To think the ancient Egyptians were black

[JonathanDunn]

The last thread was removed because of an inflammatory title. So I changed the title of this thread.

But I don't the media credits African people, or white actors playing Egyptians.

LRDtheFeministDragon

Because it's factually incorrect nonsense? Look, we can also believe that we can survive racism due to the magic strength of our fairy ancestors but isn't it better to ground beliefs in actual truth?

It's also ridiculous because WEST AFRICA IS RIGHT THERE. There is a huge history in West Africa (where their ancestors are actually from!) and they could actually be engaging with the real history rather than making up fake history.

It's also stupid because it requires massive consipracy theories and junk. No one is actually learning anything from this.

And the Phoneciens. We hear bugger all about them too.
And if we are talking cradle of civilisation, what about the Sumerians

Cleopatra was a Ptolemy and the Ptolemies were Greek. They were also notorious for inbreeding so it's more likely than not that her mother was one of them.

Yeah, Egypt was given to the Greek general Ptolemy by Alexander the Great when he divided his empire up between his generals upon his death. The ruling family in-bred in order to not mix with the local population, and never even learned Egyptian.

Cleopatra was married to her little brother (although they probably never slept together), and was also the first in her family to speak Egyptian, and identify as an Egyptian rather than separate ruling-class Greek. It's part of what won her the civil war against her brother-husband. Although it must be said that a lot of this comes from the Romans and you can never trust the Romans with another country's history. They are almost as bad as the Victorians and that is saying something.

I don't think that comment about DNA tests showing her mother was African can be correct, as her tomb has never been found (a possible find from earlier this century has never been substantiated). However it is of course possible that Afrian blood entered the family line at some point due to lack of records, particularly (of course) of women.

It bugs me no end that Cleopatra is often called a Pharaoh. She was a Queen who came centuries later than the Pharaoes.

The Pharaohs, who came loooong before the Ptolemys, though, would have been Black, or at least Arab-looking. And of course most of the people living in Egypt would have during both these periods looked pretty much like Egyptians look now, with some migrants from other places scattered about.

I think in terms of accurate filmmaking (and really, where's the fun in that?) I don't give a jot if they make Cleopatra Black or Arab, as it's in the realm of possibility. But the wholesale whitewashing of Egyptians and 'Phararohs' is a bit You can't make every non-white person white (Avatar the last airbender, Ghost in the Shell etcetcetc), and then bitch when one 'white' character is made non-white.

(Still think you're generalising too much - it's like saying 'medieval British people were white')

You can generalise, and they were, the vast majority. What colour do you think medieval British people were?

Horrible Histories has already sussed this.

A11 - I think you misunderstood me? I'm saying you're being patronising to treat that motivation to think about history as something bad. I'm not suggesting it should justify falsifying history. But I think starting out by being patronising about people who are motivated by a desire to find people who look like them in the history they learn is a bit poor.

Also really confused why you're only concentrating on African Americans and where 'their' history is from?

having lived and worked in Egypt, and married an Egyptian, they are a huge mix of diversity in skin colour - from very pale, down to very black, with some red heads in between.

hedda - that is my precise point? The majority were white, but some were black. That's not something I 'think'. It is something I know.

Well I've seen tomb paintings and they are not of black africans

Iirc there are some Somali men who sport ginger beards. So why wouldn't the genetics of that be spread across north eastern African countries?

We are all descendants of Africa

There was a great documentary series by Alice roberts (link below) showing the progression of the human race starting from Africa to eventually all over the world and it covers why different races developed different features (including skin colour) depending on the environment they ended up in.

www.imdb.com/title/tt1397256/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_24

I don't think we need to take on this kind of nonsense in the UK. Let's leave this pseudo history to the American education system.

Jesus it is depressing that there is hardly a topic in the world in which someone can't sneer at America.

Three children in the US education system and no pseudo history in sight. They do learn about creationism of course ... not.

Interesting that you think an entire continent of people and their diaspora wishing to feel positive about their history and its contribution to the world is "nonsense"

hedda - that is my precise point? The majority were white, but some were black. That's not something I 'think'. It is something I know

Your comment read as if you were saying that you could not generalise that britishmedieval people were white. Which is of course very silly, since the very vast majority were. Your some would have been a tiny percentage.

Interestingly we also know that even in the Stone Ages (Neolithic if I remember rightly, I don't think the Mesolithic had gotten around to it yet) we in England had trade routes extending as far as Turkey, so of course most people have been white in the UK, but it would not have been and extraordinary sight in London to see the occasional Black or Arab person during Shakespeare's time, and even before. Certainly after. We know a lot about BME people in Victorian London from records such as those from Barnardos schools and orphanages, who always had a policy of non-discrimination on the grounds of race & religion.

If anyone is interested, this is an amazing blog thing: People of Colour in European Art History Come for the art, stay for the insight into European society!

Some African people are ginger too.

Not all salves where from west Africa.

A lot of the Bantu helpers who where left on the east coast of Africa married the Arabs to which became Swahili people. A lot of missionaries left slaves on the cost. The people that came after them took the slaves with them.

