1-Basic Database of Nile Valley Studies

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African and Nile Valley Diversity Gallery - 1[/b
egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/post/14787

Gallery of modern Egyptians
egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/thread/3488/black-egyptian-diversity-picture-gallery

Scholar Jablonski on skin color diversity in Africa - She notes that Africans have
the most skin color diversity :- quote
"more genetic diversity than all the rest of the world's people put together. This diversity is also reflected in skin pigmentation. Africans are not uniform or uniformly dark in their skin color. High levels of skin color diversity exist between different populations and also within most sub-Saharan African groups.6 This variation illustrates the complex interactions of evolutionary forces that contribute to patterns of variation in skin color at any point in time."
--N. Jablonski 2012. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color























































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Note:
"Negroid" or "black" includes people with not only broad noses and full lips
BUT ALSO people with narrow noses, thin lips and loose/wavy hair, AND
light brown skin. They are all "negroid" variants, and do not need any "race mix"
to explain why. Africans are the most diverse phenotypically. The term "tropical
African" or Africoid gives a better picture of diversity than older outdated terms, and said
Africans can be NON sub-Saharan/Supra-Saharan or "sub-Saharan." They are not static people
huddled behind any "sub-Saharan" or climate barrier, they can live in the tropic zone
and OUTSIDE the tropic zone. That is the diversity of Africa and Africans.

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African and Nile Valley Diversity Gallery2 - 2
egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/post/14999

Note:
"Negroid" or "black" includes people with not only broad noses and full lips
BUT ALSO people with narrow noses, thin lips and loose/wavy hair, AND
light brown skin. They are all "negroid" variants, and do not need any "race mix"
to explain why. Africans are the most diverse phenotypically. The term "tropical
African" or Africoid gives a better picture of diversity than older outdated terms, and said
Africans can be NON sub-Saharan/Supra-Saharan or "sub-Saharan." They are not static people
huddled behind any "sub-Saharan" or climate barrier, they can live in the tropic zone
and OUTSIDE the tropic zone. That is the diversity of Africa and Africans.

Scholar S. Keita on African diversity- "Africoid" - quote:

"There is little demarcation between the predynastics and tropical series and even the early southern dynastic series. Definite trends are discernible in the analyses. This broadly shared "southern" metric pattern, along with the other mentioned characteristics to a greater or lesser degree, might be better described by the term Africoid, by definition connoting a tropical African microclade, microadaptation, and patristic affinity, thereby avoiding the nonevolutionary term "Negroid" and allowing for variation both real and conceptual."
--S.O.Y. KEITA, 1990. "Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa", AJPA 83:35-48 (1990)]


















































































Contrary to uninformed Arabist claims or notions, credible modern scholarship shows that Nubian peoples did not begin and were not confined somewhere "down south" beyond the First Cataract in today's Sudan. Such peoples were well in place WITHIN Egypt long before the last phase New Kingdom. Distinctive Nubian cultural elements such as cemeteries and artifacts appear far north such as at Armant and Hierakonpolis.

The traditional area known as "Nubia" in some eras actually included a solid slice of modern Upper Egypt including Aswan. Nubians were diverse: from peasant farmers, to soldiers to pharaohs, including some members of the 12th Dynasty, one of Egypt's greatest, credible Egyptologists like Frank Yurco (1989) show. The ethnic group most related to ancient Egyptians was Nubians multiple scholars demonstrate (Yurco 1989, Godde 2009, et al), not invading Arab latecomers.




black copts

[omg]https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHpDUHkCiiMVt63QSnyYL64SgAZUkp_nDvYjYDNDuIr7oKTa4XCcnDjgXHi5Jtkc6BRxEKETQeEXHzPxvSLMxQV3CzvFb7MBOdJUPBRAC_EknGlkeW21Oqx2dWKP_kXY7jiZhdKyz64g_G-eJvKUJaR9DYPguSOOLoh_WOInoog_ylNi6kLKNMCfNkNQ/s475/begy_black_copt2.jpg[/img]

blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdVWEK3fSKmoLZqiaFH3cBzexZtH1x1Nv3XX-E5ja07ZLskh4b-m3F7P7NiThRXBboGnjHwh-3QDN-d3q_Fr8pTE6paJI7SMG5xPSNviZMnbgZeZWQe8N6xRIKgc4HuREgaT8e0Wjb-hfZmbQYhLESzXUh4cDGJklrgoJY9oRgaytVFJA1GHORhSe5Ug/s434/begy_modern_egyptian11.jpg
Modern Egyptian "Baladi" Son of the Soil..

