and Benin Bronze artefacts which were attributed to external, civilizing origins rather than indigenous, Black African populations. Cultural and academic representations depict Ancient Egyptians as White European or Near Eastern (sub-section: bias in Egyptology/modern scholarship) hence why it is criticised as a dishonest position among Western scholars and cultural institutions to claim racial categories do not apply to AE but still represent it within these terms. WikiUser4020 (talk) 21:25, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, racial categorisation do not exist ...yet "Black African"? –Austronesier (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Also, how is denying Great Zimbabwe and Benin a local indigenous origin (without obsession on diffusion from Ancient Egypt) not just as biased? –Austronesier (talk) 21:49, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Sub-Saharan Africa would be the correct term, although even that term has been disputed due to conceptual problems as exclusionary and colonial connotations. Yet, my wider point on the academic and cultural representation of AE still stands hence the criticisms from several scholars noted in the (sub-section: bias in Egyptology/modern scholarship).

I was not suggesting any diffusionist theory from AE (just as a point of clarity), but essentially trying to make the point that the academic denial of AE's Sub-Saharan origin was in similar vein of other scholarly attempts to deny the Sub-Saharan origin of other African, indigenous civilisations and artefacts.WikiUser4020 (talk) 22:01, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

You keep saying you are not going into another extensive debate, and yet you keep repeating all the same stuff over and over.

As usual, you again trotted out Keita's list of opinions, which support your own POV. Very old references, carefully selected.

The work of many expert sources is already cited in the article. A handful of sources hold that the Egyptians were black, but most experts do not. Most sources hold that there is no such thing as "race" to begin with. Neutrality is not a question of counting the number of repeats. A word search of the article finds Diop 36 times, and Keita 11 times. Bit of a red flag.

Per Wikipedia the Haratin were "both culturally and ethnically distinct from modern sub-Saharan Africans and speak Maghrebi Arabic dialects as well as various Berber languages".

There were various Saharan communities, of differing origins. The Berbers came from North-eastern Africa and took over the Sahara area, before the desiccation really got going. When the desiccation drove people into the Nile Valley, it would have affected them too, and they lived in the northern areas – parallel with the Egyptian section of the Nile Valley.

Nabta Playa is in the Western Desert, not the Eastern Desert. It is more than 100kms south of Aswan, deep in Nubian territory. Everything about them is Nubian.

The so-called Black Mummy of Tashwinat was found 1500 miles from Egypt.

You have been blathering on about cultural affinities with Nubia. Now that I have proved that the Nubians are not the same "race" as the Egyptians, you are suddenly excited about other borders – all except the Near East? See Egypt–Mesopotamia relations for a bit of balance.

Cattle (and especially bulls) featured large in Near Eastern life, and in their religions. Their god Adad was a bull-god, as well as the rain-god. Ditto the gods Baal and Marduk. The constellation Taurus was huge with Near Eastern religions too. Winged bulls, and human-cattle hybrids (Lamassu), were also very big. Cattle were also very big with the Mediterranean Minoans – from about 3000 BCE. Stuart Smith mentions African cattle-iconography in "the Pharaonic iconographic repertoire", but he also mentions that the very ancient Narmer Palette features as its primary icons a pair of Serpopards (long necked leopards or lions) which indicates "a borrowing of Elamite iconography". From where did these ancient African pastoralists get Elamite (Iranian) iconography, far less venerate it? Was Punt in Elam, as the ancient inscriptions direct? Stuart Smith also mentions the icon of "the bull tearing down city walls, perhaps an early allusion to the trope of the king as a “strong bull”", but the "Bull of Heaven" crushing enemy cities was a major Sumerian trope. See The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character - Samuel Noah Kramer [2] at pages 63, 173, 181, 262 etc. Please would you provide the actual reference where Stuart Smith explains in what way were the religious beliefs and practices of the North-Eastern African culture (?) similar to the very complex and sophisticated Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and practices – beyond just that "they both liked cattle"?

You rehash the same language claims, but you cannot explain how the Nubian language is so different to Egypt if they all had a common origin. So now you have Nubian cultural entanglement but a massive language difference, and an Ethiopian language relationship but not the cultural affinities. Basically, you have WP:SYNTH. Whereas the Near East has a language relationship as well as a cultural relationship. And DNA, and religious similarities, etc etc.

Re the "Modern Views on Bias" section: There are no experts on racism in scholarship, and no definitive studies have been conducted, reviewed and accepted. Therefore these claims are merely the opinions of a handful of individuals – not necessary correct, not necessarily objective, not necessary representative, and not generally accepted.

I have corrected your misleading edits and blatant POV-pushing. I will keep an eye out for any new unbalanced edits in future too.

