Musicians at a banquet. Mural from the tomb of Rekhmire, vizier under Thutmosis III (1490-1439 BCE) and Amenophis II (1439-1413 BCE). 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom, Egypt.
In 2006, the Cambridge University art and antiquities museum, Fitzwilliam, did a commendable thing when they, following a £1.5 million renewal project, launched their new Egypt galleries. The idea was to showcase ancient Egyptian religion, magic, writing, ritual and to redisplay the collections in a contemporary and dynamic way.
But that was not all. In a rare condemnation of the historical revision of ancient Egypt, the Fitzwilliam Museum admitted that, not only does Egyptology have a European bias, but that the bias means that our understanding of the earliest human civilisation is gravely erroneous. As they put it, “People mainly look at Ancient Egypt through a European bias. This is because the majority of books on Egyptology are written by researchers of European, or North-American backgrounds.”
Instead, the Fitzwilliam Museum decided to adopt an Africa-Centred approach to ancient Egypt.
What does an Africa-centred approach to Egyptology mean? Well, first of all, it acknowledges that Ancient Egypt “is part of African culture” and that while the word ‘Egypt’ is what the Ancient Greeks named ancient Egypt, the original inhabitants called it ‘Kemet’, which literally means ‘the black land’. Therefore, by naming the museum gallery “Virtual Kemet”, the curators intended to remind people that Ancient Egypt is an “African civilization and that whilst the culture had contact with people from other civilizations, it was essentially African in its culture and well as its geographical placement.”
The museum insists, “There are many links between ancient Egyptian and modern African culture, ranging from objects such as headrests to hairstyles such as the side lock, and this and other evidence support the idea that it was an African culture in addition to being geographically in Africa. For these reasons Egypt is seen by people of African descent as part of their cultural heritage and history. […] Egypt was an African country, and their artists depicted the Egyptians as Africans, with black skin and tightly curled hair.” [Emphases mine]
If there remains any doubt about the heritage of ancient Egyptians, the museum declares, “If we look at the skin colour and also facial features on representations of Egyptians, many are what we would consider today to be Black African.” However, even if “we leave colour aside for a moment, we can also find out a great deal from looking at the facial features shown on Egyptian statues. Here, there can be no doubt that we are dealing with people who were African. Faces were broad with high cheekbones and the jaws are typically strong. The noses are also broad and the lips are generally full and fleshy in appearance.”
It makes you wonder how accurate the depiction of Seth, Horus, Bek and Hathor are in the upcoming film Gods Of Egypt.
In other words, despite the evidence that ancient Egyptians were black Africans, the longstanding tradition of whitewashing ancient Egypt continues. It’s nothing new even if it’s awfully tired and manipulative. Here’s baby Moses being rescued from the Nile, in a rather inaccurate depiction of the inhabitants of Kemet at the time.
As Fela Kuti sang, teacher don’t teach me nonsense.
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Nice post! Thanx.
Thanks for reading.
Hi there I am Victor I’ve been reading a little bit here on the site it seems as though you’re very knowledgeable of Kemet Africa I’m interested in making a Motion Picture film I want to kind of put a stop to whitewashing and I want to make a film on the invasion of Africa Kemet Africa if interested please give me a call 757-227-0388
What a beautiful and TRUE article!!!
Thanks Judith, glad you enjoyed it.
Very well said ! Sooner or later the thuth will come out.
The scholar Tristan Samuels has a paper on academia.edu called ‘The Black Pharaoh Fallacy’ wherein he defuncts the “true negro” archetype used by white scholars to dismiss arguments about “black” Egypt. It’s a worthy read. https://www.academia.edu/6242047/The_Black_Pharaohs_Fallacy
Fighting against the European bias… by accepting the European bias that Egypt is part of the never unified whole that is Africa… to create an African bias.
I guess you had to accept some of it to create this interesting fairy tale. (Egyptians identified blacks as different from themselves, just saying, it’s literally written and depicted in picture.)
Shut you little swik look at the faces and sculrors no body have to tell you who thrre are all africans. If you deny fcts on your face you got but yur silly self to blame
Hi there I read your comments it doesn’t make sense to leave your place in Europe and go to Africa and build pyramids and then go back to Europe with there is no pyramids and then paint pictures of people on the wall that doesn’t look like Europeans it doesn’t make much sense question yourself.
Oops! No they weren’t, they were caucasian white. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/22/health/ancient-egypt-mummy-dna-genome-heritage/index.html
When will Cambridge BLM propaganda peddlers ever learn?
