Who are the Egyptians??

[pristy]

I'm new to this forum, but I have been a student of Egyptian culture for many years now, I have been a lurker on Egypt Search for about 5 years and various websites and forums. I have even debated on youtube with various Euro-centrist. I've learned a great bit from Egypt Search alone, and this knowledge has gave me great strength and fire power to debate. I would like to THANK ALL OF YOU GUYS. You guys know WHO you are. The very few who do good sound research, DEEP research.

I created this post because I still have issues and debates on who are the Egyptians. With all of my own knowledge and my own research and studies, I have concluded the Egyptians were black Africans, maybe not west black Africans (no doubt some were), but indeed indigenous east Africans that came from the south. From culture to religion, dress style, all can be found in tribes from the Afar, Beja, and Oromo, or just on the African continent alone, (with no outside influence) etc. This is my own question to all of you guys. Just who do YOU think the Egyptians are?? (with your gut feeling, based on all of your research and studies) put aside of the DNA data just purely from the HEART. Peace my brothers and sisters! And BIG THANKS! to all of you.

[anansi]

Jul 6, 2011 19:54:23 GMT -5 pristy said:

I'm new to this forum, but I have been a student of Egyptian culture for many years now, I have been a lurker on Egypt Search for about 5 years and various websites and forums. I have even debated on youtube with various Euro-centrist. I've learned a great bit from Egypt Search alone, and this knowledge has gave me great strength and fire power to debate. I would like to THANK ALL OF YOU GUYS. You guys know WHO you are. The very few who do good sound research, DEEP research.

I created this post because I still have issues and debates on who are the Egyptians. With all of my own knowledge and my own research and studies, I have concluded the Egyptians were black Africans, maybe not west black Africans (no doubt some were), but indeed indigenous east Africans that came from the south. From culture to religion, dress style, all can be found in tribes from the Afar, Beja, and Oromo, or just on the African continent alone, (with no outside influence) etc. This is my own question to all of you guys. Just who do YOU think the Egyptians are?? (with your gut feeling, based on all of your research and studies) put aside of the DNA data just purely from the HEART. Peace my brothers and sisters! And BIG THANKS! to all of you.

Greetings Pristy and welcome with respect to your request about putting aside DNA and coming purely from the heart about who the ancient Kemetians were? well I have always felt they were blacks as per the Biblical table of nations go and any trip to a good Museum would confirmed that, but feelings can be faulty that's why research and DNA can either confirm those feelings or show them to be untrue. now respect to how Kemitians relate to other Africans please do not fall into the the trap of some anti African proponents of arbitrarily dividing up Africans into east and west as most west Africans came from the east or north of the Sahara at the time of the great drying out some 6kyrs B.C what's more contacts were being maintained by way of the nation of Yam and of the areas of influence to Kemet was the area around Congo and the Great lakes region of Africa.

[pristy]

Thanks! I respect your point of view brother.

[nebsen]

Welcome aboard Pristy !

I'll just say, that I somewhat agree with Anansi. Like I heard Dr. Mario Beatty describing the formation of ancient Kemet( Egypt ) as a " Commonwealth" of Africans from different parts of Africa esp. after the drying of the Sahara, forming the cultural & political unity that became ancient Kemet or The Nile Valley Civilization.

[truthteacher2007]

They were / are East Africans. Their erliest origins lay in East Africa. From there they migrated into the Sahara and then into the Nile Valley when it began to dry up. This was the core population that gave birth to the civilization. However, Egypt was not isolated from the outside world and the north of Egypt was open to migrations of people from Western Asia. I don't believe these were large scale populations as they were pastoral and as such their populations were very small. However, over time they were absorbed into the larger population and adopting the culture. I also tend to reject the term "Black African". Not all Africans have dark brown skin. So yes, the founding population was a dark skinned southern one, but there were also other Africans there who were of lighter complexion, and no, I don't mean mixted people, I mean native Africans. Therefore, even before and without mixture, the population of Egypt as a whole ranged in color from light to dark as can still be seen amongst people in the Sahara like theTuaregs today.

But if you want to keep it tight for the simple minded.... Let's put it this way, in 1950 Mississippi, they would have all been called nigger and made to drink at the colored water fountains etc, whether they were light, dark or mixed.

[anansi]

Another thing when engaging in discussion about the origin of the Kemites don't let your opponents bog you down with facial features or the exact shade of skin coloring that's like a dog chasing it"s tail it will never end, push the conversation in the area of cultural relatedness to other Africans I guarantee you they will be stomped but as long as you discuss "RACE" you are playing their game,with their oids and eds like nonsense terms Bantids,Nigroids,Medits. all kinds of ids ,apply bio-anthropology when you can be sure of what you are talking and where you access the info this area can easily be twisted above all take a multi disciplinary approach.

[sundiata]

The AE by and large were an ancient confederation of Africans from the Nile Valley and Central Sahara. It would not be unreasonable to assume SOME inflow from Asia, and SOME (very minor) may be attested early on but the dominant political group that emerged and came to found and dominate Egypt with their base at Abydos were clearly a local Afro-asiatic community with roots in the Horn of Africa. There was contact, and probably a large assimilation of Beja, Chadic, and Nilo-Saharan-speakers as well, though as Ehret implies there was immense multilingualism in the southern Egypto-Nubian area of the Nile Valley suggesting that the Ancient Egyptian language likely functioned as a lingua franca (more has been written about this possibility by The Explorer), around which the "ancient Egyptian" identity coalesced.

^Evidence of the above is also suggested in ancient Egyptian chronicles themselves, namely "The Tales of Sinhue", where it is implied that the peoples of Northern and Southern Egypt spoke different dialects..