Wdford (talk) 16:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I have already corrected this article repeatedly and you have had to concede to my recommendations. I have provided references which you have either ignored or dismissed i.e. Encyclopedia Britannica and Stuart Smith explicitly makes this clear on the religious and cultural affinities to North-East African populations in the 2008 article. It is becoming increasingly pointless to provide quotes if you keep ignoring or minimising what is actually stated. Mokhtar describes how the Narmer Palette has African fauna with Nilotic origin. The sources for Haratin Wikipedia page, (if you actually read the sources "Encyclopedia of Africa") it states the Haratine are described as a "social caste in several northwestern African countries consisting of blacks, many of whom are former slaves". You have provided no counter-reference on that point and Nabta PLaya has Sub-Saharan affinities but it was not identified as explicitly Nubian. (Although, the location was in the Nubian desert).

You are clearly misquoting Smith he states in full context: "For example, while the presence of serpopards (long necked leopards or lions) on the Narmer Palette indicates a borrowing of Elamite iconography, the distinctively Egyptian and African symbols onthe palette were far more durable, including elements drawn from the cattle complex that became a fundamental part of the Pharaonic iconographic repertoire, like the bull’s tail attached to the king’skilt, the hybrid cow imagery of the goddess Bat, and the bull tearing down city walls, perhaps anearly allusion to the trope of the king as a “strong bull”. Essentially, stating that African symbols were more pronounced on the Narmer Palette. This concurs with Mokhtar.

"If we plot the extent of ancient Egypt’s connections and main trade routes throughout Dynastic history, it is clear that the Egyptological perception of a civilization more engaged with western Asia and the Mediterranean than Africa falls apart"

"The northeast African cattle complex from which Egyptian civilization emerged likely playeda crucial role in Egypt’s unique trajectory, particularly in the emergence of Pharaonic kingship'.Egypt shares other features that are widely distributed in northeast Africa but not in western Asia,including the nature of ritual practice and other cultural features like the use of headrests, a bull’stail as an element of royal regalia, and the use of a dried bull’s penis, corresponding to the Egyptian was scepter, as a symbol of power, the legacy of northeast Africa’s shared cultural roots duringthe period of high mobility pastoralism that characterized the Saharan wet phase". I mentioned divine kinship in previous posts repeatedly which was a key aspect of Egyptian Dynastic religion.

You simply entered "Bull" in the Google search column for the book you cited and then asserted this as a form of evidence. Actually quote the sentence where the author is making the case that Egypt shares closer religious and cultural ties with Sumer rather than North-Eastern African regions. Otherwise, you are the only one guilty of WIKI SYNTH and projecting that onto others. I have provided numerous clear statements from sources that state this i.e Encyclopedia Britannica.

Diop is highly relevant to this discussion since he was the UNESCO contributor in which the issue of ethnicity was raised and discussed the biased scholarship in previous works. Keita is an authoritative biological anthropologists but has not been critcised for any biased scholarship or personal views. Hence, that should not be a problem. You permitted misleading titles on the DNA study which was from a single site. The DNA is not conclusive, with some studies suggesting Sub-Saharan affinities such as 2003 Y chromosome test on Modern Egyptians had sub-Saharan horn of Africa haplotypes, 2004 Gurna study on Upper Egyptians, the Eb1ba haplogroup of the Rammmeside mummies etc. However, bias, contamination, methodological issues with classifications limtis its reliability hence a comreprehensive approach which includes archaeological, historical, anthropological and linguistic approach is needed. AE spoke Afro-Asiatic languages in which all 5 out of 6 languages are spoken exclusively on the African continent (Chadic, Berber, Cushitic, Omotic) and by many Sub-Saharan populations aside from Nubia. Hence, my earlier comment on the fact that Nubians are not the only comparable African populations.

"Modern Views on Bias" and the "Position of Modern Scholarship" both contain quotations from a select amount of individuals. It is essentially subjective criteria. Arguably, it stems from academics in North America/European context, hence can this be described as "representative" of all scholars on this issue. Also, some of those scholars are the same experts quoted in the position of modern scholarship. Racism within the Egyptology is a historical and contemporary fact, the Hamitic and Dynastic Hypothesis are clear evidence of this. The racist views of authoritative early Egyptologists such as Petrie, Reisner etc are stated and have been previously cited.

How do you decided if these views have not been generally accepted if Stuart Smith, Keita, Stephen Quirke are all stating this position. How do you decide who are "the experts on racism" by what standard and what metric ?. You have again not provided any sourcing/referencing for this. This is a clear POV opinion. You are supervising or managing which scholars are cited and then claiming that it is the position of all experts. You are clearly presenting or enabling a selective view to be suggested.

However, the article should be changed from "Some Modern Views on Bias" to "Modern Views on Bias in Egyptology" as originally suggested because it features scholars from the modern era commenting on both historical and contemporary bias. This will be the last point of contention.WikiUser4020 (talk) 17:26, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I have corrected your extensive cherry-picking in this article, but you continue to pretend not to notice.

The serpopard iconography on the Narmer Palette is clearly from Mesopotamia, but you frantically side-step it. Smith didn’t even try to explain away why this most significant record of this most significant event is commemorated with Mesopotamian iconography as its centre-piece.

