AboutJohn Shea Expertise Questions about Old World prehistoric archaeology (especially Stone Age) of Europe, Africa, and Western Asia, prehistoric human and hominid behavior, primitive technology, origin of modern humans, extinction of the Neandertals.
Experience
Publications Journal of Field Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science, Lithic Technology, Evolutionary Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Mitekufat HaEven (Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society), Paléorient, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, American Anthropologist, Geoarchaeology.
Education/Credentials Ph.D (Anthropology) Harvard University, 1991.
BA (Archaeology) Boston University, 1982.
Question QUESTION: What race were the Ancient Egyptians and are modern day Egyptians the same people as the Ancient Egyptians?
ANSWER: If by "race" you mean the categories Anglo-American culture uses, then "black" or "African", though as I am sure you know, there is a lot of variation in both so-called races.
When the ancient Egyptians painted themselves, they usually colored themselves a kind of reddish orange (men) or white/yellow (women).
They painted their neighbors to the south (Nubians) very dark brown/black and Libyans yellow, so they clearly differentiated themselves from other Africans on the basis of skin color.
Same people as in ancient times. Any biological differences are negligible, though you'd probably be able to get a precise estimate by comparing DNA.
Bottom line, would Tutankamun have had trouble getting served at a whites-only lunch counter in 1950s Alabama? Definitely.
Cheers,
John Shea IMAGE: jjs
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: So if the Ancient Egyptians weren't Black or White why do Afro-centrists and Euro-centrists insist they were? Can't anthropological or DNA evidence disprove their claims?
Dear Martin
This is precisely the problem. DNA and physical anthropology show Egyptians (ancient and modern) are exactly what you'd expect for people living
at the conjunction of Africa, Asia, and Europe. They don't fit neatly into such simple categories as African/European/Asian.
The "race-trouble" with Ancient Egyptians results from both sides are working with a typological "race" model of human biological variation that anthropologists abandoned decades ago.
An anthropologist who read a paper in which they asserted the objective reality of human races would be laughed out of the profession. Race is a social construct, not a biological phenomenon with any objective reality or analytical value.
There is more variation within all of the traditional races than there is between them. This is why anthropologists abandoned the race concept back in the 1950s.
However, "race", which is a social construct is still used in some social sciences (other than anthropology) and in historical studies. So, for example,
sociologists might survey black, white, and Asians about crime, politics, health, etc., because these categories have some predictive value when they are correlated with income, or
education, or places in which people live. Similarly, it would be pretty difficult to write about the Civil War or Apartheid without talking about "blacks" and
"whites". Most of the principals in the "Black Egyptians" debate are not anthropologists. Some are classical archaeologists, but most are either historians or non-anthropological social scientists, or not academics at all, but rather interested amateurs.
There is another dimension to this, though, and it has more to do with the development of "Afrocentric" curricula in America and the cultural meaning of "blackness" among African-Americans. If you want to know more about, this,look up the work of Mary Lefkowitz.
She's spent years tangling with the Afrocentrists and proponents of "black" Egyptians arguments. (You should also read the works of some of her opponents too.) Like a lot of debates with a strong political ideological component, this isn't one you can simply prove wrong with evidence. People just reject the evidence because they claim the source is biased.
Sincerely
John Shea
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