Reason to doubt ancient Egyptians were black Africans?

Question

I am left with a lingering question after taking a black history college course that insisted (both text and professor) that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans. Many plausible reasons were given for this hypothesis. I asked the professor, however, why the Egyptians depicted themselves in art as having (among other non-African features) quite elongated ears, while black Africans by nature have very small, round ears that are close to the head. He admitted he did not have an answer for this. I'd appreciate others' thoughts on this. Thanks.

Answer 1

First of all Africa is Continent not a country. Africa en-bodies over 50 countries and you can literally fit 3 United States in the Continent of Africa. So I wish people would stop referring to the Continent and it array of different people from different countries as if it was such a small land and a country. Not all "Africans" look alike nor should they. But to answer the question, Egypt over billions of years was inhabited by many different tribes from neighboring countries because it was an ideal land since the Nile River flowes through it and for many other reasons. In the era in which Egypt was a great kingdom and were most of the drawings and artifacts come from the people were call mulattoes (this is the origin of this word) meaning mixed bread. The people were a completely mixed breed race of Black Africans and Arabic people.

Answer 2

The Ancient Egyptians were certainly dark-skinned and they did live on the African continent, which would make them at least dark-skinned Africans. There also may have been genetic influences from Ethiopia and from the lower lands of Egypt, where people were darker skinned. The double crown of Egypt suggested ruler-ship over the upper lands and the lower lands along the Nile River. It was not until the rule of the Ptolemaic Dynasty when the Ancient Egyptians were depicted as being more definitively lighter-skinned. The Ptolemaic Dynasty was Greek and the Greek culture was and is light-skinned.

Answer 3

Egyptian art was done to very strict standards and was very stylized. Men were portrayed as having reddish skin, while women were lighter-skinned, because women were supposed to stay inside all day and keep pale. So the art probably wasn't a very accurate portrayal anyway, because it wasn't supposed to represent reality, but rather, an idealized form of humanity.

Egypt's borders grew and shrank a lot over the years--the countries in that area squabbled over what belonged to whom a lot and had a lot of wars and took slaves and stuff. Egyptians would have been a lot of different colors based on whom was conquered at the time. But when Egyptians talked about themselves, they usually said they were pale and the people that they conquered were dark or even paler or had curly hair or whatever characteristics of the ethnic group. It might have been like the difference between the Dominican Republic and Haiti--both sides of the island had black Africans living there from the slave trade, but the Hispanic Dominicans intermarried with black people and the white French Haitians didn't, so now, Haitians are usually very dark and Dominicans aren't quite as dark as Haitians. I'd say that the ancient Egyptians probably weren't as light as they said they were, but if they didn't intermarry with the people they conquered, they might have been lighter. They certainly held contempt for darker people, so even if their skin were dark, I don't think they'd portray themselves that way. But many people from the Middle East and Northern Africa are lighter-skinned, so maybe they looked kinda like they said they did (but not how they painted themselves. Nobody looks like the paintings.) Maybe the course was talking about native Africans as opposed to European or Middle Eastern groups who moved in. Egyptians were certainly native to the area. I had a professor who said he was black, not African-American. He said that his ancestors had been slaves who were brought to the U.S. hundreds of years ago and he felt no connection to Africans, who could just be white people who were born in Africa. He said African-Americans were people from Africa who moved to America.

Look up some stuff about ancient Egyptian art, and tell your professor to do the same. He should know better than that. I mean, come on, read a Smithsonian article or something! It's not a tough answer to explain why Egyptian art looks the way it does.

Answer 4

I agree with clear thinker above me. Also, while I was in egypt visiting the various ancient sites the egyptologist pointed out a clear difference in the way egyptians drew themselves and black africans. They gave themsleves a different skin tone and some different features while making it clear the features of black africans and also more eastern asianic people. So apparently your professor should take a visit and get a lesson with clear visual proof that the ancient egyptian peopel themselves set their ethnicity apart.

Answer 5

Perhaps the best person to answer this question would be a forensic anthropologist. Thankfully there is a plethora of intact skeletons from this period from which we can analyze. From what I understand the skull structure of ancient Egyptians supports that the people living there were not black africans but more resemble arabic people.

Answer 6

Some were. It is a fact that Egypt was under he control of Nubia ,a black African kingdom, at different times in it's history and that some Egyptian Pharaohs were Black Africans.

Answer 7

Hmm, never thought about it. But, the Middle East *is* in Africa, isn't it? So I suppose it's plausible. But the arwork and wall paintings do not resemble the Africans of today. have today's africans changed? Or did they draw it wrong? Or were they 2 different races? I'm sure there was a bit of intermarrying as well.

Answer 8

The answer is whatever you choose. You might ask yourself why it is so important to you that you know one way or the other? Will one answer validate a particular perspective you have on the world?