Bulls are NOT distinctly African, because Mesopotamia was also a bull-culture. I provided an impeccable source for that, including one where the god Enlil "like a lofty ox had crushed the house of Erech into dust". That is exactly what the bull on the Narmer Palette is clearly doing. The cow goddess imagery is also not uniquely African – see also the Mesopotamian deities Ninsun and Lahar. Here is a nice scientific summary to help you. [3] See also Britannica at [4] and the rainmaker god Adad at [5].

The falcon image on the Narmer Palette most likely represents the Nekhen god Horus – particularly as the Palette was found in the temple of the falcon in Nekhen. However falcons are also native to the Mesopotamian river valleys, and falconry is still a major sport there. The Mesopotamian goddess Inana was associated with a falcon.

I don't know how old was your Britannica source on Ancient Egyptian Religion, but the current Britannica has a huge entry on Ancient Egyptian Religion – and makes no mention of any of the stuff you quoted. See at [6] Newer sources are better sources.

You are still frantically side-stepping the fact that the Nubian language is from a completely different root to ancient Egyptian. All that text on cultural affinities wasted…

Wdford (talk) 21:44, 9 March 2022 (UTC) 

I addressed the issue of linguistic connections and clearly stated that 5 out of the 6 Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken exclusively on the African continent and among Sub-Saharan populations from Chad to Ethiopia. The Cushitic language is spoken in Sudan although not by Nubians. I stated repeatedly that Nubians are not the only comparable African, population to Ancient Egypt. Comparisons have been made with Saharans (communities that spanned across the continent)and other Niolitic populations (cited by Smith).

Stuart Smith makes it clear that the African elements are more pronounced and repeatedly states that the cultural ties of AE are stronger with North-Eastern regions than Western Asia. He also is clear that common, origins are shared and this is not a coincidence along with his critical tone of Egyptological bias. Smith's work was published in 2018 so is very recent and authoritative. You have provided no citations for this assertion "this most significant record of this most significant event".

I stated the date of the Encyclopedia Britannica previously and it is from an extensive publication rather than single, online aricle. (Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508). The publication was from 1984 and Smith's article in 2018 both echoes the same view that the Egyptian religion had more clear ties with North-Eastern populations than Western Asia - partly because the cultural customs were more widespread in NE Africa or the evidence in West Asia is skant/less apparent.

"A large number of gods go back to prehistoric times. The images of a cow and star goddess (Hathor), the falcon (Horus), and the human-shaped figures of the fertility god (Min) can be traced back to that period. Some rites, such as the "running of the Apil-bull," the "hoeing of the ground," and other fertility and hunting rites (e.g., the hippopotamus hunt) presumably date from early times.. Connections with the religions in southwest Asia cannot be traced with certainty." "It is doubtful whether Osiris can be regarded as equal to Tammuz or Adonis, or whether Hathor is related to the "Great Mother." There are closer relations with northeast African religions. The numerous animal cults (especially bovine cults and panther gods) and details of ritual dresses (animal tails, masks, grass aprons, etc) probably are of African origin. The kinship in particular shows some African elements, such as the king as the head ritualist (i.e., medicine man), the limitations and renewal of the reign (jubilees, regicide), and the position of the king's mother (a matriarchal element). Some of them can be found among the Ethiopians in Napata and Meroe, others among the Prenilotic tribes (Shilluk)."- This view is echoed by Smith 34 years later. In effect, this position remains accepted.

The sources you referenced do not argue in any of the pages that the AE religion/cultural customs were closer to West Asia than North-East Africa. You did this with the previous post, when the author does not make this case. Rather they describe the religions of the Near East but no comparative position is made between AE, NE and the WA.

I have revised and clearly corrected this article. The sheer weight of evidence cited has dramatically changed the content and sub-sections over several articles.

You have ignored:

-Diop's reference to the Cairo museum's reluctance to permit sampling royal mummies of the 18th/19th dynasty.

-You still have not cited the page where the Kramers makes the explicit case that AE was closer to West Asia than North-East Africa in areas of religion, cultural practice.

-You never provided peer-reviewed rebuttal to Keita's scientific criticism of bias in DNA studies.

-My point that modern, craniometric studies have incorporated an evolutionary approach which factors in environmental factors to maintain controlled settings.

-My point about iconography such as the wooden states depicting model Egyptians and Nubians with similar facial features.

I would rather focus the final discussion on the disputed title change for the sub-section and why this should be reverted. You have not responded back to the earlier point that it should remain "Modern Views on Bias" since it features modern scholars discussing historical and contemporary bias. Instead, you continue this tirade even when the weight of evidence is clear among scholars from various disciplines i.e. archaeological, anthropological, historical and linguistic fields.WikiUser4020 (talk) 22:20, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I have corrected your extensive cherry-picking in this article, but you continue to pretend that it never happened. Instead you merely continue to cut and paste your earlier posts.

