I have been asking these questions like forever and nobody seem to be able to explain.

How come after the Arab incursions forced out the black natives of ancient Egypt into what is present day sub-saharan Africa, some of the cultures we read/heard of ancient Egypt never followed them??

How come they were not able to replicate or even do much more in terms technological advancement associated with, for example, the construction of the great and astounding pyramids, the tomb culture where dead folks are kept??

How come we lost touch with the organizational skills and the sophistication of ancient egyptian towns so much that we now behaved as though those things were alien to our fore-fathers??

Please somebody should try and explain the disconnection.

^^^^^^^^ This would be very interesting to know
I'm extremely interested in the Pre-colonial Africa as well.This would be life before borders ,African Migration of over 400 years ago fascinates me a great deal.
Every African country has several tribes I have always been puzzled by the way our fore fathers communicated with each other when they had their day to day dealings with each other e.g trading with other different tribes for instance considering they each spoke different tongues

So, why is it that the artefacts and hieroglyphs I've seen on TV do not depict any Egyptian men and women with pot bellies and moobs? Instead, what I have seen are trim and fit men and women, unlike many Nigerians (men and women alike).

X-factoria:

I have been asking these questions like forever and nobody seem to be able to explain.

How come after the Arab incursions forced out the black natives of ancient Egypt into what is present day sub-saharan Africa, some of the cultures we read/heard of ancient Egypt never followed them??

How come they were not able to replicate or even do much more in terms technological advancement associated with, for example, the construction of the great and astounding pyramids, the tomb culture where dead folks are kept??

How come we lost touch with the organizational skills and the sophistication of ancient egyptian towns so much that we now behaved as though those things were alien to our fore-fathers??

Please somebody should try and explain the disconnection.

What?? the ancient arab incursions did not "force ancient eygptians into subsharen africa" the arabs simply intermarried and mixed with the eygptains until they assimilated. once egypt became a muslim country the people began to speak arabic and adopt arabic culture. the old language is almost extict now but its still sometimes spoken by the coptic cristians. and sometimes there are still eygptians with slighty afro-centric features. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2663/4104889481_47476dddd0.jpg

http://www.photos-voyages.com/egypte/mosaiques/vie04_large.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericaschouten/4104889473/in/photostream/
the people with the least arab intermarrige are usually farmers in remote areas.
modern egyptians are not only mixed with arab they are also mixed with berber and greek. and thats way an eygptian typically looks a little different than an saudi arabian or a lebanese arab.

amor4ce:

So, why is it that the artefacts and hieroglyphs I've seen on TV do not depict any Egyptian men and women with pot bellies and moobs? Instead, what I have seen are trim and fit men and women, unlike many Nigerians (men and women alike).

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/akhenaten_womanly_statue(1).jpg this is a man too.

@pleep, is that a statue if a man with steatopygia?

pleep:



What?? the ancient arab incursions did not "force ancient eygptians into subsharen africa" the arabs simply intermarried and mixed with the eygptains until they assimilated. once egypt became a muslim country the people began to speak arabic and adopt arabic culture. the old language is almost extict now but its still sometimes spoken by the coptic cristians. and sometimes there are still eygptians with slighty afro-centric features. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2663/4104889481_47476dddd0.jpg

http://www.photos-voyages.com/egypte/mosaiques/vie04_large.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericaschouten/4104889473/in/photostream/
the people with the least arab intermarrige are usually farmers in remote areas.
modern egyptians are not only mixed with arab they are also mixed with berber and greek. and thats way an eygptian typically looks a little different than an saudi arabian or a lebanese arab.

Guy, Jen33 in his post on this thread has this (please note the part in bold):

Egypt fell to foreign hands first with the invasion of the Greeks, led by Alexander 'The Great', who sacked the country and had thousands of Africans migrating southwards. This is why many traditions in West Africa ascribe a Nile Valley origin of one form or another to their histories. Many African groups have the tradition of having migrated from the land of the great river,

Following Alexander's conquest in 30 BC, Ptolemy, the Greek, became ruler of Egypt.

By then the pyramids were already ancient relics, having been constructed between 5000 to 2000 BC.

So you may find recent Greek like sculptures of 'Egyptian' aristocrats, such as Cleopatra, but these are from what is known as the Late Period, starting from a few years BC, when Egypt had fallen under Greek rule.

