The following is based on “Egyptian Race Seen by Anthropologists”, chapter six of Cheikh Anta Diop’s “The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” (1974):
Diop says there is no proof from from science, from physical anthropologists who measure skulls, that Egypt was mainly white at the time civilization arose there some 5,000 years ago.
The schoolbooks of his time, back the early 1950s, said that Egypt was a white civilization. They said it with such authority that one would naturally suppose that it must be backed by science. But it was nothing like that. It was just wishful thinking – which millions of schoolchildren have dutifully learned as fact.
This is how the minds of so many generations have been warped… It is an intellectual swindle.
Thus Diop.
If you look through the scientific literature there was no proof that Egypt was mostly white. That for two reasons:
- First, it is hard to clearly tell race from measuring skulls. For example, one way of measuring skulls showed that Egypt was about a fourth black. But that same way of measuring skulls would also show that England was 30% black and that Black Africa was only 29% black!
- Second, of the studies on skulls that have been carried out, none showed that Egypt was mostly white when civilization arose there. Instead they tend to show that a fourth to a third were clearly black while most other people were mixed with black.
Science has never been able to find a white Egypt. Instead it keeps finding the skulls of people who seem to be black from the “wrong” periods.
Some have made up for this lack of fact with half-baked reasoning. Like that the the Sahara has cut off blacks from the rest of mankind so there is no way they could have given civilization to the world – completely overlooking the fact that it is the Nile itself that is the main way across the Sahara!
Or even worse, they start twisting the meanings of words. Diop:
Numerous authors circumvent the difficulty by speaking of Whites with red skin or Whites with black skin. This does not seem incongruous to them for, as soon as a race has created a civilization, there can be no more possibility of its being Black.
For example, one book on geography written for 13-year-old French schoolchildren said this:
A Black is distinguished less by the color of his skin (for there are Whites with black skin) than by his features: thick lips, flat nose, etc.
Another book speaks of “Whites with brown or red skin (Egyptians)”.
Diop concludes:
Only by similar definitions has one been able to whiten the Egyptian race, and this is the clearest proof of its blackness.
Up to this point of the book Diop has been tearing down the idea that Ancient Egypt was somehow a white civilization. For the rest of the book he will try to show that it was black, looking at the arguments both for and against.
See also:
I’ve been enjoying these posts about this book – I’m going to go buy it.
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I think you’re scaring people off, Abagond. The number of comments on this series seems to be steadily decreasing.
*grins and nods* I’m so proud of you!
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Diop says there is no proof from from science, from physical anthropologists who measure skulls, that Egypt was mainly white
You can’t determine race by measuring skulls because (*gasp!*) race is not a biological fact.
The schoolbooks of his time, back the early 1950s, said that Egypt was a white civilization.
That’s because the culture in which they were written was racist. It has nothing to do with the science.
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Well, like I have said before, I do not believe Egyot was lily white nor black in our sense of the concept. Like anyone who has been there I can say with absolute certainty that in those 4000 years old paintings, vases, murals, stone carvings etc, you have people from clearly black, trough brown, to white and yellow. I once again bring up the statue of Nefertiti. And please, do not say that it has faded. You have to see it yourself.
And as some one who has studied in art academy; I am not too quick to make any claims about the races shown in pictures or statues or in any images. But I do know that old egyptians spoke about the others and the egyptians, that was their definition of themselves.
And if we talk about the Nile and Egypt and so called black Africa, old Nubian empire stopped egyptians going to south, so much so that they never conquered the upper reaches of the river. Why? Because they could not. They did invade the Mid East and subjucated that, but not upper part of Nile. That is something to think about. For hunderds of years they were at war against the people up river, people whom we can with absolute certainty call black africans, but despite their claims no pharao could ever conquer the whole lot.
Was Egypt African? Of course it was. It was and is in Africa. Was it black like black Harlem? No. It was egyptian.
