Peoples of ancient Egypt

[darksphere]

I've seen some statues and paintings of people from ancient egypt and quite frankly some of them look really weird.
There is this queen with a really large backhead whom would fit right into a science fiction movie as the evil alien.

Some of these ancient Egyptians look really strange I think.

What are your views on the anthropology of ancient Egypt?

[darksphere]

I found a picture of a daughter of the queen mentioned in my above post. The daughter also has the very large backhead:

www.glyptoteket.dk/Images/Web500/Web500ItemImageMedium/11/002063.jpg

There was a text to the image where I found it that suggested three possible explanations for the weird headshape:

1. a rare disease which fills the head with water causing it to grow extremely big.

2. That the children of the Egyptian nobility were treated in some way to give them this weird head-shape(much like Chinese girls had their feet tied up as children to give them smaller feet).

3. That the artist exaggerated the headshape for fun or aestetic reasons.
In other words that it is either a form of early charicature("the king is a bastard, lets make a statue where his daughter looks like a freak") or that a long, narrow back-head was considered beautiful and so the artist made it enormous on representations of the royal family to flatter them.

[caucasoid]

The Egyptians did do skull deformations.

[Said Mohammad]

darksphere said:

I've seen some statues and paintings of people from ancient egypt and quite frankly some of them look really weird.
There is this queen with a really large backhead whom would fit right into a science fiction movie as the evil alien.

Some of these ancient Egyptians look really strange I think.

What are your views on the anthropology of ancient Egypt?

Ancient Egyptians were a diverse population ranging from Negroid or heavily Negroid in the south to intermediate and Proto-Meditteranean in the north with some slight Cro-Magnoid elements.

[buddyrydell]

This is interesting because modern Egypt is still quite similar in genetic makeup. Northern Egyptians are considerably lighter and more Mediterranean-looking while the southern ones appear to have substantial sub-Saharan African admixture. This is especially apparent as one gets closer to Sudan of course. The southern Sahara regions show people who are a mix of the two types, from southern Morocco to southern Egypt/Sudan, downward into Ethiopia and Somalia.

[Said Mohammad]

buddyrydell said:

This is interesting because modern Egypt is still quite similar in genetic makeup. Northern Egyptians are considerably lighter and more Mediterranean-looking while the southern ones appear to have substantial sub-Saharan African admixture. This is especially apparent as one gets closer to Sudan of course. The southern Sahara regions show people who are a mix of the two types, from southern Morocco to southern Egypt/Sudan, downward into Ethiopia and Somalia.

The mix of those types are certainly not Caucasoid and Negroid. Some of those Saharan type people are just what they are, Saharan types. The people in the south, modern ones are very dark and usefully black. Upper and Lower Egyptians have the same cline genetically that they show phenotypically. due in part to heavy immigration to the north. Anthropologically data confirms that the sub-Saharan character of Upper or southern Egyptians has always existed, therefore no one can say Negroid characteristics and genes are of relatively recent origin.

[Melnorme]

Said said:

due in part to heavy immigration to the north.

You probably don't like this old study, then :

www.genes.uchicago.edu/fri/drnzores/labwebsite/krings.pdf

We conclude that these migrations probably occurred within the past few hundred to few thousand years and that the migration from north to south was either earlier or lesser in the extent of gene flow than the migration from south to north.

[Said Mohammad]

Melnorme said:

You probably don't like this old study, then :

www.genes.uchicago.edu/fri/drnzores/labwebsite/krings.pdf

Old study is very appropiate in this case.

[Melnorme]

Said said:

Old study is very appropiate in this case.

Ah, haha, but is there a newer one that states the opposite, or otherwise refutes it?

[Said Mohammad]

Melnorme said:

Ah, haha, but is there a newer one that states the opposite, or otherwise refutes it?

And how does that study in anyway contradict what I said. You saw that study on an upper Egyptian population from Gurna didn't you?