'Is studying Egypt in its African context "Afrocen

[topdog]

Afrocentric?


At another conference, hosted by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage and designed as a hostile condemnation of Afrocentrism, Keita's contribution 'Is studying Egypt in its African context "Afrocentric"?' offered an important disruption to the generality of opinion. (78) In his presentation, Keita outlined four ways in which one can formulate an answer to the question of whether Egypt was an African culture, through evidence from geography, language, archaeology and biology. Geographical evidence suggests that 'Nilotic flora and fauna are well integrated into the culture of the early Egyptians; this suggests that the people were indigenous, or at least that the culture developed locally and was not an import'. Ancient Egyptian is universally accepted as part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, the origins of which are in the Horn of Africa. The archaeological record shows that 'the sequence of cultures which clearly leads to dynastic Egypt is found in southern Egypt' and that pre-dynastic Egypt 'arose most directly from a Saharo-Nilotic base'. Besides rehearsing his earlier arguments about biological relations, Keita adds two important points. In further exploding the paradigm of racialised thinking, Keita declares it 'conceptually wrong to say that "Africans" split from "Caucasians", "Mongoloids", "Australoids" etc. ad nauseam, as has sometimes been done, or even the reverse, because these terms carry certain stereotyped physical trait associations'. An understanding of this concept shows us clearly that 'there is no evidence that the region was empty and primarily colonised by non-African outsiders, who had differentiated outside and then returned to Africa' (emphasis in original). Keita's summary position is that 'It is not a question of "African" "influence"; ancient Egypt was organically African. Studying early Egypt in its African context is not "Afrocentric," but simply correct' (emphasis added). (79)

Taken from:

Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko.
Race and Class; 7/1/2003; Kamugisha, Aaron


(78) Shomarka Keita, 'Is studying Egypt in its African context 'Afrocentric'?' in Were the Achievements of Ancient Greece Borrowed from Africa? Proceedings from a Seminar sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage, Georgetown University, 16 November 1996. Other contributors to this conference included Mary Lefkowitz, Deborah Boedeker, Erich Mattel, Stanley Burstein, James D. Muhly, Jay Jasanoff and Frank Yurco.

[Igu]

topdog said:

Afrocentric?


At another conference, hosted by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage and designed as a hostile condemnation of Afrocentrism, Keita's contribution 'Is studying Egypt in its African context "Afrocentric"?' offered an important disruption to the generality of opinion. (78) In his presentation, Keita outlined four ways in which one can formulate an answer to the question of whether Egypt was an African culture, through evidence from geography, language, archaeology and biology. Geographical evidence suggests that 'Nilotic flora and fauna are well integrated into the culture of the early Egyptians; this suggests that the people were indigenous, or at least that the culture developed locally and was not an import'. Ancient Egyptian is universally accepted as part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, the origins of which are in the Horn of Africa. The archaeological record shows that 'the sequence of cultures which clearly leads to dynastic Egypt is found in southern Egypt' and that pre-dynastic Egypt 'arose most directly from a Saharo-Nilotic base'. Besides rehearsing his earlier arguments about biological relations, Keita adds two important points. In further exploding the paradigm of racialised thinking, Keita declares it 'conceptually wrong to say that "Africans" split from "Caucasians", "Mongoloids", "Australoids" etc. ad nauseam, as has sometimes been done, or even the reverse, because these terms carry certain stereotyped physical trait associations'. An understanding of this concept shows us clearly that 'there is no evidence that the region was empty and primarily colonised by non-African outsiders, who had differentiated outside and then returned to Africa' (emphasis in original). Keita's summary position is that 'It is not a question of "African" "influence"; ancient Egypt was organically African. Studying early Egypt in its African context is not "Afrocentric," but simply correct' (emphasis added). (79)

Taken from:

Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko.
Race and Class; 7/1/2003; Kamugisha, Aaron


(78) Shomarka Keita, 'Is studying Egypt in its African context 'Afrocentric'?' in Were the Achievements of Ancient Greece Borrowed from Africa? Proceedings from a Seminar sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage, Georgetown University, 16 November 1996. Other contributors to this conference included Mary Lefkowitz, Deborah Boedeker, Erich Mattel, Stanley Burstein, James D. Muhly, Jay Jasanoff and Frank Yurco.

-African culture means nothing, BS.
-Badarians were the last negroids to live in Southern Egypt, then they were replaced By middle easteners from the middle east. Egyptian civilization started with them, not with negroids.