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” I once again bring up the statue of Nefertiti. And please, do not say that it has faded. You have to see it yourself.”
http://blackhistory.tribe.net/thread/0f240cda-7fcc-45d1-90bf-32c4fddaf0e4
Case closed
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So ancient Egypt was black. That’s cool. So that means the Jews were enslaved by black Africans? Whoops.
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@ Bulanik:
Excellent observation! Thank you. This thing is just full of racist tropes. That is worth a post in itself.
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This is a general comment: I try to make each post stand on its own, so do not feel you have to read the other posts in the series or the book itself. Comment on what I wrote in the post or what others wrote in their comments – just like with any other post on the blog.
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Regardless of how the Egyptians thought of themselves and regardless of whether or not they were “truly” black, just their being not-white is huge. At least if you grew up as not-white in America, where society is based on the idea that if you do not seem to be PURE white you are in some way damaged goods.
Deep down it is not a self-esteem issue or a point-scoring game – it is about the LIE that American society and therefore American life is built on.
For Diop the shadow behind this debate is the European colonialism of Africa. For Americans it is the One Drop Rule (or, if you like, the internal colonialism of African America). So arguments that the Egyptians did not have American or Western ideas of race or dismissing the whole question as unimportant – “What does it matter what race the Egyptians were?” – miss the point, perhaps wilfully so. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
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It really does not matter to me if acient egyptians were black in a sense we define it today or not. I have no stake in that. If they were, okay. I have no racial issue here, even though some might think so. But what I feel strongly about is trying to find the truth, even in history. We must be very weary of politics in history and we must remain very alert when looking back because our vision is so easily blurred by contemporary issues and ideas that instead of looking at something as it is, we “read” it like we want. Just like those whote guys did for some 200 yrs.
When all the evidence we have, and we do have plenty, clearly demonstrates that Egypt was not the lily white civilization it once was claimed to be, the same evidence shows as clearly that is was not racially monolithic either. Trying to paint it such is just the same what those who had claimed it white in past were doing.
@bulanik: I have never said that acient egyptians were not africans. Of course they were. Egypt is in Africa. But trying to stamp it by a racial stamp of our own times and cultures is simply a trick in a discussion of our own time. It is just too simplistic. History, even the history of acient Egypt, is very much more complicated than that.
Like I said, for me, it makes no difference if the egyptians were black. I have no agenda here other than what I have seen with my own eyes in Egypt. I have seen litterally hundreds and hundreds of images from that period, I have been in those friggin tombs and palaces and even climbed up inside the great pyramid of Giza. What you see time and time again is this: there are people of all “races”, “colors” etc. in those images. Again and again. If you visit there one day you will see it yourself. You do not have to link to a video, watch images on books etc. You can see it with your very own eyes.
I also wonder why Egypt is so important for americans. Why not all those sub Saharan civilizations and great nations? Some say it is because it is the focal point of the whites robbing the history from the blacks. Perhaps so, but that is politics too. I think it has symbolic value for both. It is the one african civilization which the white history has accepted totally as equeal as anything in its arsenal. So if it could be claimed as black, blacks would get their very own white accepted civilization. For the same reason some white die hards refuse to aknlowledge it as an african civlization and come up with laughable theories of asians, whites and space men.
On that note, to me it says something that we are having this conversation. History is the bread of brains. I love this. As in many of the abagonds posts about the history, this makes me think and take a hard look at my own conceptions and ways I see the history which is great. With the net full of so much doo doo I think it is great to have this kind of blog in which there is real intelligent life!
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@abagond: very good point.
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Abagond,
Good points. However, I wouldn’t say that pointing out the fact Ancient Egyptians didn’t recognize races we know today as “missing the point”.
Perhaps for the point Diop was trying to make. But for people who study ancient cultures and the past, it IS important to keep in mind their views were quite different than today’s, and that they didn’t have categories such as: black, white, Africa, Europe, west, east, civilization, nation, etc. You simply can’t understand those people and their cultures by applying our, today’s standards for them.