Then in 600AD, Egypt was overrun by Arabs, leading to further emigration of blacks southwards.

It is believed by Yorubas that this was the period Oduduwa led his people down to Nigeria, to escape the Islamic hordes bent on converting them away from their religion,

This is why Cairo, Alexandra etc today are Arab cities, with no real connection to the history of the place.

And this is why outside of those two cities even today in Egypt, you're more or less in black Africa.

[flash=450,350]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp8B6sCU6go&feature=related[/flash]

Splendid video and a Masterpiece. Please watch 100% of the video and know the facts.

Of course the ancient Egyptians were of African (black) descent and not of Arab descent. Arabs are currently in Egypt due to their invasion onto the country several thousand years ago.

Western civilization AKA White people doesn't want to admit ancient Egyptians are black because they would then also have to accept that Moses was Black since he was raised as an Egyptian without any question. And to accept that Moses was Black would then mean that so are the Hebrews.

Then all of this would help confirm that Jesus was also Black, lol, and these are things they refuse to accept.

Cleopatra was far from black. The woman was more Greek than Egyptian (African). Her family, the Ptolemies were known for inbreeding, in which the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt was most definitely Greek. They wanted to keep their Macedonian ancestry pure and therefore, they did not want to mix with the local Egyptians.

x factoria said:

I have been asking these questions like forever and nobody seem to be able to explain.

How come after the Arab incursions forced out the black natives of ancient Egypt into what is present day sub-saharan Africa, some of the cultures we read/heard of ancient Egypt never followed them??

How come they were not able to replicate or even do much more in terms technological advancement associated with, for example, the construction of the great and astounding pyramids, the tomb culture where dead folks are kept??

How come we lost touch with the organizational skills and the sophistication of ancient egyptian towns so much that we now behaved as though those things were alien to our fore-fathers??

Please somebody should try and explain the disconnection.

By the time the invasions of Kemet (Egypt) leading to population dispersal occurred, the pyramids were already ancient relics. The pyramid building tradition had long ceased, perhaps up to a thousand years earlier. Thus, African refugees from Kemet would have been no more familiar with how to build a pyramid than you or I.

Same applied to the huge public works, the huge temples and so on. Those occurred during Egypt's golden age, roughly 4000BC to 1200 BC.

Also, you underestimate the sophistication and organization of African cultural centers which succeeded Egypt to the south. Great black cities like Kilwa, Timbuktu, Gao, Benin, and Kumbi Saleh bore powerful testament to black ingenuity in the post Egypt period. But because EGYPT was at the crossroads to west and east, she was able to control regional/continental/mediterranean trade which brought her far more wealth than was available to the inner African kingdoms.

X-factoria:

I have been asking these questions like forever and nobody seem to be able to explain.

How come after the Arab incursions forced out the black natives of ancient Egypt into what is present day sub-saharan Africa, some of the cultures we read/heard of ancient Egypt never followed them??

How come they were not able to replicate or even do much more in terms technological advancement associated with, for example, the construction of the great and astounding pyramids, the tomb culture where dead folks are kept??

How come we lost touch with the organizational skills and the sophistication of ancient egyptian towns so much that we now behaved as though those things were alien to our fore-fathers??

Please somebody should try and explain the disconnection.

I'm not even an Afrocentrist or someone claiming that all of the original Egyptians were necessarily black (obviously some were, but there's no definitive proof that all of them were), but I think you should read up, in more detail, about the level of organization and sophistication of Ife and Benin, specifically. Also, you should read up on Oyo's impressive organizational sophistication. See Robin Law's book on Oyo for a good account.

For the degree of Benin's organization or sophistication, you can read Bradbury for a sympathetic account, but here's a mostly objective (positive and negative) and reasonable account of their practices:

http://books.google.com/books?id=RfVoxgkd5NYC&pg=PA70&dq=benin+red+earth&hl=en&ei=nvaPTe6jLJKFtge8wKiICQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=benin%20red%20earth&f=false

They were not disorganized in my opinion.

