# Black Africans and Ancient Egypt? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 20, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078 "2017-05-20T13:57:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/41 "2017-05-23T06:25:42Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I don’t see any particular evidence that the first few dozen leaders of Egypt would look very much different. You seriously can’t think of any reason why Ancient Egypt might be ever so slightly less mixed than modern Egypt? Nothing, say, related to ease of travel, or large scale population movements… ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/42 "2017-05-23T07:11:25Z")
If new research is to ve believed, humanity might gave actually evolved in southern Europe. > **[Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/)** > > The history of human evolution has been rewritten after scientists discovered that Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/43 "2017-05-23T07:21:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > You seriously can’t think of any reason why Ancient Egypt might be ever so slightly less mixed than modern Egypt? Nothing, say, related to ease of travel, or large scale population movements… Well I imagine the South East Asian or South American populations might be a bit higher in modern times. But in terms of big population influxes of different ethnicities, I don’t see any evidence of major changes in the modern era that exceed those that happened in the ancient, classical, or medieval eras. (The invasions of Kushites or Sea Peoples, for example) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/44 "2017-05-23T07:55:41Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > If new research is to ve believed, humanity might gave actually evolved in southern Europe. > > [Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/) This only refers to a very early ape-like animal which may, or may not be on the direct evolutionary line of humans and may, or may not have been confined to Europe. As it says in that article > [@](#): > > "It is possible that the human lineage originated in Europe, but very substantial fossil evidence places the origin in Africa, including several partial skeletons and skulls. > > “I would be hesitant about using a single character from an isolated fossil to set against the evidence from Africa.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/45 "2017-05-23T11:43:10Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > But in terms of big population influxes of different ethnicities, I don’t see any evidence of major changes in the modern era that exceed those that happened in the ancient, classical, or medieval eras. (The invasions of Kushites or Sea Peoples, for example) Both of those are way after “first few dozen leaders of Egypt” ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/46 "2017-05-31T07:31:25Z")
This just in: **DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies reveals their ancestry** [Johannes Krause, a University of Tubingen paleogeneticist and an author of the study, said the major finding was that “for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity.” Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians — the list goes on — ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. “The other big surprise,” Krause said, “was we didn’t find much sub-Saharan African ancestry.”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/30/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry) ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/47 "2017-05-31T11:29:40Z")
Here’s a link to the [actual study](https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694) > [@](#): > > Finally, we used two methods to estimate the fractions of sub-Saharan African ancestry in ancient and modern Egyptians. Both qpAdm35 and the f4-ratio test39 reveal that modern Egyptians inherit 8% more ancestry from African ancestors than the three ancient Egyptians do, which is also consistent with the ADMIXTURE results discussed above. > > Absolute estimates of African ancestry using these two methods in the three ancient individuals range from **6 to 15%** , and in the modern samples from **14 to 21%** depending on method and choice of reference populations Of course these results are based on samples that could be representative to a specific locale (upper vs lower Egypt), time period, or class and not generalizable to all of ancient Egypt (if such an act is possible). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/48 "2017-05-31T11:59:51Z")
Egypt was an important and fascinating civilization in its own right, and has always deserved more interest and attention. It’s just a shame that interest in Egypt is so closely tied to Black Pride. Look, I’m 100% Irish, as far as I know. How much time was devoted to Ireland in the European History courses I’ve taken? Almost none, and that’s as it should be. Ireland just wasn’t that important! And I shouldn’t have demanded more emphasis on Ireland to bolster my (and my classmates’) self-esteem. Unfortunately, in many circles, emphasis on Egypt springs from the silly idea that success in school depends on students having high self-esteem. Telling black kids about the glories of ancient Egypt (or Mexican kids about Mayan mathematicians and scientists) is supposed to inspire them. But you know what? My old neighborhood was heavily Greek, and NO Greek kid thrived in school because his confidence was bolstered by Homer and Plato. Self-esteem is NOT that important, and it isn’t even NECESSARY! I can appreciate Egypt (or Greece or ChinA or Persia or…) for their real accomplishments regardless of my DNA. Egypt is worth studying in its own right. I won’t lose interest in Egypt if it turns out Ramses was “white.” And anyone who does was a flake and a fool to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/49 "2017-05-31T12:11:56Z")