Once again, if the point is simply to make today’s people realize Ancient Egyptians weren’t “white” in today’s sense of the word, or that the part that made them seem white is, basically, racist propaganda (well, more the way western culture was set), then it’s ok. But for any study of the past (because of the past, and not today), applying today’s standards to those people is not the best way to go (because it won’t make you understand them).
Sam,
I also wonder why Egypt is so important for americans. Why not all those sub Saharan civilizations and great nations?
This is a good point. Ant there’s a fairly simple explanation: because Egypt is more famous than any other African civilization. Europeans are who made it that way, if nothing else, by focusing their research on Egypt more than the other ancient cultures in Africa. Everybody seemed to adopt this, dare to say, Eurocentric view: Europeans, Americans, etc. Whites and blacks and Arabs (if you don’t count them as whites). But it’s not “real” or objective any more than it is the claim that Egypt was white.
That’s why I find Diop’s approach and interest in Egypt paradoxically Eurocentric in nature. The whole fascination with Egypt is a product of western culture, the same culture that invented races and racism and who made people believe Egyptians were white.
PS- Oh, and don’t even get me started on the aliens. Abagond, if you like, I can write a guest post on that (why some people claim pyramids were built by the aliens). (Unless Diop touched that subject, too, but I’m not sure about that).
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@ Mira:
Oh yes, a guest post on “ancient astronauts” would be great. This would be a good time to do it too.
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Sure! I can’t promise it will be today, but you’ll have it by the end of the weekend (hopefully sooner).
And I will focus on Egypt only. The general ancient astronauts subject is huge, but technically, what applies to Egypt applies to all of the others.
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And again the word is power, whites have it, and blacks don’t, so whites get to tell people what they are. People in turn, happily accept such titles and join in the kick fest. So much so, that even egyptians themselves identify with whites. Now here’s a poke at an ants nest for all of us; we get angry with egyptians and north africans for distancing themselves from blackness, yet no ones speaks of immigrant blacks distancing themselves from us regular old slave-descended AA’s, and kicking us even harder and in more sensitive areas
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Abagond, this post was really interesting. I will definitely check out Diop’s book and his other work properly when I have the time.
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Well Egypt was also a point of origin for many aspects of worldwide culture and civilization. That’s why it’s important.
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Diop picks on Egypt because it was the first civilization, which whites were using to claim that civilization is a white thing, of which blacks and Asians are, at best, talented imitators. Whites were (and still are) twisting history to make themselves seem better than they are and everyone else as genetically damaged.
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Bulanik,
You’re right in a way, but I wouldn’t say it’s really about America. Fascination with Egypt wasn’t an American invention, so to speak, but Western European. It started in late 18th/early 19th century with Napoleon. It’s truly Eurocentric in a way it has spread throughout the world, fast and reached America. But I wouldn’t blame Americans on this one.
“Egyptomania” had two distinct phases, so to speak. The first was the original “discovery” of Ancient Egypt, in early 19th century. That’s when the craze all begun. The other one came with the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb, in 1920s. It correlated nicely with the rise of new medium: cinema.
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Abagond,
Not sure about Diop. He sure seems genuinely fascinated with Egypt himself. Like he really thinks Ancient Egypt was THAT important like whites claimed, only not for the whites but for the blacks.
In reality, there’s NO need for people to “obsess” over Ancient Egypt more than, say, Nubia or Great Zimbabwe.
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@bulanik: You’re right. And I do not undersestimate you at all. Sorry if you get that impression. Perhaps my language skills are not too refined and some of my thoughts get shades I do not intend.
As for the history, I do know that life up here was pretty primitive when egyptians were fine dining, listening hit music, watching dancers to perform and building pyramids and enjoying the view to Nile, so if some one claims that northern europeans were somewhat similary civilized comparing the acient egyptians, tell them to go La La Land.
When guys were doing mathematics which enabled them to build on such a massive scale without collapsing, we up here were running among the wolves after the reindeers in evergreen coneforests. When guys were harvesting steady harvest and living highly organised acgricultural land while sipping fine wine, we guys were living smack on the border of human sustainability eating poisonous mushrooms. That may develop character but feels shitty during the middle of the winter.