1. Ife had beautiful, decorated potsherd pavements that have been found at the central area of Ife and at great distances beyond the central shrines and the palace of Ife. In other words, Ife was a paved city. This was by the 12th century. Ife later exported this potsherd pavement architecture to Oyo and Benin.

http://arthistory.wisc.edu/ah241/2009/fall/08.html

^^^

There's an artist's rendition of a shrine there, and a small picture of some potsherd pavement but there's actually a great picture of some beautifully patterned potsherd pavement excavated at Ife in Frank Willett's book Ife in the History of West African Sculpture (1967). I might scan and upload the picture later, but I definitely recommend that book.

In my opinion Ife showed multiple signs of sophistication. Here's another:


"Ife sculptures count among some of the earliest naturalistic expressions of humans in the world, significantly predating the European renaissance, and even today ranking among humanity’s greatest artistic achievements. The current piece is a case in fact.

Depicting a young woman, the casting is incredibly fine (Ife metalwork is the finest in the ancient world; their refinement – castings being only about 1/16th of an inch thick – was not equaled in the west until the 19th century) and the surface details picked out perfectly."

http://barakatgallery.com/store/index.cfm/FuseAction/subcatItemsDetails/UserID/0/CFID/10113720/CFTOKEN/7d3b15431d861a21-C8B2AB54-3048-33BC-FC4BD338AD660589/jsessionid/8430a608688a98afcce180742d4445b327f3/CategoryID/30/SubCategoryID/503.htm


2. With regard to tombs, there were certainly tombs in Ife and Benin. In Ife for example, there is the tomb (or temple) of Lafogido, which archaeologists have not been given permission to explore further, because it's believed to contain the remains of Lafogido himself. Many of the exquisite archaeological artifacts of Igbo-ukwu (at Igbo Isaiah and Igbo Richard sites) were believed to have been from the tomb of an Eze.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8HKDtlPuM2oC&pg=PA296&lpg=PA296&dq=lafogido&source=bl&ots=LI2UTlmQGK&sig=312kL6uCaKZC824Tg9uhgAkWlGU&hl=en&ei=1fCPTYCqH86jtge37KSICQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=lafogido&f=false

3. As for pyramids, you have to understand that in certain areas, stone was rare in large quantities. For example, in Benin, one European explorer (Legroing) noted that there was "not a single stone" through their whole journey in Benin (a possible exaggeration, but you get the idea) and asserts that the earthen wall of Benin could "hardly have been built with any other material". However, this did not stop Africans from erecting some earthen structures.

For example,

Sungbo's Eredo: http://apollo5.bournemouth.ac.uk/africanlegacy/sungbo_images.htm#anchor9915

http://apollo5.bournemouth.ac.uk/africanlegacy/sungbo_eredo.htm

Oyo town walls: http://apollo5.bournemouth.ac.uk/africanlegacy/old_oyo.htm


So I don't think that in Southern Nigeria there was much of a possibility of erecting great stone structures. Stone could be used in small quantities, but not to where huge stone monuments and castles or palaces could be erected. They didn't use earth/mud because they were uncreative but because they had to use what they had.

That said, there's no definitive evidence of an Egyptian-Nigerian connection, even if there are some apparent similarities. But the point is that there were sophisticated, advanced cultures in Nigeria as well.

X-factoria:

I have been asking these questions like forever and nobody seem to be able to explain.

How come after the Arab incursions forced out the black natives of ancient Egypt into what is present day sub-saharan Africa, some of the cultures we read/heard of ancient Egypt never followed them??

How come they were not able to replicate or even do much more in terms technological advancement associated with, for example, the construction of the great and astounding pyramids, the tomb culture where dead folks are kept??

How come we lost touch with the organizational skills and the sophistication of ancient egyptian towns so much that we now behaved as though those things were alien to our fore-fathers??

Please somebody should try and explain the disconnection.

No West Africans wholly came from Egypt. Plus can you list some of these sophistications to see if they were matched in West Africa?

1st - Syrian
2nd - Nubian
3rd - Libyan
4th - Egyptian

The Ancient Egyptians were an Afro-Asiatic people. They were light brown, and they depicted themselves as light brown.

Foreign prisoners of Ramesses III:
Libyan, Nubian, Syrian, Shasu Bedouin, and Hittite.

Faience tiles from the royal palace at Medinet Habu.

This is how the Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves.

[img]http://thumbs2.modthesims.info/img/3/3/9/2/6/4/1/MTS2_ivan17_1113300_egypt_(3).jpg[/img]


These are modern day Nubians. The Ancient Egyptians probably resembled these people.