[topdog]

igu said:

topdog said:

Afrocentric?


At another conference, hosted by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage and designed as a hostile condemnation of Afrocentrism, Keita's contribution 'Is studying Egypt in its African context "Afrocentric"?' offered an important disruption to the generality of opinion. (78) In his presentation, Keita outlined four ways in which one can formulate an answer to the question of whether Egypt was an African culture, through evidence from geography, language, archaeology and biology. Geographical evidence suggests that 'Nilotic flora and fauna are well integrated into the culture of the early Egyptians; this suggests that the people were indigenous, or at least that the culture developed locally and was not an import'. Ancient Egyptian is universally accepted as part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, the origins of which are in the Horn of Africa. The archaeological record shows that 'the sequence of cultures which clearly leads to dynastic Egypt is found in southern Egypt' and that pre-dynastic Egypt 'arose most directly from a Saharo-Nilotic base'. Besides rehearsing his earlier arguments about biological relations, Keita adds two important points. In further exploding the paradigm of racialised thinking, Keita declares it 'conceptually wrong to say that "Africans" split from "Caucasians", "Mongoloids", "Australoids" etc. ad nauseam, as has sometimes been done, or even the reverse, because these terms carry certain stereotyped physical trait associations'. An understanding of this concept shows us clearly that 'there is no evidence that the region was empty and primarily colonised by non-African outsiders, who had differentiated outside and then returned to Africa' (emphasis in original). Keita's summary position is that 'It is not a question of "African" "influence"; ancient Egypt was organically African. Studying early Egypt in its African context is not "Afrocentric," but simply correct' (emphasis added). (79)

Taken from:

Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko.
Race and Class; 7/1/2003; Kamugisha, Aaron


(78) Shomarka Keita, 'Is studying Egypt in its African context 'Afrocentric'?' in Were the Achievements of Ancient Greece Borrowed from Africa? Proceedings from a Seminar sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage, Georgetown University, 16 November 1996. Other contributors to this conference included Mary Lefkowitz, Deborah Boedeker, Erich Mattel, Stanley Burstein, James D. Muhly, Jay Jasanoff and Frank Yurco.

-African culture means nothing, BS.
-Badarians were the last negroids to live in Southern Egypt, then they were replaced By middle easteners from the middle east. Egypt civilization started with them, not with negroids.

Incorrect, there is no evidence that invading or migrating Middle easterners laid any of the foundation for ancient Egyptian civilisation. That belief lies in old diffusionist theories that can no longer be entertained.

[Igu]

topdog said:

igu said:

-African culture means nothing, BS.
-Badarians were the last negroids to live in Southern Egypt, then they were replaced By middle easteners from the middle east. Egypt civilization started with them, not with negroids.

Incorrect, there is no evidence that invading or migrating Middle easterners laid any of the foundation for ancient Egyptian civilisation. That belief lies in old diffusionist theories that can no longer be entertained.

Your theory is that Badarians evolved into Semites (physically), isn't it? BS.

[topdog]

igu said:

topdog said:

Incorrect, there is no evidence that invading or migrating Middle easterners laid any of the foundation for ancient Egyptian civilisation. That belief lies in old diffusionist theories that can no longer be entertained.

Your theory is that Badarians evolved into Semites (physically), isn't it? BS.

Incorrect, my view based on the published data I've read states that predynastic Egyptians were more sub-Saharan in morphology than the later Dynastic Egyptians without discarding the fact that a level continuity still persisted. I've never stated population replacement as a conclusion. In the Upper Nile valley where Egyptian civilisation had its root, the people there were very sub-Saharan in the beginning and gradually through a process of micro-evolution and migration primarily from the north, the southerners became less sub-Saharan in appearance[in dynastic times] but still possessed a substantial amount of continuity with predynastic Egyptians.

[Igu]

topdog said:

igu said:

Your theory is that Badarians evolved into Semites (physically), isn't it? BS.

Incorrect, my view based on the published data I've read states that predynastic Egyptians were more sub-Saharan in morphology than the later Dynastic Egyptians without discarding the fact that a level continuity still persisted. I've never stated population replacement as a conclusion. In the Upper Nile valley where Egyptian civilisation had its root, the people there were very sub-Saharan in the beginning and gradually through a process of micro-evolution and migration primarily from the north, the southerners became less sub-Saharan in appearance[in dynastic times] but still possessed a substantial amount of continuity with predynastic Egyptians.

