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Orgin of the Ancient Egyptians |
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Saturday, 29 March 2008 |
| |  | | | | ORIGIN OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS | | | | "The basis of the Egyptian
population was negro in the Pre-Dynastic epoch." | | | | by Cheikh Anta Diop | | | | | | | | | | | | The general acceptance, as a sequel to the work of Professor [Louis B.] Leakey, of the hypothesis of mankind's monogenetic and African origin, makes it possible to pose the question of the peopling of Egypt and even of the world in completely new terms. More than 150,000 years ago , beings morphologically identical with the man of today were living in the region of the great lakes at the sources of the Nile and nowhere else. This notion,
and others which it would take too long to recapitulate here, form the substance of the last report presented by the late Dr. Leakey at the Seventh Pan-African Congress of Pre-History in Addis Ababa in 1971.1 It means that the whole human race had its origin, just as the ancients had guessed, at the foot of the mountains of the Moon. Against all expectations and in
defiance of recent hypotheses it was from this place that men moved out to people the rest of the world. | | | |
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| | result: | | | | From this two facts of capital importance: (a) of necessity the earliest men were ethnically
homogeneous and negroid. Gloger's law, which
would also appear to be applicable to human
beings, lays it down that warm-blooded
animals evolving in a warm humid climate will
secrete a black pigment (eumelanin).2 Hence
if mankind originated in the tropics around
the latitude of the great lakes, he was bound
to have brown pigmentation from the start and
and it was by differentiation in other climates
that the original stock later split into
different races;
(b) there were only two routes available by which
these early men could move out to people
the other continents, namely, the Sahara and
the Nile valley. It is the latter region which
will be discussed here. | | | | From the Upper Palaeolithic to the dynastic epoch, the whole of the river's basin was taken over progressively by these negroid peoples. Evidence of Physical Anthropology on the Race of the Ancient Egyptians.
It might have been thought that, working on physiological evidence, the findings of the anthropologists would dissipate all doubts by providing reliable and definitive truths. This is by no means so: the arbitrary nature of the criteria used, to go no farther, as well as abolishing any notion of a conclusion acceptable without qualification, introduces so much scientific hair-splitting that there are times when one wonders whether the solution of the problem would not have been nearer if we had not had the ill luck to approach it from this angle.
Nevertheless, although the conclusions of these anthropological studies stop short of the full truth, they still speak unanimously of the existence of a negro race from the most distant ages of prehistory down to the dynastic period. It is not possible in this paper to cite all these conclusions: they will be found summarized in Chapter X of Dr. Emile Massoulard's Histoire et protohistoire d' Egypt (Institut d'Ethnologix, Paris, 1949). We shall quote selected items only.
| | | | Miss Fawcett considers that the Negadah
skulls form a sufficiently homogeneous
collection to warrant the assumption of
a Negadah race. In the total height of
the skull, the auricular height, the
length and breadth of the face, nasal
length, cephalic index and facial index
this race would seem to approximate to
the negro; in nasal breadth, height of
orbit, length of palate and nasal index
it would seem closed to the Germanic
peoples; accordingly the Pre-Dynastic
Negadians are likely to have resembled
the negroes in certain of their
characteristics and the white race in
others. | | | | It is worth noting that the nasal indices of Ethiopians and Dravidians would seem to approximate them to the Germanic peoples, though both are black races.
These measurements, which would leave an open choice between the two extremes represented by the negro and the Germanic races, give an idea of the elasticity of the criteria employed. A sample follows: | | | | An attempt was made by Thompson and
Randall MacIver to determine more
precisely the importance of the negroid
element in the series of skulls from
El'Amrah, Abydos and Hou. They divided
them into three groups: (1) negroid
skulls (those with a facial index below
54 and a nasal index above 50, i.e.
Short broad face and broad nose);
(2) non-negroid skulls (facial index
above 54 and nasal index below 50, long
narrow face and narrow nose), (3) inter-
mediate skulls (assignable to one of
the two previous groups on the basis of
either the facial index or on the
evidence of the nasal index, plus
individuals marginal to either group).