The Narmer Palette supposedly commemorates the unification of the Two Lands - a fairly significant event in the history of Egypt, if indeed that is what the Palette illustrates (there is dispute on this). The serpopard iconography on the Narmer Palette is clearly from Mesopotamia, and it clearly indicates the existence of high-level "cultural ties" with Mesopotamia in that Predynastic period, but you continue to frantically side-step it - and so does Smith. Instead he (and you) ignore this massive example of high-level cultural ties, along with all the other evidence of Predynastic cultural ties with Mesopotamia, and merely claim that ties with North-Eastern regions "were stronger" – based on head rests and bull's tails, and now apparently a penis. You are also continually side-stepping the massive issue of the total disconnect with the Nubian language, which indicates that they were conclusively NOT of a common origin, by now pointing frantically to linguistic connections with everyone from Chad to Ethiopia – but these populations did not have the "cultural entanglement" which you were so keen on for so long. In contrast the Near East had a serious language connection as well as serious cultural entanglements. PS: Does anybody anywhere "explicitly" show evidence that Egyptians adopted head rests from "pastoral Africans", or that "pastoral Africans" adopted head rests from Egyptians? From whom did the Chinese adopt head rests? And please could you explain therefore how the adoption of head rests (and grass aprons and penises) are indicators of "race" in your argument?

Please explicitly explain which pastoral communities in North-Eastern regions had pantheons of gods, complete with family relationships, as did both the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Mesopotamians? Please explicitly explain which pastoral communities in North-Eastern regions built vast temples to these gods, as did both the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Mesopotamians, and where are these temples now? Please explicitly explain to which pastoral communities in North-Eastern regions is Smith actually referring, and in which time period?

The majority religion in Ethiopia today is identical to that of the majority religion in Scotland, and they share many cultural customs, but nobody thinks they are of the same "race". Today black Americans and white Americans share a huge amount of "cultural ties", including language, clothing, religion, music etc etc etc. And yet nobody assumes they are of the same "race". Please explain therefore why "cultural ties" are indicators of "race" in your argument?

"Similar facial features" are not an indication of "race", and certainly not in art. If you want to look at their art, you can start with the Table of Nations, and then consider why Egyptian women are deliberately portrayed as light skinned and Nubian women are deliberately portrayed as looking vastly and obviously completely different.

I see that the modern Encyclopedia Britannica is not good enough for you, but yet you are happy to cite a 1984 article which happens to support your POV. Why do you think Britannica dropped that paragraph? Perhaps because it used too many weasel words such as "presumably, doubtful and probably", which are then set up against the significant phrase "cannot be traced with certainty"?

Nobody is going to write a peer-reviewed paper refuting an allegation of racial bias – such allegations are merely ignored, and serious scholars focus on the actual evidence. If a theory is wrong based on evidence, it is subsequently corrected – regardless of the racial opinions of the authors or the reviewers. Once additional EVIDENCE had been uncovered and analyzed, Petrie himself accepted that the EVIDENCE of an indigenous Egyptian race outweighed the EVIDENCE of an invading race. That's how proper scholars work. Diop never followed that example, did he? Diop was refused permission to "sample" Cairo mummies because his thesis and his "tests" had no credibility.

The sub-section on alleged bias does NOT feature "modern scholars discussing historical and contemporary bias", it features a selected handful who are making serious accusations without debate or evidence, based on their own personal opinions and perceptions. That is not really the same thing at all. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a blog.

Wdford (talk) 16:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

You are the one maintaining this pretence and have not provided any formal, counter-views. You ignored most of the points I raised. Instead, you continue this tirade disregarding the academics cited. I stated that colour "black" in Egyptian iconography was symbolic and various royal figures such as Mentuhotep II and Ahmose Nefertari was represented in this same depiction. Nubians were also represented in various shades from reddish brown [same as Egyptians] to jet black. The wooden models clearly represent the Egyptian army as dark-skinned Africans (Seriously ?). You are clearly attempting to present a selective view and ignore the overwhelming evidence. You believe you know more than Stuart Tyson Smith on the archaeological and anthropological evidence ?.Keita is a authoritative academic and his work is peer-reviewed. Keita has provided evidence of methodological errors and actual statements from early Egyptologists making prejudiced comments. Petrie was an active supporter of Eugenics and you are trying to downplay his clearly, racist views. Diop is widely influential in African historiography among Africanist, Dakar school and Afro-American studies of history. This flippant "His thesis and his "tests" had no credibility" are again factually incorrect as the evidence shows otherwise.

The sub-section features some of the same scholars from the preceding sub-section. Those are clear facts, 1) Egyptology emerged in colonial context and the prevailing theories i.e. Hamitic, Dynastic were racialist, colonialist justifications and 2) North-American and European persepectives are vastly over-rerperesented. I have provided citations from leading academics, rather it is you that continues the POV tirade with little referencing.