Thank you for agreeing with me, Middle easteners replaced them.

[topdog]

igu said:

topdog said:

Incorrect, my view based on the published data I've read states that predynastic Egyptians were more sub-Saharan in morphology than the later Dynastic Egyptians without discarding the fact that a level continuity still persisted. I've never stated population replacement as a conclusion. In the Upper Nile valley where Egyptian civilisation had its root, the people there were very sub-Saharan in the beginning and gradually through a process of micro-evolution and migration primarily from the north, the southerners became less sub-Saharan in appearance[in dynastic times] but still possessed a substantial amount of continuity with predynastic Egyptians.

Thank you for agreeing with me, Middle easteners replaced them.

When did I say Middle Easterners replaced them? I said migrants from the North[Lower Egyptians] fused with the Upper Egyptian population and modified the population to be less sub-Saharan in morphology, but that the people still exhibited a level of continuity with the original predynastic Egyptians.

[Ponto Hardbottle]

Isn't Ginger the mummy a or was a Badarian? He could be negroid or not. I have never found or been satisfied that the Badarians or Naqadians were negroid. A lot of the evidence is ambiguous and tainted with wishful thinking.


This is Ginger. You judge for yourselves. A dried corpse of a negroid, Nilotic type?

[Igu]

topdog said:

igu said:

Thank you for agreeing with me, Middle easteners replaced them.

When did I say Middle Easterners replaced them? I said migrants from the North[Lower Egyptians] fused with the Upper Egyptian population and modified the population to be less sub-Saharan in morphology, but that the people still exhibited a level of continuity with the original predynastic Egyptians.

-Predynastic egyptians were not subsaharans in morphology, they were more or less intermediate but leaning towards Caucasoids: Before the rise of the egyptian civilization the migration north-south has already begun.

-Lower Egyptians are of middle eastern Origin.

[NuSapiens]

Herodotus said that regarding gender relations, the Egyptians' customs were the opposite of the Greeks:

"Not only is the climate different from that of the rest of the world, and the rivers unlike any other rivers, but the people also, in most of their manners and customs, exactly reverse the common practice of mankind. The women attend the markets and trade, while the men sit at home at the loom. . ." (Histories, Book II paragraph 37)

Classical Greece was very patriarchal, with women sheltered inside and men participating in public life. So perhaps we can infer that Egyptian culture at that time was matricentric.

This reminds me of African-American culture, which is strongly matricentric, and suggests to me some important continuity with Subsaharan Africa rather than the Middle East. (Although this is not an absolute geographic distinction: even in the time of Mohammed, there were matricentric clans in the Arabian Peninsula).

Here are links to an Afrocentric scholar who dug up some more Herodotus quotes about Egypt:

users.cyberone.com.au/myers/diop.html

The quotes speak for themselves, and can be verified in an easily-found copy of the "Histories." Herodotus considered the Egyptians to be the same race as the Ethiopians: black skinned and wooly haired.

This doesn't exclude Near Eastern influence in the region, but does show a continuity within the Horn of Africa. Nobody is purely autocthonous, since people move around too much and mix too freely. This doesn't mean Egypt wasn't African.

[topdog]

igu said:

topdog said:

When did I say Middle Easterners replaced them? I said migrants from the North[Lower Egyptians] fused with the Upper Egyptian population and modified the population to be less sub-Saharan in morphology, but that the people still exhibited a level of continuity with the original predynastic Egyptians.

-Predynastic egyptians were not subsaharans in morphology, they were more or less intermediate but leaning towards Caucasoids: Before the rise of the egyptian civilization the migration north-south has already begun.

Naqadans and Badarians were sub-Saharan in morphology. The crania associated with Tushka in Upper Egypt were described as having sub-Saharan affinities[Groves and Thorne, 1999], and even more 'Negroid than Dogon of Mali, who were described as being intermediates.

-Lower Egyptians are of middle eastern Origin.

Not true, although there was some migration from the Middle easte as well as migration out of Africa via Egypt. E3b lineages were carried into the Levant through Egypt and there is skeletal material that does support this.

[Melnorme]

Nus, shouldn't you be careful of using 'matricentric', 'patricentric' as catch-all terms? It seems Herodotus is describing a society in which gender roles are actually reversed ( probably an exaggeration ), which is different from African-Americana where the males are still clearly more aggressive/masculine than the females.

