http://www.barnesreview.org/Feb_2004/Egyptians/egyptians.html

The Racial Makeup of the Original Egyptians

 The “afrocentric” view of the history of Egypt matched against the facts is not only interesting to all historical Revisionists but vividly displays a lesson to present-day Americans. Are we following the same path that Egypt has chosen?

By John Tiffany

Egypt is vitally important to anyone who really wants to understand the workings of history. This is a country whose saga is so long and so varied that it provides, in effect, an excellent laboratory for the science of history. Any general theory of history that holds true for 5,000 or more years of Egypt’s existence must hold true for the world at large. That is why the “afrocentric” view of Egyptian history is so alarming.

Afrocentrism is a kind of pseudo-history that was concocted by those who felt that white and Asian people seemed to play too large a role in historiography. The afrocentrists decry true history as “eurocentric.”

One of the fundamental ideas of the afrocentric multicultural pseudoscience is that Egypt is the source of civilization (including Greco-European civilization and the native civilizations of the New World), and that during its glory days, the people of Egypt were black. Another key idea of these so-called “melanin scholars” is that melanin, a widely distributed pigment in nature, found in all humans, has extraordinary—indeed, magical—properties that are best manifested in Negroid people. They claim (based on no evidence) that melanin is a superconductor, that it absorbs all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, that it can convert sound energy to light energy and vice versa, and that it can function as a microcomputer to process information.

Here is a summary of the bizarre cosmogonic doctrine of afrocentrism: When, in accordance with the will of Allah, the Earth was separated from Luna by an explosion in the year 65,999,999,998,062 B.C., there appeared on the planet the black race. For almost 66 trillion years those perfect beings dwelt in perfect happiness, speaking Arabic and leading the joyous and unfettered life now to be found in the jungles of the Congo. The universal bliss was troubled, however, in 4707 B.C., when a scientist named Yakub determined to create, artificially, a race of debased and inferior creatures. He worked steadily for 600 years, and finally, by “grafting” and “rigid birth control,” he produced the “blue-eyed devils,” i.e., white men, who are physically weak and totally evil. Allah, for purposes of his own, and intending the ultimate exaltation of his chosen people (blacks, in this instance), who are the only true human beings, permitted the white devils to interfere with nature and set up that nasty thing called civilization. He even permitted the vile “spooks” to dominate and enslave the chosen people by devising the “devil-doctrine” called Christianity. He decreed, however, that the white swine were to rule the world for exactly 6,000 years. Their time was up in 1914. (Apparently Christianity was invented about 4000 B.C.) But they are now enjoying a few “years of grace” until the black man can rise and exterminate them from the face of the Earth and come into his own again. Of this there can be no doubt, because “all history” has been “written in advance by 24 black scientists.”

The afrocentric “scholars” such as Theophile Obenga and Senegal’s Cheikh Anta Diop seek to sell books to individuals, including demoralized white liberals, who want to read what they want to believe, regardless of whether or not these claims fall within the bounds of reality and reason.

The average Egyptian of today, or even most members of the higher classes of that country, is partly Negroid, but the great pharaohs of olden times (until about 1185 B.C.) were clearly white.¹ Could this explain why Egypt was great in ancient times but is a fourth-rate nation today?

Exactly what is actually known about the race or races of the ancient Egyptians? Most Egyptologists would argue that the ancient Egyptians were an ethnic group of the Caucasian race. In so far as nationality, the land of kmt or Kemet (the ancient name of the country we now call Egypt, or “Misr” in Arabic or the biblical name “Mizraim”) in the Hamitic language means black. Scholars have debated the etymology of the word “Kemet” for years. Afrocentric-minded scholars argue that it translates as “the land of the blacks,” whereas eurocentric-minded scholars argue that it translates as “the black land.” The former would refer to the people (ostensibly a predominantly Negro population), and the latter would refer to the soil (black silt, originating from the Nile River during the seasonal inundation).

lacks have been present in Egypt from very early times, if not from the beginning. It has even been suggested by some scholars that Egyptian civilization only arose because there were both whites and blacks present, the whites to provide the ruling class and the blacks to provide the slaves, without whom the rulers would not have had the leisure time necessary to create a civilization. Therefore it is only to be expected that blacks have been depicted in ancient Egyptian art. But this certainly does not in itself prove that Negroes were preponderant in Egypt. Afrocentrists point to various busts showing Negro types in Egypt, but a curious thing about these busts is that they nearly all date from a late period, the 25th dynasty (730 B.C.-633 B.C.), a degenerate era, when Egypt had the Negroid pharaoh Tahara on the throne.