We do know that some rulers of Egypt where Greeks, but less time is taken to prove some where black or other.

Egypt traded with places like Timbuktu ( Mali) and some places in Nigeria. Salt from Uganda was traded in Egyptian or believed to have been traded north.

There is evince of ancient kingdoms in the south of Africa which points to trade in the north with places like Egypt. For people like a11 to come and have a complete dismissal of Africans with the possibility that they might have actually had some part in Egypt apart from being slaves is abhorrent.

hedda - ah, sorry, I'm responding to the OP's posts there, right?

I'm trying to make the point that you do not have to find a majority of people in the historical group you're interested in, for it to be interesting and powerful to study them.

It's important to know that some medieval Brits were black - important in a way that's disproportionate to their actual numbers.

Making generalisations about 'ancient Egypt' being entirely black is just as pointless as making generalisations about medieval Britain being entirely white. The importance of race isn't purely about numbers, it's about how your perceptions of history change as you learn more about it.

Yep - the ginger gene is cross-racial and comes up in all races, not as a result of white genes entering the pool. It's just everywhere already!

www.vice.com/en_uk/read/documenting-black-and-mixed-race-gingers-243

Oooh LRD you've reverted :) How lovely.

For a minute there I had no idea what you meant and was desperately trying to figure out what racial implications 'revert' had!

But thank you.

"Scotland's DNA also found that more than 1% of all Scotsmen are direct descendants of the Berber and Tuareg tribesmen of the Sahara, a lineage which is around 5600 years old." From the BBC.

Trading nations tend to be very diverse so the likelihood is that Egyptians were all of the above. That part of the world has routes going everywhere and it has for a long time.

I think we should spend a lot more of our time looking at history from different places. We still concentrate on the very few cultures that white British men thought were interesting and relevant many moons ago.

I spent a really interesting half hour in a small museum in Italy being regaled by the story of naval battles on Lake Garda where the Venetians and the Milanese fought it out with ships carried over the mountains. WTF? Boring Greece, Rome and Egypt I say.

LRD

Are you a black woman? Have you spent any time in the USA?

If not, that probably explains your level of patience. This is part of a mainstream male Afrocentric movement within the USA and its adherents are generally fairly annoying. Typically called the Hotep movement, it's a backwards looking sexist homophobic movement that is OBSESSED with Ancient Egypt. www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/03/hotep_explained/

Besides, the main reason it's bad is because African Americans are oppressed within the US but they are still Americans and retain a fairly limited view of the rest of the world. This means they have the same US tendency to evaluate the world in very black and white simple terms. This is the same mentality that worked really well in Iraq!

For African Americans, that means treating the rest of the world like a 51st state rather than other culturally distinct nations that have their own racial definitions and groups. But the definition of "black" in the US is basically the one drop rule (of melanin). This definition is then "imposed" globally regardless of people's own cultural definitions of blackness. So by this measure, anyone with melanin in their DNA or who looks "black-ish" can be considered "black" if needs be. This includes filipinos, the Spanish, Native Americans, Melanesians etc etc. All their history can be conveniently "claimed" as black history despite modern racial classifications not being relevant and in many cases there being no actual genetic link. Foreigners are then considered to be "ashamed" of their blackness because of their refusal to accept US based race classifications as some sort of universal standard. African Americans can then "claim" most of the accomplishments of the entire world. This is a real thing I promise you.

A good example is the anger at South African "colored" people for "refusing to admit that they are black." Because in the US, they would be considered black, they are "self-hating" and "anti-black" for not adhering strictly to the racial classifications of a foreign country.

"Claiming" Ancient Egypt is just another way to impose US based racial classifications onto a foreign country. It's really tiresome and boring, not to mention neo colonialist.

YY, I agree, more time spent looking at more diverse histories would be great. Even the cultures we do study, we study in a really odd, incomplete way, because of not including (or sometimes, not bothering to look for) anything that changes presumptions about which people were where.

This is when generalisation becomes a pain. If you have accepted 99% of people are white, you don't employ someone to research black history, and you don't check for markers for black people there, and you miss out on the evidence of trade routes and population mobility and so on. Your generalisation shuts everything down into a neat little box.

A11 - no, and no.

And I doubt I'd have any patience with this movement either.

I'm just confused why you're talking about it, when I thought the question was wider. That's fine: you're not obliged to explain to me. I'm just aware that you're seeing things I'm not seeing, because I didn't even see the OP's other thread, and I'm only thinking about the overt question, which doesn't seem to have to do only with African Americans.

quencher

I'm British of West African descent. There is PLENTY - not some - of evidence of ancient kingdoms in West Africa. You don't NEED to look to Egyptians as "saviors" of Africa in order to feel good about being black. You can actually look to West Africans.

My question is this: why do you need Egyptians to have been part of the slave trade? What's so wrong with AA slaves being descended from West Africans? It's actually more abhorrent that you think that scraping desperately for some link to Egyptians is something to be proud of.

LRD sorry! We did meet once when I had a different name. Hope things are good for you.