Both Smith and the Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 reference the North-Eastern African tribes in Ethiopia and Sudan that share this cultural affinity with the AE. Ethiopa speaks a Afro-Asiatic language and the populations in this nation were cited for having a shared cultural affinity with Ancient Egyptians. I cannot continue to correct you and explain every detail of the academic quotations cited. On the other hand, you never provided any supporting evidence from Kramer, you ignored my request repeatedly already since clearly you could not find anything from Kramer's work on a comparative case between AE, West Asians and North-East Africans.

I'm no longer going to push on the title change, since you are outright refusing to make those changes without any credible reasons. I will leave it to other users to make further corrections on this page. At least, they removed all the SYNTH you permitted under the misleading, genetic sub-section as a "supposed editor/contributor". WikiUser4020 (talk) 17:15, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

A handful of Ancient Egyptians were depicted in a black colour to represent deification after they died. This symbolism does not apply to every Nubian, who was also depicted as black.

Your wooden models theory is an extreme example of Cherry Picking. As I already pointed out, 3000 years of paintings and artwork consistently showed a huge difference in the appearance of Egyptians and other races – most noticeable in their depictions of women.

Diop was indeed "widely influential" among Africanists, but not so much among Egyptologists. Your POV is clearly racial, as is indicated here once again.

Cultural affinities are NOT an indication of race, as has been pointed out many times. The majority of sources correctly point to major "cultural entanglements" between Egypt and Nubia, who were immediate neighbours and shared a border, but the massive language difference shows that these cultures were NOT from a common origin. On the other hand, many people of different races do share cultural affinities, then and now, as I have pointed out many times.

I cited Kramer on the issue of Mesopotamian "cultural affinities" as displayed on the Narmer Palette, and other artefacts. The central icon of serpopards is clearly Mesopotamian, as even Smith admits, although without any effort to explain how it got there and why it was used to begin with. I specifically pointed to the Sumerian trope of their gods crushing enemy cities "like a bull", and I pointed to the obvious parallel of bulls crushing armies and cities on the Narmer Palette. You then tried to side-step this by starting up a new straw-man issue.

While lauding Frankfort, who seemingly shared some of Smith's views, Smith openly admits that Frankfort was "extraordinary" in his view that Near Eastern influence on Egypt’s origins was superficial and adaptive, and that this view is "in contrast to most Egyptologists (even today)". You have cited Smith extensively on this talk page, but somehow your cherry-picking vision never quite noticed this massive admission?

You really are quite stressed about how the modern DNA tests undermine your POV, are you not?

Wdford (talk) 15:14, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

It was not a "handful" but the key, royal figures throughout the Egyptian era. Acknowledging the point that the colour "jet black" expressed deification then suggest this colour was symbolic rather than reflecting racial distinctions as scholars have acknowledged ?. Mentuhotep II is depicted with jet black skin during the 30th jubliee out of his 51 year reign. Your point applies to Ahmose Nefertari as discussed in the AE sub-section. Nubians were depicted in a range of colours from jet black to reddish brown as reflected in both the Rameses II and Tutankhamun paintings:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Wall_Painting_of_Temple_of_Beit_El-Wali_%28Plaster_Cast%29%2C_which_Ramses_II_Constructed_in_Nubia_-_British_Museum.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nubians_bringing_tribute_for_King_Tut,_Tomb_of_Huy.jpg

Thie range of colours applied to the Nubians undermines the view of ethnic distinctions based on colour symbolism.

The wooden models are clear, 3-D replica representation of the Ancient Egyptians and Nubians. It is from an 11th dynasty tomb and clearly represents the Egyptian army as having pheonotypically, African features. How is that cherry-picking ?.It serves as clear evidence to show the supposed differences between Nubians and Egyptians were superficial. This coincides with the royal paintings featuring Tutankhamun and Rameses II. In contrast, wall paintings have been noted to be highly symbolic among scholars as Egyptian males and female are represented in different colours . In fact, Nubian tomb paintings have a similar symbolism in which royals are represented in the reddish brown rather than jet black: https://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/soudan/e_soudan_tombes.htm

You clearly do not understand historiography. These are established schools of historiography which present differing interpretations on African political, economic and cultural history. That does not mean a racial POV but refers to the wider body of scholarship. You are simply projecting your personal views (clear stance against Wokeism etc) and lack of knowledge on these matters. Diop was the UNESCO contributing member and wrote the first chapter on the authoritative text, UNESCO General History of Africa Vol.2. Egyptology as a discipline has been critcised for biased scholarship by many scholars and the under-representation of non-Western perspectives.

I have responded to your confused, point on "culture" and "racial" distinctions. Several of the sources I cited have stated that the Ancient Egyptians originated from the Sahara-Sudanic region in terms of population flow and material culture. I have already discussed Stuart Tyson Smith, Basil Davidson, Fred Wendorf, Shomarka Keita on this point. I am not going to provide further sources since that is pointless at this stage of discussion. The anthropological and archaeological evidence have reinforced this point.

