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Race of the Ancient Egyptians

The  race  and  origins  of the ancient Egyptians have been  a  source  of  considerable  debate.  Scholars  in  the  late  and  early  twentieth  centuries  rejected  any  consideration  of  the  Egyptians as  black  Africans  by  defining  the  Egyptians either as non-African (i.e., either Near Eastern or Indo- Aryan), or as members of a separate brown (as opposed to black)  race,  or  as  a  mixture  of  lighter-skinned  peoples  with  black  Africans.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  twentieth  century,  Afrocentric  scholars  have  countered  this  Eurocentric  and  often  racist  perspective by characterizing the Egyptians as black and African.  A common feature of all of these approaches, including the last, is  the connection of race to cultural achievement. At the same time,  however,  modem  physical  anthropologists  have  increasingly  challenged  the  entire  notion  of  race,  replacing  it  with  the  more  complex and scientifically based population genetics.

The origins of the modern conception of race derive from the  work of nineteenth-century anthropologists like L. H. Morgan and  E.  B.  Tyior,  who  developed  "scientific"  unilinear  evolutionary  models for the development of human beings from "savagery" to  "civilization." This model  profoundly  influenced  early Egyptological views  of  race.  Racial  groups were ranked by evolutionary categories linked to supposed intellectual  capacities  based  on  elaborate  cranial  measurements,  allegedly  providing  causal  links among  phenotypic  traits,  mental  capacity,  and  sociopolitical  dominance.  This  methodology,  not coincidentally, reinforced the existing Euro-American domination  of Third World peoples with the claim of scientifically "objective"  methodologies  based  on  race  and  evolution.  Thus,  the  great  achievements of ancient Egypt could not flow from black Africans,  since theirs was an inferior race;

so the "Dynastic Race" must have been white, or at least brown.

As early as 1897, Franz Boas challenged this racial ideology, in  particular the argument for connections among language, culture,  and  biology  (i.e.,  race).  Boas  demonstrated  that  supposedly  distinctive core racial indicators could change quickly in response  to  clothing  styles,  nutrition,  and  cultural  and  environmental  factors. Ashley Montague, a student of Boas, played a key role in  developing  and  disseminating  this  concept;  he  argued  in  Man's  Most  Dangerous  Myth:  The  Fallacy  of  Race  (New  York,  1942)  that  the  old  paradigm  of  static  races  should  be  replaced  by  dynamic  populations  with  overlapping  characteristics.  Far  from  being  absolute,  genetic  traits  are  distributed  in  dines,  or  continuously varying distributions of traits inconsistent with racial  categories.  Modern  physical  anthropology  has  demonstrated  that  94 percent of human variation is found within human populations,  rather  than  between  the  major  populations  traditionally  labeled  races.  Biological  characteristics  affected  by  natural  selection,  migration, or drift are distributed in geographic gradations. These  encompass  all  the  features  used  to  define  racial  physical  "phenotypes," including facial form, hair texture, blood type, and  epidermal  melanin  (the  chemical  determining  darkness  of  skin).  These physical features cross alleged racial boundaries as if they  were  nonexistent,  leading  to  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  there  are  no  biological  races,  just  dines.  Physical  anthropologists  are  increasingly  concluding  that  racial  definitions  are  the  culturally  defined product of selective perception and should be replaced in  biological  terms  by  the  study  of  populations  and  dines.  Consequently,  any  characterization  of  the  race  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  depends  on  modern  cultural  definitions,  not  scientific  study.  Thus,  by  modern  American  standards  it  is  reasonable  to  characterize  the  Egyptians  as  "black,"  while  acknowledging  the  scientific evidence for the physical diversity of Africans.

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