^^^Those people you posted up there do not look like Ancient Egyptians. They look exactly what they are, ie the offspring of interbreeding between the original black populations and Arab invaders who entered in hordes in the 7th century.

The ancient Egyptian approximates most closely to an Ethiopian or Somalian as we know them today, although substantial populations there comprised more West and Central African phenotypes.

THIS is what the typical Ancient Egyptians would have looked like before the Greek and Arab invasions, and there was nothing ''Afro-Asiatic'' about them:

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii[img]http://www.ahc.umn.edu/cuhcc/prod/groups/ahc/@pub/@ahc/@cuhcc/documents/content/ahc_content_119017.jpg[/img]

EzeUche said:




In this picture, the closest color to the original on the Egyptian is the darkest sections of his image, with every other lightening/fading occurring either due to wear and tear or deliberate tampering. Thus, on the apparently ''brown'' Egyptian, we can know the color of the original paint by inspecting the darkest part of the image, such as the lower right arm and lower right leg, which shows something very close indeed to the color of the Nubian.

The slight difference can only mean the Egyptians for the most part, were just another shade of black.

Additionally, it must be stated that some OTHER murals show the Egyptians as the exact same color as the Nubians, for example, the painting from Ramses III's tomb (1155 BC) (Lepsius' Denkmaler plate 48)

[img]http://img81.exs.cx/img81/4571/ancientegyptianethnographicmur.jpg[/img]

Egyptian iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Asiatic iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Other Africans iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Caucasian

The orginal Egyptians were people who probably could be called "black", but not all of them were "black" when Egypt was the highest.

This man is not black.

[center][/center]

I don't think this picture is real, it looks fake or like somebody changed it to mean Egyptian, if it is actually saying the other one is Egyptian.

[img]http://img81.exs.cx/img81/4571/ancientegyptianethnographicmur.jpg[/img]

We should focus on how the Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves. We can all agree that they never depicted themselves as white like the Hittites or Hyskos.

They look African to me. Not Arab or European in features.

ezeagu said:

I don't think this picture is real, it looks fake or like somebody changed it to mean Egyptian, if it is actually saying the other one is Egyptian.

You think it is fake because it shows Egyptians to be black people? It only seems that way because you assumed WRONGLY, that the first mural shows a non-black Egyptian. If you understand that blacks come in various shades, you would understand why the Egyptians would depict themselves in alternating shades of black depending on the artist.

The orginal Egyptians were people who probably could be called "black", but not all of them were "black" when Egypt was the highest.

Actually, the Old Kingdom (2686 BCE – 2181 BCE) is known as the golden age of Egypt, and was the height of the pyramid/temple building era, as well as various scientific innovations. This was thousands of years BEFORE the foreign invasions of Egypt began, and so, Egypt would have been almost completely black during that period.

Also, there is no country where ''all the people are black'' or ''all the people white''. When we say Ancient Egypt was a black civilization, it means the vast majority of Egyptians were black people. Just like the UK is a white European civilization, albeit with substantial minority populations of black and Asian people.

This man is not black.

Irrelevant. I could easily present a statue of some black soldier or citizen in Ancient Rome. But we know Rome wasn't a black civilization.

These tomb images shows the various shades of black to be seen in Ancient Egypt. It is obvious the population comprised mostly elements drawn from west, central, and east Africa/Horn of Africa.




Banqueting Scene, Thebes, tomb of Nebamum & Ipuky, 1400 BC


Again, in this image, the darkest parts of the figures show the original paint colors.

Very informative thread. I still say the Ancient Egyptians were Black and it is Africa's classical civilization.

archaeologist has proven that the ancient Egyptians where of
the African origin because fo the texture of their(the embalm mummy)
hair.

Rossikk:

You think it is fake because it shows Egyptians to be black people? It only seems that way because you assumed WRONGLY, that the first mural shows a non-black Egyptian. If you understand that blacks come in various shades, you would understand why the Egyptians would depict themselves in alternating shades of black depending on the artist.

Could you provide the source of the image and explain why an Egyptian would draw themselves exactly the same as a Nubian? The image was probably taken from all those Black Egypt web sites.