The hot, dry sands of Egypt have preserved through more than 60 centuries the remains of countless multitudes of the earliest people known to have dwelt in the Nile Valley; and not the bones only, but also their skin and hair plus the muscles and organs of the body. Even such delicate tissues as the nerves and the brain and the lens of the eye are available for examination today. We are able to form a very precise idea of the structure of the body of the Proto-Egyptian (first Egyptians). For example the hair in almost all cases presented no resemblance whatever to the “woolly” appearance of Negro hair.

Of the remains exhumed of these first Egyptians, according to Earnest Sevier Cox, “not more than 2 percent showed definitely a Negro admixture, and possibly an additional 2 percent showed a suspicion of Negro blood.”

From the 18th dynasty (1580-1350 B.C.) to the 25th (663-525 B.C.) is a period of six centuries. They mark the decay of Egyptian civilization. During this period Egyptian initiative and ingenuity slowly declined. When a mulatto was received as king, religion had fallen from an ethical test for the life hereafter to a cult of animal worship. The early pharaohs built the pyramids and temples which stand today. The later pharaohs built nothing of significance; instead, they cut out the names of the early kings and inserted their names upon some of the greatest architectural achievements of the world. Art, science, and literature were dead.

Egyptian contact with the Negro peoples to the south, beginning in prehistoric times, had been continuous. It is known that Negroes constituted a small percentage of the population prior to the dynastic age, and also that there were some mixed breeds even at this remote date.

This Negroid monarchy was the result of intermixture with a ruling class that was originally white. This miscegenation finally resulted in the extinction of Egyptian culture.

It may be noted that a bust of a pharaoh created outside his own time cannot be relied upon as being an accurate representation. As an artistic convention, artists of the 25th dynasty would portray even kings of older times as black. For example, there are no images of Menes (Narmer), dating from his own time. (Menes, about 3100 B.C., was the first of the Egyptian pharaohs.) The 25th dynasty artists who attempted a rendition of Menes may not have had an inkling as to what he actually looked like. The nearest thing we have to a contemporary image of Menes is the Palette of Narmer, a famous artifact that has been dated to about 3000 B.C., and which was used for preparing cosmetics. Carvings of Menes appear on both sides of the object and clearly depict him as a white man.

Furthermore, Menes was only the first of a string of eight pharaohs in his dynasty, and no one, not even the afrocentrists, has claimed that the other seven, his descendants, were other than white men.

Another myth propounded by the afrocentrists is that Pharaoh Akhenaten, generally (although inaccurately) credited with (or blamed for) the propagation of monotheism,² was black. However, a bust of the pharaoh made during his life is clearly that of a white man. His mummy matches the bust except that the nose is somewhat flattened—clearly a distortion, caused probably by the bandaging. It is this flattened nose that serves as the basis for the absurd claims that Akhenaten was a Negro.

Similarly, the claim is put forth that the second king of the Third Dynasty, Zoser (Djoser; he is also known as Netjerykhet; 2630-2611 B.C.), who built what is often (but probably quite wrongly) described as the “first pyramid,” at Saqara, was a black with a flat nose, thick lips and a protruding lower jaw. This claim is based on a limestone statue, which was found in the otherwise empty tomb complex at Saqara. The statue is badly damaged, and the way the lips have been smashed has caused them to look somewhat like Negro lips. Based on this flimsy evidence, the black supremacists have labeled the statue that of a black man.

There is, however, in existence one other depiction of Zoser, carved on a wall at Saqara, and this bas-relief shows him clearly to be a Caucasoid, unfortunately for the afrocentrists.

Red hair, of course, is a feature that is very seldom found in any other race than whites, and particularly the Nordic subrace of white people. Another line advocated by the afrocentrists is that there is no proof that Pharaoh Ramesses II had red hair. Admittedly, the hair of the mummy of the great pharaoh was touched up with henna—his hair having grayed with age while he was living. But microscopic study of the mummy’s hair by French Prof. P.F. Ceccaldi and his research team has proved that Ramesses II was indeed a redhead.

Although the pharaoh was 90 years old when he died, and basically the color of the mummy’s hair (reddish-yellow) was caused by dying with a henna solution, the professor found that the hair roots had retained traces of natural red pigmentation, and that therefore during his youth Ramesses had been red haired. Ceccaldi also studied the cross-sectional shape of the hairs he was allowed to test, and found them to be oval in cross section. This showed that the Egyptian leader was wavy haired, or cymotrich. He said this combination of characteristics shows Ramesses was a leucoderm (white person).