You are clearly ignoring my comments/refutations to your nonsensical points on the linguistic connection as AE was apart of the Afro-Asiatic linguistic group and hence had the same origin as Chadic, Omotic, Cushitic, Berber, Semitic in which modern-day Sub-Saharan populations speak different branches of the Afro-Asiatic language family across Chad, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia,Cameroon, Niger, Djibouti, Mauritania, Mali and Eritrea. Arguably, if one applied your faulty logic then none of these Afro-Asiatic speaking populations have the same ethnic origin as Nubians and should not be classified as Sub-Saharan Africans. In fact, there are Cushitic populations such as the Beja that are based in the Sudan along with Nubians. Ethiopian tribes were cited by Smith and the Encyclopedia Britannica (1984) as having strong similarities with the AE populations.

You cited Kramer to make the wider point that Mesopotamia had stronger cultural affinities with the AE population than with the North-Eastern African populations. Kramer does not make this specific argument in any of the pages you listed. That is a clear misrepresentation of the source content to justify your own views. That is original research in summary. Smith clearly states that the Narmer palette borrow elements from the Elamite iconography but the African features are much more pronounced/"durable" such as the cattle complex, the bull tail and the cow imagery of the goddess Bat. You did not provide any sources which refute Smith on this point or argue that the AE had closer cultural ties to West Asia rather than North-East Africa. Smith explicitly refutes this view throughout his article and re-states this position in his conclusion. I have provided several quotations from Smith's article in relation to this question and summarised his position accurately.

Smith cites Frankfurt from 1948, in the context that he was a minority among major Egyptologists during the colonial era to recognise the strong cultural similarities between Ancient Egypt and the North-East African populations. You are again misrepresenting Smith's view, who is in fact criticising the long-standing Egyptological biases and the fact that overwhelming evidence in relation to the Sahara has been ignored. He cites David Wengrow and his colleagues as sharing this view of the origins of Ancient Egypt stemming from a pastoral community in the north-eastern Africa "that stimulated Egypt’s rapid rise in complexity along African, not Near Eastern, lines". This is stated clearly and you misrepresenting Smith's discussion of Frankfurt in the specified context.

Why would I be stressed about the DNA evidence ?. This is not a serious argument. I have cited multiple scholars who have pointed out the methodological issues with the DNA evidence (contamination, selective sampling and methodological bias) which was even admitted by the authors of the 2017 study to not be a representative study as it did not feature samples from Upper Egypt. The fact other users removed the sub-section because it gave a misleading view on racial categories proves my point. That sub-section (featuring the 2017 study) which you were so reluctant to change has now been removed or altered in other articles to have a more accurate title i.e. limited study of 30 mummies (see the DNA History of Egypt article).WikiUser4020 (talk) 17:43, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

The symbolism and realism of the artistic colours has been analysed and clarified by many experts. There are thousands of paintings which support these conclusions. In addition, it is scientifically obvious that naturally pale-skinned people will turn red when they are exposed to harsh sun, but naturally red-skinned people do not turn pale when they stay indoors. Equally obviously, naturally black-skinned women do not turn pale when they stay indoors either. Smith himself wrote in Wretched Kush (page 6): "Egyptian art depicts Nubians with stereotypical dark skin, facial features, hairstyles, and dress, all very different from Egyptians and the other two ethnic groups, Asiatics and Libyans."

Mentuhotep II was not always shown as black – on some of his paintings he is shown to be the normal red colour. See [7] and he was also deified – see e.g. [8]. However at least two of his minor wives were Nubian – see the images from the sarcophagus of Ashayet and [9]. You have, as usual, carefully cherry-picked a handful of instances which might appear to support your racial POV, and you have ignored all the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The wooden models are a few inches high, and are not a "clear representation" of anything, far less anatomically accurate facial features. However as usual you happily ignore the fact that the artists clearly distinguished the skin colours of these tiny figures. You also avoid admitting that these models were made a thousand years after Egypt invaded Nubia, and that there had thus been a thousand years of "cultural entanglements" going on before these little figures were made.

There certainly are schools which present "differing interpretations on African political, economic and cultural history." However actual experts on ancient Egypt do not generally agree with their conclusions on "race". Diop did indeed author the UNESCO chapter on the ancient Egyptians, but his racial conclusions were rejected by the experts who participated - as the UNESCO chapter itself makes clear. Once again, all you have left is to play the race card.

I see you are still trying frantically to disengage from your own long thesis on cultural entanglement with Nubians. After spending so many pages ranting about how "cultural entanglement indicates common origin", you are now pretending that this was my argument rather than your own. You are now ranting about how lots of people in modern-day Sub-Sahara speak languages which are similar to ancient Egypt. As usual, you ignore the fact that lots of people in modern-day Sub-Sahara speak English and French and Italian and Arabic. Are you suggesting that English and French and Italian and Arabic people are all members of the "black race"? Or do you perhaps suppose that people of different races might sometimes happen to speak the same language?