Rossikk:

Actually, the Old Kingdom (2686 BCE – 2181 BCE) is known as the golden age of Egypt, and was the height of the pyramid/temple building era, as well as various scientific innovations. This was thousands of years BEFORE the foreign invasions of Egypt began, and so, Egypt would have been almost completely black during that period.

Also, there is no country where ''all the people are black'' or ''all the people white''. When we say Ancient Egypt was a black civilization, it means the vast majority of Egyptians were black people. Just like the UK is a white European civilization, albeit with substantial minority populations of black and Asian people.

Okay, but I don't think the people who were not black were a minority, otherwise all the Pharaohs that are not black would not be so much. The truth is that Egypt would have been mixed race, although at the start it was not. And the man who built the pyramid did not perform in other areas.

Rossikk:

Irrelevant. I could easily present a statue of some black soldier or citizen in Ancient Rome. But we know Rome wasn't a black civilization.

This is not a soldier or a slave, this is a scribe, and there are Pharaohs that are like him, there were no black Emperors of Rome.

Rossikk:

These tomb images shows the various shades of black to be seen in Ancient Egypt. It is obvious the population comprised mostly elements drawn from west, central, and east Africa/Horn of Africa.

What about these one:

[img]http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/isis.nofretari.jpeg[/img]


And some others.

ezeagu said:

Could you provide the source of the image and explain why an Egyptian would draw themselves exactly the same as a Nubian?

The image is from the tomb of Rameses III. An Egyptian would draw themseleves exactly asd aNubian because, (surprise surprise), Ancient Egyptians LOOKED LIKE NUBIANS.

The image was probably taken from all those Black Egypt web sites.

Would you prefer one taken from a ''White Egypt'' web site?

By the way, there is A LOT of ancient eyewitness support for the NEGROID nature of the ancient Egyptian:


Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Greek philosopher, scientist, and tutor to Alexander the Great.
Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises.

"Too black a hue marks the coward as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians and so does also too white a complexion as you may see from women, the complexion of courage is between the two."
(Physiognomics, Vol. VI, 812a)

Aristotle makes reference to the hair form of Egyptians and Ethiopians: "Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair supports this theory; for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were crookedness of the hair."
(Physiognomics, Book XIV, p. 317)

The evidence of Lucian (Greek writer, 125 B.C.) is as explicit as that of the previous writers. He introduces two Greeks, Lycinus and Timolaus, who start a conversation:

Lycinus (describing a young Egyptian): "This boy is not merely black; he has thick lips and his legs are too thin . . . his hair worn in a plait behind shows that he is not a freeman."

Timolaus: "But that is a sign of really distinguished birth in Egypt, Lycinus, All freeborn children plait their hair until they reach manhood. It is the exact opposite of the custom of our ancestors who thought it seemly for old men to secure their hair with a gold brooch to keep it in place."
(Lucian, Navigations, paras 2-3)


Apollodorus, the Greek philosopher, described Egypt as "the country of the black-footed ones".

“Aegyptos conquered the country of the black-footed ones and called it Egypt after himself” (Apollodorus, Book II, paras 3 and 4)

The Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus said "the men of Egypt are mostly brown or black with a skinny desiccated look."

Ammianus Marcellinus, Book XXII para 16

Okay, but I don't think the people who were not black were a minority

They MUST have been, if all the testimony of the ancients describes the Egyptians as black people!

otherwise all the Pharaohs that are not black would not be so much.

The only pharaohs who were not black were the Hyksos rulers who invaded and ruled for 150 years during the Middle Kingdom, before they were driven out by the Egyptians.

What about these one:

An artistic convention in Egypt was to portray women in lighter color than men. Also, in order to show that non blacks were a substantial population on a par with blacks, you need to show a lot more artificat images of such people than of one light-skinned person here, and another there. These tomb images do not suggest that there were many non blacks around at all in Egypt's golden age.

















"Ancient Egypt was a Negro civilisation. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in the air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt. The African historian who evades the problem of Egypt is neither modest nor objective nor unruffled. He is ignorant, cowardly and neurotic. The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilisation is to be counted among the assets of the Black world."

- Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilisation.

Rossikk:

ezeagu said:

The image is from the tomb of Rameses III. An Egyptian would draw themseleves exactly asd aNubian because, (surprise surprise), Ancient Egyptians LOOKED LIKE NUBIANS.

Would you prefer one taken from a ''White Egypt'' web site?