Good chances Ramses I and I at least were of foreign origin. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/50 "2017-05-31T12:50:20Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Egypt was an important and fascinating civilization in its own right, and has always deserved more interest and attention. > > It’s just a shame that interest in Egypt is so closely tied to Black Pride. If one looks at US history it’s easy to see the reasons why Black Pride exists, as its utterly unrepresentative. American minorities have lived and had profound involvement in almost every aspects of American life, but at the same time they have been systematically banned from participating in all common fields from politics to education to science. African-Americans could not **actively participate** in American historic events nor could they influence how **they are depicted** by the intelligentsia of yore. You want to know why racist pseudo-scientific shit like phrenology/racialism existed? Or where the Africans-have-no-history/civilizations/the-wheel/written-language/etc racist meme comes from? It comes from the unopposed white nationalist theorists of yesteryear (diversity in science/education/etc is as important yesterday as it is today). The past excising of minorities from public society has profound affects to this very day. One effect is the white-washing of history another is Black reaffirmation of their existence/participation in the historical record. tl;dr. It’s easy to take the “official record” as gospel when you are white, but it deserves scrutiny as it was written by implicit/explicit racialists. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/51 "2017-05-31T13:11:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …There’s considerably more genetic diversity among Africans than in the rest of the world combined. Huh? Or, why? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/52 "2017-05-31T13:12:55Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > This just in: > > **DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies reveals their ancestry** > > [Johannes Krause, a University of Tubingen paleogeneticist and an author of the study, said the major finding was that “for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity.” Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians — the list goes on — ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. “The other big surprise,” Krause said, “was we didn’t find much sub-Saharan African ancestry.”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/30/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry) What I don’t understand is why would people expect “much” (sic) sub-Saharian ancestry. Do they think the Sahara used to have paved highways? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/53 "2017-05-31T13:50:49Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Good chances Ramses I and I at least were of foreign origin. Ramses I and I? Was he Rastafarian? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/54 "2017-05-31T14:52:29Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > But you know what? My old neighborhood was heavily Greek, and NO Greek kid thrived in school because his confidence was bolstered by Homer and Plato. Self-esteem is NOT that important, and it isn’t even NECESSARY! I can appreciate Egypt (or Greece or ChinA or Persia or…) for their real accomplishments regardless of my DNA. You’d be surprised. Greek identity is heavily tied to their outsized place in history. This is true of almost every culture that can be traced back to some historic achievement. > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Huh? Or, why? Because the rest of the world was ultimately populated by a relatively small number of individuals. As few as 10,000 members of _homo sapiens_ are thought to have left Africa (at least during the earliest period of out-of-Africa migration). So we have little genetic diversity because we all come from a very small gene pool, while the majority of humans remained in Africa and had a much broader choice of breeding partners. > [@Nava](#): > > What I don’t understand is why would people expect “much” (sic) sub-Saharian ancestry. Do they think the Sahara used to have paved highways? No, but there’s a pretty big river that goes _right there_. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/55 "2017-05-31T16:34:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, but there’s a pretty big river that goes _right there_. Nile isnt very navigable past a certain point. There’s the cataracts. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/56 "2017-05-31T16:42:21Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > What I don’t understand is why would people expect “much” (sic) sub-Saharian ancestry. Do they think the Sahara used to have paved highways? No, but you can walk a hell of a long way in 3000 years. There were wars, slave raids, trade and other contact with the southern populations going back to the earliest days of the lower Nile civilizations. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Nile isnt very navigable past a certain point. There’s the cataracts. Of course, we now have surgery for that. See Dr. Aswan. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/57 "2017-05-31T17:30:59Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nile isnt very navigable past a certain point. There’s the cataracts. True, though the Nile cataracts, particularly the 1rst and the 2nd ( where lay Lower Nubia ) were passable during the summer flood. The third, where Upper Nubia starts, was a bit more difficult and more often required portage. Then you had 200 miles of navigable river until the 4th and so on. Since Nubia started right at the first cataract and was passable with portage or during flood, it was not really an impermeable barrier. It was more akin to a city wall barring easy movement to an invading fleet, but semi-porous to trade and other cultural interactions. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/58 "2017-05-31T17:45:35Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > If one looks at US history it’s easy to see the reasons why Black Pride exists, as its utterly unrepresentative. American minorities have lived and had profound involvement in almost every aspects of American life, but at the same time they have been systematically banned from participating in all common fields from politics to education to science. > > African-Americans could not **actively participate** in American historic events nor could they influence how **they are depicted** by the intelligentsia of yore. You want to know why racist pseudo-scientific shit like phrenology/racialism existed? Or where the Africans-have-no-history/civilizations/the-wheel/written-language/etc racist meme comes from? It comes from the unopposed white nationalist theorists of yesteryear (diversity in science/education/etc is as important yesterday as it is today). > > The past excising of minorities from public society has profound affects to this very day. One effect is the white-washing of history another is Black reaffirmation of their existence/participation in the historical record. > > tl;dr. It’s easy to take the “official record” as gospel when you are white, but it deserves scrutiny as it was written by implicit/explicit racialists. Again, I’m Irish. I went to Catholic schools. Did our American History classes concentrate on Irish-American life? NO! And if we’d told Sister Mary Ignatius “We shouldn’t be reading about WASPS, we should be reading about OUR people,” she’d have smacked us with a ruler and told us, “You learn what we teach you!” George Washington wasn’t Irish. Neither was Abe Lincoln, or Thomas Edison, or Susan B. Anthony any of the truly important figures in American History. Somehow, I managed to learn the subject anyway. So did Jewish kids, Italian kids, Polish kids, Japanese kids, et al. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/59 "2017-05-31T17:57:21Z")
Oddly this is from today’s [Slashdot.org](http://Slashdot.org) > **[DNA From Ancient Egyptian Mummies Reveals Their Ancestry - Slashdot](https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/05/31/0530240/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry)** > > HanzoSpam quotes a report from Washington Post: Ancient Egyptians were an archaeologist's dream. They left behind intricate coffins, massive pyramids and gorgeous hieroglyphs, the pictorial writing code cracked in 1799. But there was one persistent... > [@](#): > > A study led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Tubingen in Germany managed to plug some of those genetic gaps. Researchers wrung genetic material from 151 Egyptian mummies, radiocarbon dated between Egypt’s New Kingdom (the oldest at 1388 B.C.) to the Roman Period (the youngest at 426 A.D.), as reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Johannes Krause, a University of Tubingen paleogeneticist and an author of the study, said the major finding was that “for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity.” Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians – the list goes on – ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. “The other big surprise,” Krause said, “was we didn’t find much sub-Saharan African ancestry.” Not really a surprise. There was the Nubian kingdom(s) on the Nile south of Egypt. There is a distinct divide where the cataracts block navigation on the Nile, and the two cultures and racial types were distinctive. The desert still extends all around, and the Red Sea cost is not particularly hospitable all the way up along the Egyptian approach. The Egyptians would conquer the adjacent areas of the Nubian kingdoms and vice versa. If you travel to Aswan, near the border with Sudan, you will notice that the population is generally darker with more instances of curly hair, so some mixing happened. But it’ not like this was a superhighway with constant population mixing. The population already saturated the land, had a superiority complex and any southerly Africans would be distinctively different. There were one or two episodes when the kindoms were in collapse where Nubians did rule the southern half of Egypt, IIRC, just as the Syrians, Greeks, Libyans etc. managed to overrun the country. But generally, the rulers were native Egyptians. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078/60 "2017-05-31T18:14:35Z")
The small amount of SubSaharan ancestry is no surprise - unless they were sampling the actual mummies of the 25th Dynasty… What _would_ be surprising would be a lack of _Saharan_ ancestry… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-africans-and-ancient-egypt/787078.md?page=4)