The paper you sited made sure to state that the research was of a single site somewhere in middle egypt which was closer to the arabs and not where the pharoahs lived….they also mentioned it was not representative of the whole egyptian population. so what are you talking about? smh
I went into the drugstore the whole owl was full of sunscreen I asked the store manager do you sell a lot of this he told me we can’t keep it in stock it goes as soon as we put it on the Shelf. I am a black man I should have bought stock in sunscreen he told me that Europeans cannot stay in the sun too long so you cannot work the cotton fields you could not do your tobacco and there’s no way you could have worked in Africa and remember there’s no pyramids in Europe and Asia and today you don’t even know how they were built.
There are pyramides in many places. Mexico, Sudan e.t.c. The largest ones can be found in the land of the dragons, China.
Thats because Africans have been traveling the world thousands of years before the Spaniards. White historians tried to destroy that history, but its evident that Africans traveled to South America because of items that are found their that came from Africa (crops, weapons etc.) Also central America has those giant Olmec heads that have African facial features. Its also evident in my country the Philippines, theres a group of people we call the Aeta they look African. They’re said to be the original Filipino particularly the ones that are short, dark, with curly hair (pygmies).
Continue on your journey to share truth, and knowledge of what is true wisdom for those who oppose are not relevant. Asa’
Thank you.
Just found your blog–and I love it!!! Looking forward to the publication of your book in 2019!
Hi there my name is Victor Jackson. I am looking for a knowledgeabl scholar of Kemet Africa for a Motion Picture film if you or know someone please have them give me a call my number is 757-227-0388 thank you very much
Actually the Egyptians weren’t black Africans, they were genetically closest to Modern and Neolithic Levantine and Anatolian populations according to a recent study on the topic. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694:
The samples used were dated to the Pre-Ptolemaic (New Kingdom, Third Intermediate Period and Late Period), long before any Greek invasions, so making that argument would be a fallacy.
The Y-chromosome haplogroups of two individuals could be assigned to the Middle-Eastern haplogroup J, and one to haplogroup E1b1b1 common in North Africa. The absolute estimates of sub-Saharan African ancestry in these three individuals ranged from 6 to 15%, which is significantly lower than the level of sub-Saharan African ancestry in the modern Egyptians from Abusir, who “range from 14 to 21%.”
Mainstream scholars reject the notion that Egypt was a white or black civilization; they maintain that, despite the phenotypic diversity of Ancient and present day Egyptians, applying modern notions of black or white races to ancient Egypt is anachronistic. You used outdated methods of anthropology that group peoples into a black and white race, to justify your point. How does that help you?
Use you knowledge and stick in your ass
So if categorizing ancient egyptians as ‘black’ or ‘white’ is false, then why are you saying ‘egyptians were not black’?
This is a great platform for exchange of valuable ideas, both physically and spiritually.
I think we need to teach each other still. I mean ll of us; Africans, Americans, Australians, Asians and Europeans. Leave out Black and White or Brown and Yellow.
We all have one heart, head, brain and blood! Some are advance in certain areas, some are still behind. However we are moving towards omega point. How and when we are going to reach there, still a mystery.
Dear Minna Salami
You are the voice crying in the Sahara Desert: “Awake from your slumber Africa.”
I think now at least some Africans are becoming enlightened. We have been too long with the belief that Africa is a ‘dark continent’, therefore our skin and our mind are also dark! I am teaching African Spirituality in our only Seminary in Namibia. Most Namibians find it very strange. I think it will be very helpful if one day you could organize a symposium on African Spirituality and how African will reach an era of enlightenment. I have just now returned from France where I spent two months studying and reflecting on the life of a young French priest who started a group of Missionary priests and Brothers in Aix-en-Provence, in 1816, but now members of this group are all over the world, including Namibia. I think Africa needs ‘intellectual’, spiritual and even physical revolution’, is it is possible. But the masses in Africa are not yet aware about their God given dignity.
I really admire your courage. But I wonder whether you are free to come to Africa and give some talks as Professor Patrick Lumumba is now doing. We need African of such a calibre. But one major problem in Africa as Prof. Lumumba said is: “those who have ideas have no power, on the other hand those who have power, have no ideas’ of how Africa will value ourselves and share the immense resource we have in this ‘Paradise’ considered to be a ‘dark continent’. Please publish more articles on African Spirituality.
Keep up the valuable task granted to you by Shankendengere/Karunga/God
Kakuruwakantananamuku
Hey,
1,2,3 testing
If someone say that the color of number 4 is ‘green’, you don’t say ‘no’ and then go on to attempt to show that ‘number five is (geneticaly) like number nine’.
Simply say that the question of color of numbers is meaningless, period! It is a one sentence answer! Likewise gene studies trying to show ‘who the egyptians were’ flashes down the toilet!
