The Race of the Ancient Egyptians

There is great controversy surrounding the race of the Ancient Egyptians, which is a mystery to this day. Afrocentrists claim that they were Black, Eurocentrists claim that they were White, and Arabs claim that they were Arabs.

Personally, I think that the Egyptians were the race of the modern day Copts, a minority, Christian group that's been in Egypt since before the arrival of the Arabs.

What do you guys think?

I think Arabs classify as Caucasian.

Yes, they do, but they are still distinct from Whites and form their own sub-race.

They're aliens. How do you think they made the pyramids? Aliens.

No. There is no sub race. There is different ethnicity. Damn dude. And FYI....Caucasians vary greatly in skin tone.

Whatever, man. You're arguing semantics. My point was that Arabs are distinct from White people (in both appearance and culture).

Saw a thing on tv a while back, apparently we all came from black people. With evidence to suggest (from caves) that Asians came from a separate species, or something. Was fascinating wish I taped it. BBC4 is kinda like the history and discovery channel before they became shitty.

That's NOT semantics. You are confusing ethnicity with race. They are two different things. Or do you believe all "white" people are the same? Cultures vary dude. Only people that follow generalizations and stereotypes are the ignorant....and the racist.

What you've said is contradictory. You say that we all came from Black people but also that Asians came from a separate species. What?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/suggest

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/apparently

There is debate over this? We have paintings they made that show them to have olive skin.

They are most likely a variant Mediterranean ethnicity, probably similar to the Etruscans.

It's certainly possible that the first humans were black, but that bit about Asians is just ridiculous.

@foxhound_fox:

...Old paintings fade over time.

Egyptians were originally deep purple

The Caucasian race spans Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, but the term "white" is usually reserved only to describe people of European descent. The exception is the US Census Bureau, which groups Americans of European, North African, and Middle Eastern descent under the label "White". I think the Census should change it to "White/Caucasian" so it would make more sense to group North Africans and Middle Easterners under the label, given that most people don't consider those two groups as part of the white race. All whites (Europeans and European descendants) are Caucasian, but not all Caucasians are white.

Well, there's people out there that study the genetic information of modern and ancient people, I'm sure if they'll figure it out one day. So no use thinking to hard about it. I don't imagine anybody here is an expert in expert in that field.

@foxhound_fox said:

@poptart said:

@foxhound_fox:

...Old paintings fade over time.

Egyptians were originally deep purple

Not Aliens brother, just 70s rock n roll.

...actually that doesn't make any sense. Maybe it was aliens then.

There is no way the Ancient Egyptians were white. Not a single pharaoh looks white.

CATS

Most uninformed comment on the internet yet?

You know Arabs if we are going to be strictly speaking here consider themselves sons of Noah. In that sense Israelis and to better put it Canaanites are Arabs also. But some Arab historians if I'm correct consider the word Arab to only have two meanings. Inhabitants of Arabia who are sons of Noah and inhabitants of Arabia and Iraq who are sons of Abraham through Ismael and not Isaac. Canaanites on the other hand are sons of Isaac and they are not Arabs.

Now back to Egypt.When Jacob and his sons immigrated to Egypt a term called "Israelis" or "Sons of Israel" was shaped Israel being another name for Jacob. Also there were native Egyptians who are called "qibti" in Arabic. When Moses came he asked the pharaoh to send "the Israelis with him" so there still are two different races in Egypt none of which is Arab. But then Arabs took control of Egypt and a lot of Arabs immigrated there and that apparently makes all the Egyptians Arabs.

You must be talking about the recent movements that are trying to say Egyptians are Arabs because "Arabic spring" and other bullshit terms invented by Arabs.

That more or less depends on how one uses the word. Again Caucasian skin tone varies. And what I said was Arabs are Caucasian....which they are.

they have done dna testing on mummies and even king tut that proves ancient egyptians werent black.. no matter how badly afrocentric people want to rewrite history and try to steal cultures, science proves otherwise

Let me guess, you're a copt

to deny that Egypt is now Arab is just plain stupid and quite sad. My guess is that you're an arab christian (probably lebanese or egyptian) trying to disassociate himself from arabs as much as possible.

I thought they were cats.

I always thought the ancient Egyptians were black/west asian.

Oh god, the theory of this long lost tribe of charcoal colored Caucasians rears its head again. This is about as believable as the one that every historically important European civilization was actually just Africans suffering from vitiligo.

I'm not Arab but I would have loved to be an Arab. And I'm Muslim btw. Still not understanding why you would say Egyptians are Arabs. Are you saying that all those qibtis all of a sudden disappeared from existence? What happened to them?

No. I'm Black.

overtaken by other ethnicities, they got diluted, they left, etc. You shouldn't have such a rigid and concrete view of race or ethnicity. There's a lot of mixing and grouping going on.

Agreed. I'm not an expert on race and stuff but it always felt like they call themselves Arabs simply because they speak Arabic.

So I can agree with you that present day Egyptians are indeed Arabs but to say that Arabs consider Egyptians of old Arabs is still such an uninformed saying.

@thegerg said:

@-Blasphemy- said:

There is no way the Ancient Egyptians were white. Not a single pharaoh looks white.

These are just a couple images of Pharaohs that were left for us. I think it's safe to say that numerous "races" have been throughout Egypt for thousands of years.

I'm pretty sure that the second image is not a product of Egypt but is one of Greece. However, if you already know that and are simply trying to imply that there's a resemblance between the two, there isn't. In my opinion, the Egyptians were the race of modern day Copts but were conquered and ruled by the Black Nubians toward the end of their civilization (which is why later artwork depicts people of nobility/ royalty as dark skinned).

My guess is that the Ancient Egyptians were probably similar the same race as the Copts, which is probably a darker-toned Caucasian person (a Mediterranean person) similar to other Near Eastern peoples. They probably weren't Arabs since I don't think Arabs had spread that far at that time. There were probably some Arab traders going to Egypt, but I think large-scale conquests and colonization by Arabs didn't happen until after the time of Mohammed. I think most countries that are today considered "Arab" countries probably were not mostly Arab until after the time of the Islamic conquests, and then Arabs colonized those places and many of the natives came to adopt an Arab identity. There are still in many "Arab" countries indigenous peoples who retain their old identity such as the Chaldeans in Iraq (though they are mostly fleeing to Kurdistan now), and the Copts in Egypt are the most numerous example.

In any case Egypt must've had other "types of people" living there as well during different times of ancient history. Arabs have a reputation for being good merchants so some of them probably wound up in Egypt. Some black people probably were there as well, even before the Nubian conquest. Then there were the Hyksos and the Hebrews (who may actually be the same people). And then Greeks and Romans.