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Recent studies confirm other scholarship that some artifacts of Predynastic Egypt show close links with nearby sister African cultures in the Sudan region, (including religious links) rather than the alleged universal "mother goddess" models of various Indo-Europeans.


QUOTE:
"In 1962, Peter Ucko wrote his landmark work, The Interpretation of Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Figurines, challenging and permanently changing the prevailing view of prehistoric figurines as representations of a universal great mother goddess. His work focused on the Predynastic figurines of Egypt, and concluded that there was nothing divine about them. They were probably dolls, ancestor figures, talismanic pregnancy aids, tools for sex instruction and puberty rites, twin substitutes in graves and concubine grave figurines. Since then, this group of figurines has received minimal attention. Using Ucko’s four-stage methodology, this study more closely examines these figurines in the context of Ancient Egyptian culture and religion, with specific attention to the contemporary Sudanese religious beliefs and practices, which may share roots with Predynastic Egyptian culture. This study concludes that some Dynastic religious beliefs and iconography relating to female deities can be recognised in many of these figurines, and can be traced back to prehistoric Nilotic rituals."
--Relke 2011. The Predynastic Dancing Egyptian Figurine. Journal of Religion in Africa, Volume 41, Issue 4, pages 396 - 426


OTHER SCHOLARSHIP CONFIRMS THE SAME

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EGYPT'S PIONEERING DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING- NON-ALPHABETICAL AND ALPHABETICAL





Egypt a pioneer of writing before Mesopotamia
"The earliest known Sumerian writings date back to 3000BC while the
German team's find shows that Abydos inscriptions date to 3400BC. The
first Pharaonic dynasty began in 2920BC with King Menes. The earliest
known writing in Dynasty Zero is much earlier than the oldest writing
discovered in Mesopotamia."
--Gaballa Ali Gaballa, Secretary-General of the
Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities: 1999. IN: Nevine El-Aref, "Did writing originate
in Egypt?" Al-Ahram Weekly: 1 - 7 April 1999, Issue No. 423


Certain writing forms in Mesopotamia and only understandable from
Egyptian perspective

"[Archaeologist] Dreyer asserted that the obsidian used to make this
bowl came from Ethiopia suggesting significant cultural contacts among
Nile Valley populations. He concluded his presentation by noting
similarities between specific Egyptian and Mesopotamian objects and
suggesting that perhaps there is an initial influence of Egyptian writing on
Mesopotamia because there are signs on Mesopotamian objects that are
only "readable" from the standpoint of the Egyptian language, but not the
Mesopotamian language."
-- German archaeologist Gunther Dreyer. 2000. "Beginnings of Writing
in Ancient Egypt" IN: - "Recent Finds in Predynastic Egypt." ANKH
Journal 8/9: 1999-2000.




Africa's Nile Valley shares in creation of the historic alphabet

"Discoveries by Gunter Dreyer of the German Archaeological Institute
suggest that the origin of Egyptian writing needs to be reexamined,
offering the possibility that the idea of writing was developed in Egypt
several centuries before it occurred in the Near East. Inscriptions from
hundreds of pots and labels found at the royal cemetery at Abydos show
some hieroglyphic writing as far back as 3400 BCE, with most occurring
about 3200 BCE. Sumerian writing seems to have begun about 3100 BCE.
The Egyptians formed and used writing in a different way than the Asians.
The linguistic pictographs of Sumer were rudimentary were used primarily
used for commerce. Those of Egypt were more representational of real
objects and were primarily employed to identify kings, tombs and the like.