The proportion of negroids would seem to
have 24% of men and 19% of women in the
early Pre-Dynastic and 25% and 28%
respectively in the late Pre-Dynastic. Kieth has disputed the value of the
criterion selected by Thompson and
Randall MacIver to distinguish the
negroid from the non-negroid skulls.
His opinion is that if the same
criteria were applied to the study of
any series of contemporary English
skulls, the sample would be found to
contain approximately 30% of negroid
types. (pp. 420-1) | | | | The converse of Kieth's proposition could also be asserted, namely, that if the criterion were applied to the 140 million negroes now alive in black Africa a minimum of 100 million negroes would emerge whitewashed.
It may also be remarked that the distinction between negroid, non-negroid and intermediary is unclear; the fact is that 'non-negroid' does not mean of white race and 'intermediary' still less so.
'Falkenburger reopened the anthropological study of the Egyptian population in a recent work in which he discusses 1,787 male skulls varying in date from the old, Pre-Dynastic to our own day. He distinguishes four main groups' (p. 421). The sorting of the predynastic skulls into these four groups gives the following results for the whole predynastic period: "36% negroid, 33% Mediterranean, 11% Cro-Magnoid and 20% of individuals not
falling in any of these groups but approximating either to the Cro-Magnoid or to the negroid'. The proportion of negroids is definitely higher than that suggested by Thomson and Randall MacIver, though Kieth considers the latter too high.
'Do Falkenburger's figures reflect the reality? It is not our task to decide this. If they are accurate, the Pre-Dynastic population far from representing a pure bred race, as Elliott-Smith has said, comprised at least three distinct racial elements - over a third of negroids, a third of Mediterraneans, a tenth of Cro-Magnoids and a fifth of individuals crossbred - to varying degrees' (p. 422).
The point about all these conclusions is that despite their discrepancies the degree to which they converge proves that the basis of the Egyptian population was negro in the Pre-Dynastic epoch. Thus they are all incompatible with the theories that the negro element only infiltrated into Egypt at a late stage. Far otherwise, the facts prove that it was preponderant from the beginning to the end of Egyptian history, particularly
when we note once more that 'Mediterranean' is not a synonym for 'white', Elliott-Smith's 'brown' or Mediterranean race being nearer to the mark'.'Elliott Smith classes these Proto-Egyptians as a branch of what he calls the brown race".' The term 'brown' in this context refers to skin colour and is simply a euphemism for negro.3 it is thus clear that it was the whole of
the Egyptian population which was negro, barring an infiltration of white nomads in the proto-dynastic epoch
In Petrie's study of the Egyptian race we are introduced to a possibleclassification element in great abundance which cannot fail to surprise the reader.
| | | | Petrie . . . published a study of the races
of Egypt in the Pre-Dynastic and Proto-
Dynastic periods working only on portrayals
of them. Apart from the steatopygian race,
he distinguishes six separate types: an
aquiline type representative of a white-
skinned Libyan race; a 'plaited beard' type
belonging to an invading race coming perhaps
from the shores of the Red Sea, a 'sharp-nosed'
type almost certainly from the Arabian Desert:
a 'tilted-nose' type from Middle Egypt; a
'jutting beard' type from Lower Egypt; and a
'narrow-nose' type from Upper Egypt. Going
on the images, there would thus have been
seven different racial types in Egypt during
the epochs we are considering. In the pages
which follow we shall see that study of the
skeletons seems to provide little authority
for these conclusions. (p.391) | | | | The above mode of classification gives an idea of the arbitrary nature of the criteria used to define the Egyptian races. Be that as it may, it is clear that anthropology is far from having established the existence of a white Egyptian race and would indeed tend rather to suggest the opposite.
Nevertheless, in current textbooks the question is suppressed: in most cases it is simply and flatly asserted that the Egyptians were white and the honest layman is left with the impression that any such assertion must necessarily have a prior basis of solid research. But there is no such basis, as this chapter has shown. And so generation after generation has been misled. Many authorities skate around the difficulty today by speaking
of red-skinned and black-skinned whites without their sense of common logic being in the least upset. 'The Greeks call Africa "Libya", a misnomer au initio since Africa contains many other peoples besides the so-called Libyans, who belong among the whites of the northern or Mediterranean periphery and hence are many steps removed from the brown (or red) skinned
whites (Egyptians).'4
In a textbook intended for the middle secondary school we find the following sentence: 'A Black is distinguished less by the colour of his skin (for there are black-skinned "whites") than by his features: thick lips, flattened nose . . .'5 It is only through these twistings of the basic definitions that it has been possible to bleach the Egyptian race.