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These posts have been very enlightening.
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This has been a habit of whites, here in America at least, to censor and rewrite history for their own benefit. Most whites, especially the more affluent, overprivileged ones, are so addicted to feeling good they don’t care about the repercussions it has on POC, Africans and African-Americans in particular.
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I lived in Egypt for 5 years as a child/teenager and honestly, I don’t understand this whole “Egyptian civilization as white” mindset. This is not a theory that we dwelt upon when I was growing up in Cairo. To those of us who have actually lived in and are familiar with the country/region, it seems terribly obvious that Egypt was certainly NOT a white-majority place.
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Siah,
I agree, and seeing as how whites in history tried to “whiten” everything, and are still “whitening” history, it’s not surprising that most still want to be seen as the only achievers in every advancement of global society even during biblical times.
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Whites are whitening history? Sure. People generally tend to see a reflection of themselves in civilizations they admire. When we find someone relatable we tend to assume (s)he is generally like us. When we cannot relate, we assume they are generally unlike us.
The consequence of that (often subconscious) reasoning is the fact that we tend to imagine some ancient people as modern people living in primitive conditions. We assume that they were looking like modern people or had a modern morality or world view.
When we think of wars we perceive those who fought on “our” side as noble and we dehumanize their enemies.
We even imagine intelligent aliens and gods as anthropomorphic beings.
So, yeah, I agree that white people tend to whiten some civilizations even when racism isn’t a factor, but I do think other kinds of people behave in similar ways.
Diop definitely was. Calling Ancient Egypt black is just as nonsensical as calling it white, or saying Ancient Greece was white, or calling Julius Caesar an advocate of fascism. Modern perceptions of race do not apply to ancient civilizations because that is not how these people were thinking of themselves or people living in distant lands.
Egypt wasn’t white. Egypt wasn’t black. Egypt was Egyptian.
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@MiraIn reality, there’s NO need for people to “obsess” over Ancient Egypt more than, say, Nubia or Great Zimbabwe.
I disagree. While, Zimbabwe is good, it was not nearly as old or developed as Egypt. Egypt was, arguably, the OLDEST developed civilization in the world, and its monuments and structures were far greater than anyone else’s for thousands of years, except for maybe Nubia.
As Diop stated, it influenced all the other civilization and its monuments are still wonders.
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@all: Just saw an interesting documentary yesterday. Recently an autsrian team of argeologists re discovered a tomb in Ephesos and after several studies came to conclusion that this tomb belongs to none other than the sister of Cleopatra (murdered by her orders by Mark Anthony), Arsinoe!
This is a big thing but here is even bigger one:
they studied the bones found from the grave with the modern forensic techniques and they belonged to a girl 15-17 yrs of age (the right age of Arsinoe at the time of her death) who was of a MIXED RACE. They came to conclusion that Arsinoe as well as Cleopatra were not “pure” greeks as it has been claimed untill recently. They had some “black african” heritage after all!!!
Now tell that to the guys who made otherwise excellent miniseries Rome 😀
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nice posts i am egyptian and egyptian race is not white or black we have our own race
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The Ancient Egyptians of the Bible were Negroid People until the 27th Dynasty when they were invaded by The Persians. Black Egyptians were eventually mixed with invading Libyans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Arabs and Western Europeans. That is where the mixed people of the modern-day Arabs come from. European people have white wash black history. They also created the term Sub Saharan African to make it seem that the people of the region were sub human. In reality, Egyptians lived all along the Nile river which also ran thru the Saharan dessert were the so called sub Saharan African people lived. The descendents of the Ancient Egyptians are afar, Somalis, Tutsi, Bahima, Agau, Oromo, Beja, Luo, Nuba, Mursi and so on. For more Info, See all videos by Dr Yosef Ben Jochannan and Dr. John Henrik Clarke and Dr. John G. Jackson. All African Historians. Pay no mind to any European Historian. All they do is lie and white wash everything they touch.
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