Smith did indeed state that there are African features on the Narmer Palette as well, but Smith also admits that serpopards are Mesopotamian iconography, without trying to explain why an Egyptian king would be using such iconography. I then conclusively demonstrated (using Kramer) that bulls crushing cities are also ancient Mesopotamian tropes, and that cattle complex images are not exclusive to African cultures. Smith did also admit in his 2018 article that "most Egyptologists (even today)" do not agree with Frankfort's conclusions. Smith is not limiting this to the "colonial era" – he specifically wrote "even today". Since Smith seemingly does agree with Frankfort's conclusions, he is effectively admitting that his own views are in conflict with "most Egyptologists (even today)". However as usual, you cherry-picked your way around that. Smith only published this paper in 2018, so other experts have perhaps not gotten around to refuting him just yet. There is no rule in scholarship which says if an idea is not refuted within a narrow time limit then it is automatically accepted by everyone to be true – especially when the author himself admits that "most Egyptologists (even today)" do not agree with him.

It is interesting that you wrote off the DNA evidence as "not a serious argument", when virtually every study on ancient Egyptian DNA goes against your POV. It's true that they have not yet tested every single mummy ever uncovered, but it's also true that the technology is becoming more affordable, and so you will only be able to hide behind this fig-leaf for a short while longer.

The sub-section on DNA was removed because human racial classification is pseudo-science. I agree that DNA testing cannot determine race, and that no DNA study claims to do so. However limb ratios and "cultural entanglements" cannot determine race either, and neither do they claim to do so. Yet you have ranted on for many pages trying to "prove" a racial conclusion, using every straw you can find to clutch at, and you are inserting cherry-picked "quotes" wherever you can in an attempt to create the false impression of a racial conclusion.

You were happy to remove the DNA sub-section because the scientific evidence was going against you. Removing that sub-section DID NOT prove your point about DNA testing, instead it shattered your point about racial classifications. However you simply cherry-picked your way around that as well.

Wdford (talk) 16:57, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

"The symbolism and realism of the artistic colours has been analysed and clarified by many experts. There are thousands of paintings which support these conclusions. In addition, it is scientifically obvious that naturally pale-skinned people will turn red when they are exposed to harsh sun, but naturally red-skinned people do not turn pale when they stay indoors. Equally obviously, naturally black-skinned women do not turn pale when they stay indoors either."

It seems top me that there is a false dichotomy being portrayed between pale or dark, where "pale" is near paper or yellow white and "dark" is pitch black. "Red" is being used by you as a modification of "pale", have you ever considered that the Egyptians possess, and the ancient Egyptians were simply trying to portray, a naturally reddish-brown skin tone and were not perpetually sun-burned as you suggest? The people in that region of Egypt have been there for tens of thousands of years, even if a pale skinned people populated that area would be outrageous to assume their skin color would have naturally darkened by now? The symbolic claim is a tenuous perceptive claim at best with regard to the natural skin tone depicted in Ancient Egyptian art, it's typically aimed at more unnatural tones and connections to deities. It's not like Mycenae where the males were always beet red, and the women were always plaster white. The vast majority of the depictions of Ancient Egyptian skin tone is the fairly standard reddish-medium brown with the occasional light and darker brown in the mix. Is it so divorced from reason that the Ancient Egyptians were primarily reddish-brown, and ranged from lighter to darker brown, like many peoples of the world do today? Such a conclusion would line up perfectly with what their art depicts.

" Smith himself wrote in Wretched Kush (page 6): "Egyptian art depicts Nubians with stereotypical dark skin, facial features, hairstyles, and dress, all very different from Egyptians and the other two ethnic groups, Asiatics and Libyans."

If we are looking at Book of Gates type depictions where the Egyptians compare themselves with other nearby ethnicities then they consistently portray themselves as being second darkest, second only to the pitch black Nubians. As WikiUser4020 stated, there are depictions of Nubians where half appear the same skin color as the Egyptians with only some features being different. Considering the genetic evidence and geographic location which typically clusters the Nubians and Egyptians, it's not completely unexpected for their depictions of themselves to display overlaps as well.

This is not to insert myself into the broader argument you and WikiUser4020 are having, and I agree with you and other users that "race" is anachronistic and problematic when applying them so far in the past. Pardon my anecdote but as someone who has seen plenty of Egyptians in Cairo, Alexandria and Luxor (as well as from various places in the states), they seem to all have the range of skin tones/features depicted in art, mostly reddish-brown with plenty a bit lighter and darker depending where you are north and south.