It is worthwhile calling to mind the exaggerations of the theorists of anthropo-sociology in the last century and the beginnings of the present one whose minute physiognomical analyses discovered racial stratifications even in Europe, and particularly in France, when in fact there was really a single and by now practically homogeneous people.6 Today Occidentals who value their national cohesion are careful to avoid examining their own
societies on so divisive a hypothesis, but continue unthinkingly to apply the old methods to the non-European societies.
Human Images of the Protohistoric Period: Their Anthropological Value. The study of human images made by Flinders Petrie on another plane shows that the ethnic type was black: according to Petrie these people were the Anu whose name, known to us since the protohistoric epoch, is always 'written' with three pillars on the few inscriptions extant from the end of the fourth millennium before our era. The natives of the country are always
represented with unmistakable chiefly emblems for which one looks in vain among the infrequent portrayals of other races, who are all shown as servile foreign elements having reached the valley by infiltration (cf. Tera Neter7 and the Scorpion king whom Petrie groups together; 'The Scorpion King . . .belonged to the preceding race of Anu, moreover he worshipped Min and
Set.').8
As we shall see later Min, like the chief gods of Egypt, was called by the tradition of Egypt itself 'the great negro'.
After a glance at the various foreign types of humanity who disputed the valley with the indigenous blacks, Petrie describes the latter, the Anu, in the following terms: Besides these types, belonging to the North and East, there is the aboriginal race of the Anu, or Annu, people (written with three pillars) who became a part of the historic inhabitants. The subject ramifies too doubtfully if we include all single pillar names, but looking for the Annu written, with the three pillars, we find that they occupied southern
Egypt and Nubia, and the name is also applied in Sinai and Libya. As to the southern Egyptians, we have the most essential document, one portrait of a chief, Tera Neter, roughly modelled in relief in green glazed faience, found in the early temple at Abydos. Preceding his name his address is given on
this earliest of visiting cards, 'Palace of the Anu in Hemen city, Tera Neter'. Hemen was the name of the god of Tuphium, Erment, opposite to it, was the palace of Annu of the south, Annu Menti. The next place in the south is Aunti (Gefeleyn), and beyond that Aunyt-Seni (Esneh)."
Amelineau lists in geographical order the fortified towns built along the length of the Nile valley by the Annu blacks. [Hieroglyphics] =Ant=(Esneh)
[Hieroglyphics] =An =the southern 'On'
(now Hermonthis)
[Hieroglyphics] =Denderah, the traditional
birthplace of Isis
[Hieroglyphics] = A town also called 'On' in the
name of Tinis
[Hieroglyphics] =The town called the northern
'On', the renowned city of Heliopolis The common ancestor of the Annu settled along the Nile was Ani or An, a name determined by the word [hieroglyphics] (khet) and which, dating from the earliest versions of the "Book of the Dead" onwards, is given to the god Orisis.
The wife of [hieroglyphics] the god Ani is the goddess Anet [hieroglyphics] who is also his sister, just as Isis is the sister of Osiris.
The identity of the god An with Osiris has been demonstrated by Pleyte;10 we should, indeed recall that is also surnamed by (?) the Anou; 'Osiris Ani'. The god Anu is represented alternately by the symbol [hieroglyphics] and the symbol [hieroglyphics]. Are the Aunak tribes now inhabiting the upper Nile related to the ancient Annu? Future research will provide the answer to this
question.
Petrie thinks it possible to make a distinction between the predynastic people represented by Tera Neter and the Scorpion King (who is himself a Pharaoh even at that date as his head-dress shows) and a dynastic people worshipping the falcion and probably represented by the Pharaoh's Narmer,14
Khasekhem, Sanekhei and Zoser.12 By reference to the faces reproduced in the figure it is easily perceived that there is no ethnic difference between the two lots, and both belong to the black race.