By the way, there is A LOT of ancient eyewitness support for the NEGROID nature of the ancient Egyptian:


Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Greek philosopher, scientist, and tutor to Alexander the Great.
Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises.

"Too black a hue marks the coward as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians and so does also too white a complexion as you may see from women, the complexion of courage is between the two."
(Physiognomics, Vol. VI, 812a)

Aristotle makes reference to the hair form of Egyptians and Ethiopians: "Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair supports this theory; for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were crookedness of the hair."
(Physiognomics, Book XIV, p. 317)

The evidence of Lucian (Greek writer, 125 B.C.) is as explicit as that of the previous writers. He introduces two Greeks, Lycinus and Timolaus, who start a conversation:

Lycinus (describing a young Egyptian): "This boy is not merely black; he has thick lips and his legs are too thin . . . his hair worn in a plait behind shows that he is not a freeman."

Timolaus: "But that is a sign of really distinguished birth in Egypt, Lycinus, All freeborn children plait their hair until they reach manhood. It is the exact opposite of the custom of our ancestors who thought it seemly for old men to secure their hair with a gold brooch to keep it in place."
(Lucian, Navigations, paras 2-3)


Apollodorus, the Greek philosopher, described Egypt as "the country of the black-footed ones".

“Aegyptos conquered the country of the black-footed ones and called it Egypt after himself” (Apollodorus, Book II, paras 3 and 4)

The Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus said "the men of Egypt are mostly brown or black with a skinny desiccated look."

Ammianus Marcellinus, Book XXII para 16


They MUST have been, if all the testimony of the ancients describes the Egyptians as black people!

The only pharaohs who were not black were the Hyksos rulers who invaded and ruled for 150 years during the Middle Kingdom, before they were driven out by the Egyptians.


An artistic convention in Egypt was to portray women in lighter color than men. Also, in order to show that non blacks were a substantial population on a par with blacks, you need to show a lot more artificat images of such people than of one light-skinned person here, and another there. These tomb images do not suggest that there were many non blacks around at all in Egypt's golden age.



"Ancient Egypt was a Negro civilisation. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in the air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt. The African historian who evades the problem of Egypt is neither modest nor objective nor unruffled. He is ignorant, cowardly and neurotic. The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilisation is to be counted among the assets of the Black world."

- Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilisation.

I wouldn't prefer the image to be from any website that calls people a color. You didn't provide the source of the image of the Nubian and the information saying that the Egyptians drew themselves exactly like the Nubaina (with Leopard skins, which they don't wear).

There are other people who are not black from Egypt.

Hemiunu. around during the pyramids.


[img]http://www.public.asu.edu/~usman/images/images-Africa/Nubian-kemsit.jpg[/img]



Anyway, what does Egypt concern Nigeria? They had little to nothing to do with West Africa so forget.

Okay, so what is the big deal about the ancient Egyptians being black. You can write your own books and say they were black. However, what we should worry about more is: what we are currently contributing to human development.

I find it irritating that it is quite possible that the Ancient Egyptians had a higher standard of living than most people in sub-saharan Africa do. Yet, their civilization is over 6000 years old. We should think more about that than the colour of their skin.

The way you are portraying this thread, it's like Africans will not believe in themselves unless they can prove that the Ancient Egyptians were black, and I think that is absolutely ridiculous.

Interesting discussion I came across:

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=000028;p=20



Somewhat relevant.

@OP
Anybody confused or doubting the "colour" of true Egyptians should take a trip outside of Cairo and head towards Luxor and to Aswan. The authentic monuments and artefacts are still there for you to behold. Majority of the people do not consider themselves "Arabs" but Nubians and certainly look like any other African. You'll be shamed to know that most of the young men there know the names of Nigerian footballers including some obscure ones I've never heard of. Almost, all the guides and guards around the monuments in Luxor, around the valley of the kings/Dead etc are Nubians from the same ethnic group like the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. After all it's their land and territory . Pls note that 'Arabs' / moslems do not appreciate monuments or pictures as represented by the great historical monuments and artefacts because it's inherently against their 'religion'. The indigenes(Nubians) of Egypt and Sudan across the border south of Aswan are not 'rabid' moslems nor Christian orthodox either. They are just like any other African- hospitable and full of joie de vivre .

Wow, very enlightening thread. Thanks!