These facts have not only anthropological interest, but also great symbolic importance. In ancient Egypt, the god Seth was said to have been red-haired, and redheads were claimed to have worshiped the god devoutly. In a Ramesses study, the Egyptologist Desroches-Noblecourt wrote an essay, in which she discussed the importance of Ramesses’ rufous condition. She noted that the Ramessides (the family of Ramesses II), were devoted to Seth, with several bearing the name Seti, which means “beloved of Seth.” She concluded that the Ramessides believed themselves to be divine descendants of Seth, with their red hair as proof of their lineage; they may even have used this peculiar physical feature to propel themselves out of obscurity, and onto the throne of the pharaohs. Desroches-Noblecourt also speculated that Ramesses II may well have been descended from a long line of redheads.

Her speculations have been proved correct: Dr. Joann Fletcher, a consultant to the British Bioanthropology Foundation, has proved that Seti I (the father of Ramesses II), had red hair. It has also been demonstrated that the mummy of Pharaoh Siptah (a great-grandson of Ramesses II), has red hair.

Ramesses II is better known as Ramesses the Great. His birth name was Ramesses Meryamun (“Re has fashioned him, beloved of Amun”), and his throne name was Usermaatre Setepenre (“The justice of Re is powerful, Chosen of Re”). Although different authorities give different dates, he ruled from about 1279 to 1212 B.C. Known for his military prowess, he raided the Libyans and Nubians and attacked the Syrians nearly half a dozen times. He also battled the Hittites and later formed a treaty with them, marrying two of their princesses. He had eight main queens during his life, and a total of somewhere around 200 wives, and is said to have had about 60 daughters and almost 100 sons. Ramesses also built more temples and monuments than any other pharaoh. His most impressive project was his temple at Abu Simbel in northern Nubia. This vast temple was carved into the face of a cliff and features four colossal statues of himself, each of them 60 feet tall, in a sitting position. Thanks to some interesting engineering and archeoastronomy, the sun would shine directly through the entrance of the temple at sunrise on the equinoxes. Ramesses was the last of the great white native rulers of Egypt. After his era, Egypt became decadent and degenerate, and Negro blood began to infiltrate on a large scale.

It is worth noting that the ancient Libyans, by the way, were a white people. The ancient Libyans extended from Morocco across North Africa to the Nile Delta. Libyans occupied the western third of the delta during the early years of the Egyptian civilization and were apparently the descendants of Cro-Magnon people, by way of the Afalou race, according to Prof. Carleton S. Coon. Cro-Magnon braincases were larger, on average (1,617 cc), than those of any modern race of men.

Coon stated that Egypt’s Queen Hetep-Heres II, of the Fourth dynasty, the daughter of Cheops (Khufu), “is shown in the colored bas-reliefs of her tomb to have been a distinct blonde. Her hair is painted a bright yellow stippled with little red horizontal lines, and her skin is white.”

The North African Nordics resemble the mixed Nordics of Upper Paleolithic derivation found in Ireland and western Norway more than they do the ash-blond Nordics of Norway and Sweden. These Nordics of North Africa are a mixture of brunet Mediterraneans of tall stature and considerable facial length with Afalou survivors. The blondism of these Nordics is derived from the Afalou side.

While bigger brains are not always connected with greater intelligence, there does tend to be a correlation. Both Afalou Man and Cro-Magnon Man had larger brains than modern men on the average. Both had a cranial capacity on average of over 1,600 cc, while the average modern man has a cranial capacity of 1,326 cc. Farmers living at Tushka on the Nile about 11,000 B.C. had a cranial capacity of 1,452 cc, almost identical to the brain size of modern northern Europeans (1,453 cc). Modern Cairo natives, thanks to the influx of Negro genes from south of the Sahara, are not only darker than ancient Egyptians but their brains are smaller, averaging only 1,302 cc. Even this is more than the average of modern African blacks, which is 1,295 cc. Homo sapiens of the Australian aboriginal race ranges about 1,256 cc.

Also, there is evidence that the non-Egyptian civilizations of northeastern Africa, namely Nubia, Axum and Meroe, may have been founded by whites, although (not surprisingly) the afrocentrists claim the founders were pure Negroes.