I have seen the same nonsense in wikipedia and ‘rational’wiki. They begine by saying that humans can’t be categorized into ‘races’. Then they spend 6 hours arguing why ‘afro/euro centrists are wrong!!
If humans can’t be categorized into ‘races’, then ‘euro/afrocentrists’ are neither RIGHT nor WRONG. They are simply MISGUIDED.
What is wrong is not the ANSWER they are spewing. It is the QUESTION they are asking.
But by zeroing in on attacking the ANSWERS, rather than showing what is wrong with the QUESTION, they unwittingly legitimise the question, which they insinuated that it is illegitimate!!
For if you tell me ‘afrocentrists are wrong cause ancient egyptians look like modern ones’, an ‘afrocentrist’ will show paintings clearly depicting dark egyptians. In what way then isn’t the ‘afrocentrist’ arguing with wikipedia on whether or not egyptians were black?? If they are arguing, how can wikipedia be also correct in saying ‘the question of race don’t apply to egyptian?’
So mainstream academia contradict itself! In effect, they are saying that the modern racial category doesn’t apply to ancient Egypt,…but anyway, nevertheless lets argue whether ancient egyptians were blacks or whites!!
DNA ANALYSIS
What if you are presented with 3 pple:
1.)A Nigerian
2.)Obama’s daughter
3.)Obama’s (white) cousin. Asuming that you have no knowledge of her parents, the homework is to casualy categorize Obama’s daughter. I bet 99% of the pple will fail the test! Most will say that Obama’s daughter is geneticaly closer to Nigerian than to Obama’s cousin!
So much to DNA tests!
The mainstream though is telling us that by studying a coarps, come 2000 years from now, they can conclude that someone LOOKED LIKE a white american than a Nigerian!!
So much for DNA analysis!
Another case is negritos or Papuans. Their DNA is closer to those of far east asia than to a Nigerian!
It turn out that DNA does not tell us how someon look like. The ENVIRONMENT they live in is a better indicator! In our case, the Egyptian and Arabian sun-scorched deserts cannot be native land for light-skinned pple.
MIGRATION:
In not over 2000 years ago, about every group in Africa have migrated in huge numbers. Khoisans, Bantus, Austronesians, Bejas, Cushites, Nilots, Fulanis, Tuaregs…etc, all have migrated. From what mainstream tells us, this make the Egyptians the only group in Africa that we are supposed to beleive has subbonly remain in the same place for over 6000 years despite their land undergoing a drastic climate change and a constant war both internaly and with notherners!!!
DEFINING ONE’S SELF:
I have seen some modern Egyptians say “we are not white nor black, we are (and we were always) just Egyptians.”
But did those ancient Kemetians had such a self limiting, EXCLUSIVE rather than INCLUSIVE definition of ‘Egyptian’? Kemet expanded from the upper Egypt all the way till Turkey! Then they pushed all the way till Sudan! At what point did this expansion defined ‘Egyptian’?? Were they trying to curve out a nitch that define ‘Egyptian’ based on skin color tone? Of course not! Neither did including pple of varying colors made Egyptians less Egyptians. Rather, it made ‘Egyptian’ more powerfull!
‘Egyptian’ INCLUDED but was not limited to ‘Nubian’ cause that was the land of their ancestors or ‘land of gods’. The true definition of ‘self’ is INCLUSIVE rather than EXCLUSIVE.
Same should be in modern ‘Egyptian’. Being both a descendant of great, earlier, black pple and great latter Greeks doesn’t make you less ‘Egyptian’. It makes you a great person! A sot of crisscross of giants!
Sad how even the university of Cambridge has caved to racist afrocentrism the genetic evidence has shown time and time again that modern Egyptians are the direct descendants of the ancients in fact the ancient Egyptians not to mention ancient Egypt culturally was closest to the other civilizations of the fertile crescent also Just because someone doesn’t have an afrocentric bias doesn’t mean they have a Eurocentric bias especially since modern scholars already know how to minimize bias better than anyone else with an extremely intellectually vigorous approach frankly afrocentrism is just an intellectually lazy attempt to circumvent the requirement for rigor by using the genetic fallacy in an attempt to discredit far higher quality research and replace it with their own delusions of racial superiority
I love how people like you accuse Black people of having an AFRO-centric bias when talking about EGYPT when EGYPT is in fact…IN AFRICA!!!
DUH!!!
It is time we recognise the geographical relaities tha kept people in Africa separated and developing independently. Most likely the Khusite Pharoah rulers were light or dark brown in skin colour becuase they were hamitic people and not or less of nilotic or Bantu origin.
