you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

But the ancient Egyptians, at least the nobility, were white.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The ancient Egyptians were light-brown skinned north Africans, not Caucasians. Just as their descendants are now.

It was much later when the Greek general Ptolemy conquored Egypt from the ruling Persians and started the Ptolemaic Kingdom that Egypt got relatively pale ruling class, from the Greeks. That was nearly three thousand years after the first Egyptian civilizations, longer than Christianity has existed. But even they were hardly "white" -- many Greeks are typically olive skinned, like most Mediterranean peoples.

Brown skinned Egyptians were building pyramids while white skinned Europeans were still hunter-gatherers.

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Did I say that north Africans were sub-Saharan Africans from the south? I don't think so.

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I didn't say you said that, did I? ANCIENT Egyptian nobility had blue eyes and blonde or red hair. They were nothing like arabs or what we think of as being "middle eastern" ethnicities.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Despite the many invasions over the centuries, Egypt has never seen the sort of mass migrations which can change the ethnic demographics of a land. Ancient Egyptians were most closely related to modern Egyptians, and have never been racially homogeneous. Skin colour varied between Upper and Lower Egypt, and Nubia, and still does. If you want to know what ancient Egyptians looked like, your best bet is to look at modern Egyptians and northern Sudanese.

The video you linked to starts off talking about the Egyptian nobleman Yuya, from the 18th Dynasty around 1390 BCE. The 18th Dynasty is more than 1700 years from the First Dynasty, which began around 3100 BCE. Think about how the genetic make-up of Britain has changed from the pre-Roman Celts, the Germanic Saxons and Danes, the French Normans, and more. If you did a genetic analysis of King Charles III today, that would tell you nothing about the genetics of the English in 300 CE. (In fact, since "England" derives from the Angles who first invaded around 450 CE, there were no English in Britain in 300 CE.)

(By the way, the yellow hair in the video is because the hair has been discoloured from the embalming process, not because they were blonde.)

The oldest population of ancient Egypt included North African people from the upper and lower Nile, from the Mediterranean, modern Libya, the Middle East and the Arabian peninsula. In modern terms, we call them "People of Colour" (bleagh), a stupid term, but they weren't Caucasian, they weren't "white", nor were they sub-Saharan black (although they do have some sub-Saharan DNA). They certainly weren't European. They were, and still are, Egyptians.

What few royal Egyptian mummies have been DNA tested show that they were most closely related to the modern Berbers, with some sub-Saharan DNA (probably from the Nubians, with whom the royalty frequently intermarried). In other words, North African. The pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty, the so-called "Black Pharoahs" or "Nubian Pharoahs", were originally from the Kingdom of Kush in what today would be northern Sudan, and were probably black. Cleopatra was Greek Macedonian. Egypt has been conquered many times and you cannot generalise from one pharaoh to others a thousand years earlier.

For what little it is worth, in ancient Egyptian paintings, stylised pictures of individuals from many countries are drawn in consistent colours: Libyans are yellow, Nubians are black or dark brown, and Egyptians are red. Men are painted darker than women.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

But the ancient Egyptians, at least the nobility, were white.

They weren't black no, but they certainly weren't white europeans, they seem to have had Levant middle eastern genetics

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Nope. They were blue eyed and blonde or red haired. WHITE. Nature is just narrative pseudo anthropology.

Here are facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh3y4FydRNU

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Nope. They were blue eyed and blonde or red haired. WHITE.

Yes to the blue-eyes and blond hair, but even your sources say these are Levantine Middle Easterners, they may have the mutations for blond hair and blue eyes, but these people are genetically distinct from white Europeans with the genetic distance closest to brown Middle Easterners, not white Europeans. I guess this depends on how we are defining 'whiteness', how are you defining this quality? As possessing light skin/hair/eye mutations, European ancestry, traceability to the Steppe herders, or some other classification methodology? The whole idea of whiteness seems slightly ambiguous when people are using many definitions for what this means, I usually assume people are referring to genetic 'Europeaness', hence my assertion of non-whiteness, but I'm willing to accept a different definition

Nature is just narrative pseudo anthropology.

Your video of facts cited this paper as well to cite the Egyptians having Levantine DNA, in addition to one showing Levantine Israelis had blond hair/blue eye mutations. Its sort of central to the argument you are making, idk how you can dismiss this paper as pseudo-anything when your argument depends on this paper as well.

This "whitifying" of Levantine Israelis would also make Jews 'white', are you comfortable with this? I'd find it surprising if you were, given your fondness for whites and dislike of Jews

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The 12 (or 13) tribes of Israel include the Aryan nordic genes, as well as the black africans. That doesn't make them "jews" who co-opted the word "Israel" in order to appropriate all these lineages. There is a lot of confusion about these terms, making definitions very muddled.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There is a lot of confusion about these terms, making definitions very muddled.

Lol, can agree with you on this

The 12 (or 13) tribes of Israel include the Aryan nordic genes,

Do you have any studies handy on this? I'm curious as to the origin. Are we talking Steppe herders, Scandinavian Hunter Gatherer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Hunter-Gatherer) or some different group containing similar genes? From what I can gather the modern Jews appear to all share ancient light-skinned Iranian DNA (Persians can also be quite light, not sure if this is related), with the Ashkenazi's, Sephardic, and Mizrahi differing by which populations they mixed with

I do find genealogy to be quite fascinating, if you have any relevant info on the topic to refer me to i'd happily read it

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The Old Testament itself defines the tribes of Israel in such terms. The Jews appropriated that too, pretending that this book is about them, whereas barely 5% of the people mentioned in there can by any stretch of the imagination be considered to be Jews.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Jews appropriated that too, pretending that this book is about them, whereas barely 5% of the people mentioned in there can by any stretch of the imagination be considered to be Jews.

Agree that its extremely unlikely all those people were Jews

The Old Testament itself defines the tribes of Israel in such terms.

Explicitly as nordic? Or as light-skinned and blue-eyed? Is there any other evidence that helps lend credence to this idea, or is supportive of this being a possibility? I'm not that familiar with this particular theory, or the origins of the 12 Israel tribes specifically, though I'm certainly interested in any theories of this sort