The Hpa 1 (np3,592) mitochondrial DNA marker is very common in sub-Saharan Africa (i.e., African Negroes) but is almost absent in North African and European populations. It has been found in a Meroitic sample from ancient Nubia. From 29 individuals analyzed in a recent study (March 2002) by the University of Barcelona in Spain, only 15 yielded positive results, four of them, or about 27 percent, displaying the marker. In sub-Saharan Africans, it is found at a frequency of 68.7 percent, on average. This means that the frequency of Negro genes in the Meroitic population can be estimated at around 39 percent (with a confidence interval from 22 to 55 percent). This finding should put to rest afrocentric claims that the ancient Nubians were 100 percent Negro. If the Meroitic people were 39 percent Negro, it would logically follow that they must have been approximately 61 percent white. It may then be that the achievements of the ancient Nubians, such as they were, are attributable to this component in their ethnic makeup.

Also the Ethiopians were not Negrified in the early days of their culture. Ancient legends tell of white Ethiopians. Even today, the gene pool of the Ethiopians is substantially Caucasoid, with little or no input from the central Africans, who are truly Negroes.

Indeed, according to genetic researchers (as in the book Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, Houghton Mifflin Co., NY, 2002), blacks are newcomers in northeastern Africa, originally the homeland of the white race. The “Caucasoid” features of various peoples around the world, says Olson, “may simply reflect the features of the northeastern Africans who gave rise to all the people of Europe and Asia.” He cites the cases of the Indians (of India), and various groups in Asia and even in the Americas, and “groups such as the Australian aborigines and the Ainu.”

Another myth of the afrocentrists is this: “According to the Egyptians themselves in their Book of the Dead, they came from the south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptians always held the south in high reverence. Sudan was commonly called the Land of the Gods.”

Here is the reality, which does not jibe with the afrocentric notions: The Book of the Dead deals only with religious rituals involving the dead and the afterlife. It does not refer to the ethnic origins of the Egyptians. Apparently the afrocentrists rely on the supposition that few people will obtain and read a full translation of the Book of the Dead and find out the reference is not to be found in it. Furthermore, when ancient Egyptians spoke of the south, this was not a reference to the Negro-inhabited areas of Africa. The city of Thebes, for one example, was regarded by Egyptians as being in the south, but it is a long distance north of, say, Sudan. The area shortly south of Thebes was officially called Nubia, and never referred to as “the south.”

Afrocentrists like to point out that Herodotus described the Egyptian people as being “black, with woolly hair.” They claim this proves the ancient Egyptians were Negroes. Herodotus did describe the Egyptian people he saw as “black, with woolly hair.” But what the afrocentrists fail to mention is that Herodotus lived about 484-425 B.C. Egyptian civilization was already dead by his time, the last whites having been absorbed by about 800 B.C. Thus it would have been unlikely for “the father of history” to have seen anything but swarthy individuals when he visited Egypt.

Looking back to earlier and better times, we can take note of the Egyptian nobleman Yuya, from about 1400 B.C., who had blond hair and typically Nordic facial structure. Yuya, whose mummy still exists, was the father of Tiy, the wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.

Another notable mummy is that of the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who was the queen of Pharaoh Tuthmoses II. When Tuthmoses died, in 1520 B.C., she took over and ruled Egypt. Her long blond hair and Nordic face have been well preserved by the embalming process.

Another Nordic Egyptian king was Seti I. His mum my is the most lifelike of the great pharaohs of Egypt, a tribute to the embalmers’ art. His Nordic features remain clear, and are also depicted in a bas-relief of his head made during his lifetime at the temple at Abydos.

It is worth noting that many statues of ancient Egyptians are painted and colored in various ways, and that the eyes are frequently shown as blue—sometime by using lapis lazuli for the corneas. The wooden statue of King Hor (c. 1783-1633 B.C.), on display at the Cairo Museum, is inlaid with striking blue eyes.

Akhenaten, the most innovative of the Egyptian pharaohs, was clearly white from his contemporary depictions, as was his wife, the lovely Nefertiti, a fine bust of whom was discovered in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose in el-Amarna. Nefertiti was perhaps the most influential woman of the entire Bronze Age. Geneticists believe she may be the ancestor of many modern Europeans, through the six daughters she and Akhenaten had together.

Unfortunately the mummies of only a very few pharaohs have survived into the 21st century, but a large proportion of those that do remain are fair-haired. And the evidence is that hair does not change in color as a result of mummification; it only becomes dry and brittle.

The mummy of the wife of King Tutankhamun is distinguished by its auburn hair. And an unidentified mummy with red hair, red mustache and red beard was found by the pyramids at Saqara. The mummy of Pharaoh Thothmes II has light, chestnut-colored hair.

The Egyptians have also left us many paintings of fair-haired and blue-eyed nobility and royals.