In any sense, human phenotypes and genotypes are generally clinal. "Races" were made with certain "racial centers" in mind (North West Europe, Sub-Saharan West Africa, Far East Asia etc.) Due to the geographic distance between these partially arbitrary centers, it is easy to presume and make arguments for distinctness, but nations in the interstices and borders like Egypt will always confound such a simplistic classification. This page would certainly fit better as a history of the controversy with the population history of Egypt being the up to date genetic repository. It seems to have so much bloat and redundancy with the aforementioned article. Prime Paladin (talk) 02:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

"Racial POV" and "All you have left is to play the race card" are unacceptable comments that reflect your true views. That is the end of this discussion.WikiUser4020 (talk) 18:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@ Prime Paladin: You are correct that some Egyptians today do possess a naturally reddish-brown skin tone. However in the ancient times, they chose to portray their women as very pale. It is scientifically plausible that pale skinned men could sun-burn to a reddish brown, but it's not plausible that reddish brown women would somehow become pale. This is a fact.

Obviously there has always been racial mixing, and there would have been racially-mixed people in Egypt even in the most ancient times. Since ancient Egyptians were not racists, some of these racially-mixed people many have attained the wealth needed to afford painted tombs, while employees may have been depicted in the tombs of their employers. However they were not the original "races", they were of mixed race.

Since they had no hard borders between nations in those ancient times, it is also more probable that the Egyptians living in "border areas" would have mixed more frequently than those communities farther from the borders.

I have also been to many parts of Egypt, and I am well aware of the appearance of the current population. I am aware that many modern Egyptians could easily pass for Europeans from Mediterranean countries like Greece and Italy, while others are much darker. Compare Ancient Nofret to Meghan Markle to Penelope Cruz to Mariah Carey to Sophia Loren to Adele Oni to Princess Rania of Jordan. However today, when people are far more mobile, the extent of racial mixing in Egypt is no longer representative of the situation in ancient times. Wdford (talk) 11:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

"You are correct that some Egyptians today do possess a naturally reddish-brown skin tone. However in the ancient times, they chose to portray their women as very pale. It is scientifically plausible that pale skinned men could sun-burn to a reddish brown, but it's not plausible that reddish brown women would somehow become pale. This is a fact."

Except their depiction of pale women was far from ubiquitous and actually quite limited. They were typically portrayed a shade or two lighter than the men, something consistent biologically as women tend to be slightly lighter than men of the same ethnic group.

And no, a pale man cannot become reddish-brown consistently and for thousands of years. Either you are suggesting Egyptians perpetually have a sunburn that makes them multiple shades darker at all times, or that skin color is so perpetual and unchanging that if they were originally pale, which they weren't, exposure to the high UV environment of Egypt wouldn't somehow make them naturally darker as it does with every other group on the planet. Darker skin cannot be "artistic" for depictions of men, but "true to life" for depictions of women, you can't cherry pick your positions. Either they were representative, and depictions of women were occasionally pale because those specific handful of women were pale, and men were consistently darker because the average man was dark. Or, they were both symbolic, women presented paler than they were, and men darker, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. This is not to even mention that many of these paler depictions match the color of the material they were working on and it's probable that the artist simply didn't bother to color it in, considering it "close enough"

"Obviously there has always been racial mixing, and there would have been racially-mixed people in Egypt even in the most ancient times. Since ancient Egyptians were not racists, some of these racially-mixed people many have attained the wealth needed to afford painted tombs, while employees may have been depicted in the tombs of their employers. However they were not the original "races", they were of mixed race."

Why are you pushing the "racial" aspect of this that this very article and modern scholarship sees as ahistorical and anti-scientific?

"Compare Ancient Nofret"

Or what about Ancient Tiye if we wish to cherry pick? Or to be more representative, Queens Nefertiti, Ankhesenamun and Nefertari, whose depictions support a more medium skinned positon.

Yes I'm aware of the standard handful of depictions of pale-skined Egyptian women certain people like to frequently reference. There are many more to the contrary though: https://imgur.com/a/RSCYsoh

"However today, when people are far more mobile, the extent of racial mixing in Egypt is no longer representative of the situation in ancient times."

Wikipedia and modern scholarship maintains the general genetic continuity of Ancient Egyptians. You seem to be implying that there was some great genetic rift between modern and ancient Egyptians that is purported by many debunked theories listed in this article. Prime Paladin (talk) 12:52, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

"I have also been to many parts of Egypt, and I am well aware of the appearance of the current population. I am aware that many modern Egyptians could easily pass for Europeans from Mediterranean countries like Greece and Italy, while others are much darker."

If you walked in a crowd in Cairo that looks like this:

[10]https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/egypt_protest083.jpg

and came away thinking they look just like Italians or Greeks you are being purposefully disingenuous. And this was from protest in Cairo in the north of the country, the rest is the same if not darker. Or perhaps they are all "sunburned" as you, and racist debunked theorists of the past, suggest. Much to your chagrin, Rami Malek is probably the lightest you're typically going to see an Egyptian being, and even then he would barely pass for a darker Greek person. Prime Paladin (talk) 01:24, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

You seem confused. It's WikiUser4020 who is arguing against genetic continuity. It's WikiUser4020 who is arguing that the people depicted in ancient Egyptian artwork were a black African people and that the people in your photograph are the light skinned descendants of Hyksos/Persian/Greek/Arab invaders. Shvantz (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2023 (UTC)