[topdog]

nusapiens said:

Herodotus said that regarding gender relations, the Egyptians' customs were the opposite of the Greeks:

"Not only is the climate different from that of the rest of the world, and the rivers unlike any other rivers, but the people also, in most of their manners and customs, exactly reverse the common practice of mankind. The women attend the markets and trade, while the men sit at home at the loom. . ." (Histories, Book II paragraph 37)

Classical Greece was very patriarchal, with women sheltered inside and men participating in public life. So perhaps we can infer that Egyptian culture at that time was matricentric.

This reminds me of African-American culture, which is strongly matricentric, and suggests to me some important continuity with Subsaharan Africa rather than the Middle East. (Although this is not an absolute geographic distinction: even in the time of Mohammed, there were matricentric clans in the Arabian Peninsula).

Here are links to an Afrocentric scholar who dug up some more Herodotus quotes about Egypt:

users.cyberone.com.au/myers/diop.html

The quotes speak for themselves, and can be verified in an easily-found copy of the "Histories." Herodotus considered the Egyptians to be the same race as the Ethiopians: black skinned and wooly haired.

This doesn't exclude Near Eastern influence in the region, but does show a continuity within the Horn of Africa. Nobody is purely autocthonous, since people move around too much and mix too freely. This doesn't mean Egypt wasn't African.

Shomarka Keita:

"There is a problem of language or logic here since the 'ancient authors' did not have any race concepts, terms or theory synonymous with those 'in twentieth century usage' ... It cannot be stated that the Graeco-Romans (or Egyptians) had no race concepts and then claim that their words or art depict 'race'. Their words
and art only depict the ethno-nationalities they knew, not 'race,' a more recent idea (emphasis in original)."


Keita, 'Black Athena: "race", Bernal and Snowden' p. 298.

Keita made this response mostly directed at Frank Snowden because he advanced the theory that Grco-Romans didn't see race, while at the same time he used the words of the ancient Greco-Romans[most notably the quote that Ethiopians have the wooliest hair of men] to prove that ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians were *NOT* the same race.

[Crimson Guard]

Nusapaians! Yes that Herodotus quote is the one most cited by the Afrocenrists nutjobs..You must take what is said for face value only, and nothing more as your gonna have to realize something:

That fact that the Egyptians were darker in relative to the Greeks is not surprising, the is obviously true today aswel . But Herodotus' description of Egyptian hair at first glance, conflicts with the physical evidence left by the Egyptians themselves as numerous mummies with hair still attached to their skulls.The mummies show more straight, wavy, or lightly curled hair types more than "woolly."

Ancient Egyptian hair was on average curlier than Greek hair, and the tightly-curled ("woolly") hair type was found more often in Egyptians than in Greeks,this is still true even today. There is no reason to assume on the basis of Herodotus' words that all or even most Egyptians had "woolly" hair, nor that such hair found in Egyptians was as "woolly" as that of Sub-Saharan Africans.

Herodotus himself mentions only "Ethiopians" – not Egyptians ,as having the "woolliest hair of all men".

Now Colchians was another group cited by Herodotus as having "dark skin and woolly hair." The Colchians inhabited what is modern-day Georgia in the Caucasus. Now it more thansafe to claim that the vast majority of Colchians were most literally Caucasian people. You now must take into account the observations of Hippocrates, who wrote that the Colchians "are large and corpulent in body. Neither joint nor vein is evident. They have a yellow flesh, as if victims of jaundice" (Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places 15).

As you can see ,nothing in Hippocrates' description suggests that Colchians looked anything like sub-Saharan Africans .

Modern Genetic test only prove that the AE's as the modern peoples where Causasoids.

Also that "Black" when used back then,did and does not carry the same modern racial meaning as it does today..so you cannot go by that,if you do,your wrong.

[Igu]

topdog said:

igu said:

Naqadans and Badarians were sub-Saharan in morphology. The crania associated with Tushka in Upper Egypt were described as having sub-Saharan affinities[Groves and Thorne, 1999], and even more 'Negroid than Dogon of Mali, who were described as being intermediates.

I was not speaking about the badarian, who were Negroids as I have said that Before, I'm speaking about those who started replacing the Negroids:

Not true, although there was some migration from the Middle easte as well as migration out of Africa via Egypt. E3b lineages were carried into the Levant through Egypt and there is skeletal material that does support this.

There is no evidence that E3b has been carried into the levant through Egypt, the fact is that they were semitic looking, therefore of middle eastern origin.