A rule of thumb is that a civilized white country reverts to a lower level of culture once the population becomes excessively mixed with alien genes. Portugal is an example; although the average Portuguese looks white, he actually has about 10 percent black blood, because of the assimilation of Negro slaves. Portugal was, of course, almost pure white in its glory days. And if the rulers of a country are visibly Negroid, it is to be expected that a decline is setting in. Thus, the black pharaohs of Egypt were also the country’s last pharaohs (disregarding the later Macedonians such as Cleopatra). After they ruled for a few generations, Egypt became a land ruled by foreigners until modern times.

Most of the foreign peoples who overran and conquered the locals of Egypt were white. The ancient Libyans, a blondish people, who once dominated North Africa from Morocco to modern Libya, conquered Egypt in prehistoric times. Indeed, some authorities believe the pharaohs were actually of the Libyan race, not the Egyptian. The Libyans were also the ancestors of the modern Berbers. Although today’s Berbers have been heavily Negrified in most regions, red hair is still common among the Berbers of the Rif.

Later, around 2000 B.C., the country was overrun by the Hyksos, an Indo-Iranian race of people. The Hyksos were fond of swastikas and spirals, as were the Etruscans, the Germanic tribes, the La Tene Kelts and the Mykenaean Greeks, all of whom were related peoples with more or less similar cultures. The “horse graves” and the personal and place names of the Hyksos all attest to their Indo-Iranian origin. It is said that they rode ponies of Scandinavian origin and used a standard of weights identical to that used in Sweden at that time.

Then came the Persians, who of course were Aryans. This Nordic people came down from Russia around 1800 B.C. and set up a caste system to avoid racial pollution from the darker natives. The Persians went on to conquer the entire Middle East and parts of Europe, ruling Egypt from 525 to 332 B.C. On the walls of the great palace at Susa there are paintings of Persian nobles. They have blond hair and blue eyes.

Then it was the Macedonians, followed by the mighty Romans. Both of these are Indo-European peoples.

Then it was the Arabs, and it is worthy of note that two of the first four leaders of the Arabs in Egypt had gray eyes. In A.D. 868 Ahmed Ibn El Tulun, a white Turkoman, conquered Egypt. The hordes of Tamerlane, who himself was blond, briefly invaded Egypt. Then, in 1171, it was Saladin, a Kurd. The Kurds are a race very closely related to the Iranians. The Mamelukes from Russia, Turkey and the Caucasus ruled Egypt from 1260 to 1517 and remained the ruling class until 1803. In 1517 the Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt, and many Ottoman sultans were Nordic, such as Orkhan II, who had blond hair, blue eyes and a ruddy complexion. In 1798 Napoleon conquered—he of the blue eyes. Napoleon as a young man was a towhead. Then it was the Albanian Indo-European dynasty, founded by the gray-eyed Mohammed Ali (1805-1953). Next it was the English, another Nordic Indo-European race, who made Egypt their colony. After the Brits, it was the (largely Russian) Soviets who effectively controlled the land, starting about 1960, although they allowed a native Egyptian puppet to head the government.

Scientists have also looked into the racial makeup of the ancient Egyptians. Relying on skulls, but not blood groupings or DNA, Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, states that the ancient Egyptians were closer, at least head-wise, to Germans and Danes than they were to Somalis, Ethiopians, Nubians or Berbers. He dismisses the term “race” and then revives it disguised as the politically correct term “cluster.” There are several of these; the two of most interest to him happen to be the “European” and the “African.” The Egyptians, according to his findings, definitely belong with the former.

Not only were the ancient Egyptians not black, their nearest relatives are Europeans: “It is obvious that both the predynastic and late dynastic Egyptians are more closely related to the European cluster than they are to any of the other major regional clusters in the world,” says Brace. The dean of African-American classicists, Frank Snowden, advises afrocentrists to give up Egypt and focus on Nubia as the first great black civilization. Brace’s findings would deny even this concession. Nubians, like the Egyptians, are not part of the “African” head cluster.

Thus it is seen in all the evidence that the ancient Egyptians, as well as most of the more recent ruling classes of Egypt, were not black but white. Was it mixture with neighboring cultures that led to the downfall of the once-great Egyptian civilization?

The importance of the history of Egypt cannot be overestimated as it pertains to America. Clearly, our nation is following the course of Egypt, only over a greatly shortened time. As has been said by so many philosophers, the sad fact is that men learn nothing from history. Today, those who do not see the vivid similarity of today’s growing anarchy, loss of societal comity, lawlessness, distortion and pollution of our European culture are blind indeed.