It is time we recognise the geographical realities that kept people in Africa separated and developing independently. Most likely the Khusite Pharaoh RULERS were light or dark brown in skin colour becuase they were hamitic people and not or less of nilotic or Bantu origin. This does not exclude inter-breeding among these racial groups.
There is no evidence that during the time of the Pharaoh’s the people of the whole of Africa were one interacting population of a single black race. As pointed out earlier, there is a great diversity in the languages spoken in Africa. This is further proof of the isolation of African populations over thousands of years. Or are we supposed to believe that the Zulus in South Africa are equally resposible for building the Pyramids as the Kushites because the Zulus live in Africa. Lets not be ridiculous.
Africa is a huge continent with uninhabitable and impenetrable regions that were barriers to interactions between people. Until recently, even the Bantu people who originate in West Africa and migrated southwards and south eastwards had practically no contact with the other Bantu people in Central and Southern Africa after they left from their places of origin.
Also, are there any people in Africa outside the boundaries of Kushite dominated Pharaon lands who have built Pyramids or who have written in hieroglyphics? Not that I know off. Even the Buganda and Bunyoro kingdoms in Uganda at the source of the river Nile had no indigenous written language and neither did they have any simple house building technologies that would suggest an intimate connection with the great north eastern people (Kushites) who lived and ruled in Pharaoh land and built the pyramids.
Also, we should not forget that skin colour is not directly determined by racial origin. Otherwise, lets consider whether the Aborigines of Australia built the pyramids. They are black, aren’t they?
Of course, some white academics are so hell bent on denying that it was people of colour who built the pyramids that they have even speculated that the pyramids were built with the help of extra-terrestrials. No evidence of course.
What colour wher they? Most likely, dark brown, light brown and blight black.
I love how people like you accuse Black people of having an AFRO-centric bias when talking about EGYPT when EGYPT is in fact…IN AFRICA!!!
DUH!!!
As to modern EGYPTIANS being the direct descendants of Ancient EGYPTIANS, you are so wrong on every level.
Modern EGYPTIANS never braided their hair or used Afro-Pics like Ancient EGYPTIANS.
You DO KNOW what Afro-Pics are, right??
Or do you believe that to be fake NeWS??!!
Lol, and Russia is an Asian country. You clearly don’t understand how *transcontinental* countries work. Egypt is literally the land bridge between the Mediterranean, Near East, West Asia & East Africa. Stop trying to steal Egyptians right to their ancient history from them. If you have any ancestors from the TransAtlantic slave trade your ancestors aren’t from anywhere near Egypt & you likely have no DNA whatsoever in North African areas. Unless you are a descendant of the Indian Ocean Muslim slave trade you probably don’t have East African or North African DNA connections. Just because you have had your history erased doesn’t mean you get to just take some other ethnicities culture because you like it.
Jeez, I then wonder why so many people in North Carolina or Nigeria or even England share DNA with Ramses the II. It’s as though there weren’t fewer people on earth back then, and everyone isn’t distantly related. And oh wait, let’s not include the 9 waves out of East Africa to West Africa after the crumbling Sudanic Empire in the 1600s; that include tribes like the Fulani, the Hausa, the Kpelle, and many more tribes. I’m tired of people talking about things they have no idea about.
Did you honestly say, “ancient Egypt culturally was closest to the other civilizations of the fertile crescent??”
Which civilizations were they??
Nubia, you mean.
So YOUre trying to get everyone else to believe that of all the 10 countries that Black Africans settled along the NILE River (Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, and South Sudan) Black Africans conveniently skipped over EGYPT?? Or from your viewpoint, the NON-BLACK Ancient EGYPTIANS skipped over the rest of The Nile Valley Civilizations??
Play that back in your head and see if you can pick up on your anti-BLACK racism along the way.
The ancient KEMETIU looked up South the great lakes regions of East and Central Africa as their ancestral lands. There were over 30 dynasties in KEMET before the Greeks (first Europeans) to conquer parts of Africa.
wasn’t a desert back then genius
I don’t see Middle Eastern when I see ancient Egyptian pharaohs. I see black African features or a mixed individual with prominent black African features still dominating. Yet, they continue to lie to the ignorant public by shoving this whiteass looking Cleopatra over and over again as the image or poster child of an Ancient Egyptian (that sloot isn’t of African descent) just because she ruled Egypt in that era. So morons until this day think Ancient Egyptians were Caucasoid looking/Middle Eastern, and not African. This continued whitewashing of Ancient Egypt is truly disgusting and tremendously insulting to Africans. Africans should create a film showing how real ancient Egyptians looked like and let this bullcrap rest once and for all. I’m Asian btw.