A remarkable find involving early experiments with alphabetic writing in
Egypt has been recently made by John C. Darnell, an Egyptologist at Yale
University, and his wife Deborah. Inscriptions discovered in the limestone
cliffs on an ancient road between Thebes and Abydos, a route once heavily
traveled by Asian traders and mercenaries in the Egyptian desert, are in a
Semitic script with Egyptian influences. Dated between 1900 and 1000
BCE, they are two or three centuries older than previous evidence of an
alphabet in the Semitic-speaking territory of the Sinai Peninsula or in the
Syria-Palestine region occupied by the Canaanites. While there have
always been indications that Semites were inventors of the alphabet,
researchers had heretofore assumed that it was developed in their own
lands by borrowing and simplifying Egyptian hieroglyphs. Instead
Darnell's discovery now suggests that, working with Semitic speakers in
Egypt, native scribes simplified formal pictographic Egyptian writing and
modified the symbols into an early alphabet using a semi-cursive form
commonly used in the Middle Kingdom."

--Martin Isler (2001). Sticks, stones, and shadows: building the Egyptian
pyramids. Univ of Oklahoma PRess. p. 56



The Egyptian Western Desert- location of Egyptian military scripts
adopted by both Egyptian scribes and Semitic speakers into alphabetic forms
www.codex99.com/typography/11.html


"However, now with the recovery of alphabetic writing from the
Egyptian Western Desert, the fairly high degree of literacy in Egyptian
(knowledge of hieratic, and a hybrid of hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts as
well) presumed by these texts, and the well known Asiatic pres-ence
within Egypt proper from the early Dynastic periods onwards, strongly
suggest that it is to Egypt itself that we must look for the geographi-cal
home of alphabetic writing. More specifically, the Bebi inscription and its
immediate neighbors offer tantalizing clues about the context in which
Semitic-speaking Asiatics adopted and adapted certain aspects of the
Egyptian writing system for the needs of their own language(s). The
Egyptian military, known both to have employed Asiatics (as the Bebi
inscription so wonderfully attests) and to have included scribes, would
provide one likely context in which Western Asiatic Semitic language
speakers could have learned and eventually adapted the Egyptian writing
system. Indeed, the prominence of lapidary hieratic, the form of hieratic
utilized by army scribes, as models for alphabetic forms at the Wadi el-Hõl
(and at Serabit).."
--J. Darnell et al. 2005. Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi
el-Hol: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western
Desert of Egypt, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 2005.




Egyptian writing system developed independently of Mesopotamia both as to
designs and as to uses of writing. QUOTE:

""It is often assumed that Egyptian writing was invented under a stimulus of the
Mesopotamian writing system, developed in the late fourth millennium BC, that might
have come at the time of the short-lived Uruk Culture expansion into Syria. A variety of
artistic and architectural evidence for contact between Mesopotamia and late Predynastic
Egypt has been found, but none of it can be dated precisely in relation to Tomb U-j.
Moreover, **the Egyptian writing system is different from the Mesopotamian and must
have been developed independently...

A second point *of contrast with Mesopotamia* is in uses of writing. The earliest
Egyptian writing consists of inscribed tags, ink notations on pottery, again principally
from the royal cemetery at Abydos, and hieroglyphs incorporated into artistic
compositions, of which the chief clear examples are such pieces as the *Narmer Palette,*
which is probably more than a century later than Tomb U-j. Thus, while administrative
uses of writing appear to have come at the beginning—examples from the Abydos tombs
include such notations as “produce of Lower Egypt”—the system was integrated fully
into pictorial representation. An intermediate, emblematic mode of representation in
which symbols, including hieroglyphs, were shown in action also evolved before the 1st
Dynasty. These three modes together formed a powerful artistic complex that endured as
long as Egyptian civilization."

--Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and
Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999)

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Genotypes and phenotypes in ancient populations..
Some studies using the cold Russian region turn up various tropical or African featured types..





misc pics


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Some Late period "tail-end" Egyptians distinct from earlier typical
Egyptian samples indicating the presence of outside/foreign influences
in the closing stages of the Dynastic era.

"The other dramatic result seen in Table 3 is that the Late Period Group is easily defined morphologically, and stands as a distinct cluster apart from the other Egyptian populations studied. Other studies of Egyptian cranial variation have frequently placed this series as standing apart from ‘Africans’ as a whole (Keita 1995). In his classic study of 17 global cranial series, Howells (1973) found that this population clustered with tropical Africans or northern Europeans depending on the clustering analysis technique used, and similarity to Aegean populations has also been described (Musgrave and Evans 1980). The Late Period sample has been described as either a Saite population from the Delta area or as an intrusive Greek population living in Egypt (Berry et al. 1967). Further research comparing this sample to other Saite and Greek samples is required to locate the geographic origin of this group- this study merely shows that it is distinct from the preceding populations."
--Zakrzewski (2002)Exploring Migration and Population Boundaries in Ancient Egypt: A Craniometric Case Study

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In numerous venues some writers try to make out as of the Kushite kingdom of Meroe was far distant from Egypt- somewhere "down south" in the Sudan. But in fact, Meroe covered not only the Sudan but a fair slice of southern Egypt as well, including important historical areas now submerged by the Aswan High Dam’s Lake Nasser. Meroe’s empire stretched distinctly north into Egypt, controlling part of the Aswan zone, and key sites such as Philae and Abu Simbel. In later eras it shifted further south including the Geizara and Sennar on the Blue Nile south of Khartoum and down Kosti in today’s Sudan, approaching the borders of Ethiopia. This northern border at Aswan was officially recognized by the Greek rulers of Ptolemaic Egypt, who also sought regional influence. Ptolemaic and Meroitic rulers however sometimes collaborated together on religious observance. Both Meroitic and Ptolemaic priests for example held ceremonies at the Temple of Isis in southern Egypt.





Meroitic border extended north into Egypt-Quote:
"The agreed-upon boundary between the Kingdom of Meroe and that of Ptolemaic Egypt was at Aswan, but the region, anciently termed the Dodeckaschoinos, stretching for about 90 miles from Aswan as far as Hiera Sykaminos (Maharraqa) to the south, became a condominium of sorts in which both Ptolemaic and Meroitic interests intersected. The Temple of Isis on the island of Philae were to become the most important religious and pilgrimage sites for subjects of both kingdoms, and its priesthoods were to dominate the region until the establishment of Christianity."
--Robert Bianchi 2004. Daily Life of the Nubians. p 230-234

Meroe kingdom overlaps both Egypt and Sudan, not simply the Sudan- Quote "From the time of the expulsion of the twenty-fifth dynasty from Egypt Nubia became an independent and important kingdom.. It was known as the Meroitic empire, after its capital Meroe.. The area where Nubia and Egypt bordered on each other was Lower Nubia, a zone between the first and second cataract, that is, between the southern Egyptian border at Elephantine/Syene (today Aswan) and near the modern-day Wadi Halfa. This area is known as the 30-mile district (Triakontaschoinos), the northern part of which, the 12-mile district (Dodekaschoinos)..“-- Gunther Hoibi, 2001. A History of the Ptolemaic Empire

"With the emergence of a strong kingdom at Meroe, centered in Upper Nubia, which already at the beginning of the second century BC was actively engaged in the affairs of Upper Egypt, Lower Nubia could not have remained underdeveloped.. Ptolemaic rule over Lower Egypt had probably ceased by the middle or end of the second century BC. Population activities again increased throughout Lower Nubia, but under Meriotic rather than Ptolemaic rule."
--Katja Mueller. 2006. Settlements of the Ptolemies

Meroitic influence south to Upper Nile & beyond quote:
‘What seems to be clear, from the existing evidence, is that the southern boundary of the Meroitic State was in the region of Sennar on the Blue Nile, with the incorporation of the Gezira into the network of power relations..” --Brass 2014. The Southern Frontier of the Meroitic State. Afr Archaeol Rev, 32