The mural in tomb SD 63 (Sequence Date 63) of Hierakonopolis shows the native-born blacks subjugating the foreign intruders into the valley if we accept Petrie's interpretation: 'Below is the black ship at Hierakonpolis belonging to the black men who are shown as conquering the red men.'13
The Gebel-el-Arak knife haft shows similar scenes: 'There are also combat of black men overcoming red men.'13 However, the archaeological value of this object, which was not found in situ but in the possession of a merchant, is less than that of the preceding items.
What the above shows is that the images of men of the protohistoric and even of the dynastic period in no way square with the idea of the Egyptian race popular with Western anthropologists. Wherever the autochthonous racial type
is represented with any degree of clearness, it is evidently negroid.
Nowhere are the Indo-European and Semitic elements shown even as ordinary freeman serving a local chief, but invariably as conquered foreigners. The rare portrayals found are always shown with the distinctive marks of captivity, hands tied behind the back or strained over the shoulders.14 A protodynastic figurine represents an Indo-European prisoner with a long
plait on his knees, with his hands bound tight to his body. The
characteristics of the object itself show that it was intended as the foot of a piece of furniture and represented a conquered race.15 Often the
portrayal is deliberately grotesque as with other proto-dynastic figures showing individuals with their hair plaited in what Petrie calls pigtails.16
In the tomb of King Ka (first dynasty) at Abydos, Petrie found a plaque showing an Indo-European captive in chains with his hands behind his back.17 Elliott-Smith considers that the individual represented is a Semite. The dynastic epoch has also yielded the documents illustrated in Pls 1.9. and 1.14 showing Indo-European and Semitic prisoners. In contrast, the typically
negroid features of the pharaohs (Narmer, first dynasty, the actual founder of the Pharaonic line; Zoser, third dynasty, by whose time all the technological elements of the Egyptian civilization were already in evidence; Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, a Cameroon type,18 Menthuhotep, founder of the eleventh dynasty, very black,19 Sesostris 1; Queen Ahmosis Nefertari; and Amenhophis I) show that all classes of Egyptian
society belong to the same black race.
Pls 1.15 and 1.16, showing the Indo-European and Semitic types, have been included deliberately to contrast them with the quite dissimilar physiognomies of the black pharaohs and to demonstrate clearly that there is no trace of either of the first two types in the whole line of Pharaohs if we exclude the foreign Libyan and Ptolemaic dynasties.
It is usual to contrast the negresses on the tomb of Horemheb with the Egyptian type also shown. This contrast is surely a false one; it is social and not ethnic and there is as much difference between an aristocratic Senegalese lady from Dakar and those antique African peasant women with their horny hands and splay feet as between the latter and an Egyptian lady of the cities of antiquity.
There are two variants of the black race: (a) straight-haired, represented in Asia by the Dravidians and in Africa by the Nubians and the Tubbou or Tedda, all three with jet-black skins; (b) the kinky-haired blacks of the Equatorial regions. Both types entered into the composition of the Egyptian population.
| | | | Melanin Dosage Test | | | | en it and the epidermis, even where the latter has mostly been
destroyed by the embalming materials, show a melanin level which is non-existent in the white-skinned races. The samples I myself analyzed were taken in the physical anthropology laboratory of the Mus'ee de l'Homme in Paris off the mummies from the Marietta excavations in Egypt.22 The same method is perfectly suitable for use on the royal mummies of Thutmoses III,
Seti I and Ramses II in the Cairo Museum, which are in an excel state of preservation. For two years past I have been vainly begging the curator of the Cairo Museum for similar samples to analyze. No more than a few square millimetres of skin would be required to mount a specimen, the preparations being a few um in thickness and lightened with ethyl benzoate. They can be
studied by natural light or with ultra-violet lighting which renders the melanin grains fluorescent.
Either way let us simply say that the evaluation of melanin level by microscopic examination is a laboratory method which enables us to classify the ancient Egyptians unquestionably among the black races. | | | | to read more click here
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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 May 2008 )
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