[Dawn2Earth]

Egyptians are Egyptian, it's a country in the far corner of Africa, called the Arab Republic of Egypt, though there are different groups living there who may not all identify with Arabs, though Beduouin Arabs and people who identify as such have been and are to be found throughout, although plenty of people who may identify as such are actually of Egyptian ancestry.

Talking about a Confederation from the Central Sahara and Nile Valley is so past it's not even funny, with how they are with immigration from the rest of the Nile Valley.

Now, in Dynastic times I do think they were basically Central Sahara, Nile Valley, and Horners influenced not necissarily in that order, they say so themselves (or so I hear). But they've been in significant contact with the rest of the M.E. in terms of housing people from there since Middle Kingdom times so..

I say it's best viewed as they were who they were.

By the way @ Brada, and not that disagree with that simple geographic fact, but don't you see the "in Africa" included as being perhaps a tad bit reactive / polemic / startin stuff up or did you add this purposely?

[nebsen]

Dawn2earth,

Could you clarify your statement," talking about a Confederation from Central Sahara & Nile Valley is so past it's not even funny." I would like to partake of your deep knowledge & wisdom concerning these matters.

[sundiata]

Jul 10, 2011 9:27:53 GMT -5 Dawn2Earth said:

Talking about a Confederation from the Central Sahara and Nile Valley is so past it's not even funny, with how they are with immigration from the rest of the Nile Valley.

Where else do you suppose they came from?

I say it's best viewed as they were who they were.

Far from being profound, this statement resolves nothing. Saying "I am what I am" for example is not a description of who you are or where you came from (your composition). It takes a lot more thought to build a comprehensive narrative which can lead one to draw conclusions beyond the mere "they were who they were" cop-out.

[pristy]

Jul 7, 2011 22:56:52 GMT -5 anansi said:

Another thing when engaging in discussion about the origin of the Kemites don't let your opponents bog you down with facial features or the exact shade of skin coloring that's like a dog chasing it"s tail it will never end, push the conversation in the area of cultural relatedness to other Africans I guarantee you they will be stomped but as long as you discuss "RACE" you are playing their game,with their oids and eds like nonsense terms Bantids,Nigroids,Medits. all kinds of ids ,apply bio-anthropology when you can be sure of what you are talking and where you access the info this area can easily be twisted above all take a multi disciplinary approach.

I have learned this the hard way, one way or another, not to engage in all the "iods" crap, because its just useless terms, that have been debunked. I do agree 100% to debate conversations with cultural relatedness, because most of time "they" have no answers for the similarities the Egyptians shared with people all over the African continent. Peace

[pristy]

Jul 9, 2011 14:10:52 GMT -5 sundiata said:

The AE by and large were an ancient confederation of Africans from the Nile Valley and Central Sahara. It would not be unreasonable to assume SOME inflow from Asia, and SOME (very minor) may be attested early on but the dominant political group that emerged and came to found and dominate Egypt with their base at Abydos were clearly a local Afro-asiatic community with roots in the Horn of Africa. There was contact, and probably a large assimilation of Beja, Chadic, and Nilo-Saharan-speakers as well, though as Ehret implies there was immense multilingualism in the southern Egypto-Nubian area of the Nile Valley suggesting that the Ancient Egyptian language likely functioned as a lingua franca (more has been written about this possibility by The Explorer), around which the "ancient Egyptian" identity coalesced.

^Evidence of the above is also suggested in ancient Egyptian chronicles themselves, namely "The Tales of Sinhue", where it is implied that the peoples of Northern and Southern Egypt spoke different dialects..

I never fully read the The Tale of Sinhue, (adds to list of literature to read) but I never considered that the Egyptians from the south spoke a with a different tongue than the north. Would you say or suggest some words in their language was pronouned differently? Although they still spoke the same language.

[Dawn2Earth]

Jul 10, 2011 17:20:17 GMT -5 sundiata said:

Jul 10, 2011 9:27:53 GMT -5 Dawn2Earth said:

Talking about a Confederation from the Central Sahara and Nile Valley is so past it's not even funny, with how they are with immigration from the rest of the Nile Valley.

Where else do you suppose they came from?

Jul 10, 2011 16:04:53 GMT -5 nebsen said:

Dawn2earth,

Could you clarify your statement," talking about a Confederation from Central Sahara & Nile Valley is so past it's not even funny." I would like to partake of your deep knowledge & wisdom concerning these matters.

It's that most in Lower Egypt (which is where the great majority of people reside) resemble those from an area stretching from the Oman to Turkey today. -> See thread:

The people of Egypt

I really would appreciate you guys's great knowledge and input to small amount there.

And here:

The Dynastic Kemetian phenotype.

...If you're not scared of fair open and honest discussion of the truth, as I am not....

[sundiata]

^Demographics change and so do phenotypes. In antiquity most people resided in the South and resembled the Sudanese, not people stretching from "Oman to Turkey".

As the topic is beaten to death I'll pass on traveling to other obscure forums to discuss an issue that isn't that important to me.

Pristy wrote:

I never fully read the The Tale of Sinhue, (adds to list of literature to read) but I never considered that the Egyptians from the south spoke a with a different tongue than the north. Would you say or suggest some words in their language was pronouned differently? Although they still spoke the same language.

It wasn't literally written that they spoke different languages but stated that a delta man would find his speech unintelligible to a man from Elephantine. This could imply that different languages were spoken or simply as you say, different dialects within the same language. Probably similar to how it could be difficult to understand some hardcore southern English in the states.

[Dawn2Earth]

^Dang, attempt to come off as contraversial and provocative failed, lol.

Nah, I'm where you're at on the subject now, but my invite was sincere as those are simply non-polemics comprehensive repositories (threads on this forum by the way) for anyone who wanted to add. You should breeze by there to see what they're about and so if you've anything to add.