“The most recent discoveries of datable sites and objects south of Khartoum suggest the presence of Napatans and Meroites along the Blue and White Niles, probably south of Kosti .. So it seems that the White Nile was the route of penetration of the Kushites to these southern regions and the interior of Central Africa."
--Steffen Wenig (1992). Studien zum antiken Sudan.14. bis 19. 367-368- September 1992 . IN: Meroitica, v15, 1999

"The Merioites did not slavishly adopt Egyptian cultural traits.. Meroitic culture is a distinct entity in itself. The Meroites demonstrated their linguistic independence in retaining their own language, which was first committed to writing in the early second century BCE.. the nature of the script was very different, being alphabetic rather than hieroglyphic..“ --K. Shillingford 2004. Encyclopedia of African History. 96

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Scientific studies show that one of the oldest modern human remains
from Egypt, at Nazlet Khater, demonstrates strong sub-Saharan affinities,
and parts of early Egypt and Sudan also shows sub-Saharan affinities
through the regional 'Nubian complex' of culture and lithic technology.
QUOTE:


"The morphometric affinities of the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet
Khater, Upper Egypt are examined using multivariate statistical
procedures.. The results indicate a strong association between some of the
sub-Saharan Middle Stone Age (MSA) specimens, and the Nazlet Khater
mandible. Furthermore, the results suggest that variability between African
populations during the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods was more
pronounced than the range of variability observed among recent African
and Levantine populations."
--PINHASI Ron, SEMAL Patrick (2000). The position of the Nazlet
Khater specimen among prehistoric and modern African and Levantine
populations. Jrl Hum Evo. 2000, vol. 39, no3, pp. 269-288 )

"..Middle Paleolithic and the transition to the Upper Paleolithic in the
Lower Nile Valley are described... the Middle Paleolithic or, more
appropriately, Middle Stone Age of this region starts with the arrival of
new populations from sub-Saharan Africa, as evidenced by the nature of
the Early to Middle Stone Age transition in stratified sites. Throughout the
late Middle Pleistocene technological change occurs leading to the
establishment of the Nubian Complex by the onset of the Upper
Pleistocene." --Van Peer, P. Did middle stone age moderns of sub-Saharan
African descent trigger an upper paleolithic revolution in the lower nile
valley? Anthro. V42,n3, 215-225

"Nazlet Khater man was the earliest modern human skeleton found near
Luxor, in 1980. The remains was dated from between 35,000 and
30,000 years ago. The report regarding the racial affinity of this skeleton
concludes: "Strong alveolar prognathism combined with fossa
praenasalis in an African skull is suggestive of Negroid morphology [form
& structure]. The radio-humeral index of Nazlet Khater is practically the
same as the mean of Taforalt (76.6). According to Ferembach (1965) this
value is near to the Negroid average."
--Thoma A., Morphology and affinities of the Nazlet Khater man, Jrnl of
Human Evolution, vol 13, 1984.

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Pre-ASkumite civilization in Ethiopia was well in place- agriculture, monumental building etc etc with some
similarities to Sudanic elements, and ongoing long before Sabaean influences showed up.



"Evidently the arrival of Sabaean influences does not represent the beginning of Ethiopian civilisation. For a long time different peoples had been interacting through population movements, warfare, trade and intermarriage in the Ethiopian region, resulting in a predominance of peoples speaking languages of the Afro-Asiatic family. The main branches represented were the Cushitic and the Semitic. Semiticized Agaw peoples are thought to have migrated from south-eastern Eritrea possibly as early as 2000BC, bringing their `proto-Ethiopic' language, ancestor of Ge`ez and the other Ethiopian Semitic languages, with them; and these and other groups had already developed specific cultural and linguistic identities by the time any Sabaean influences arrived.

Features such as dressed stone building, writing and iron-working may have been introduced by Sabaeans, but words for `plough' and other agricultural vocabulary are apparently of Agaw origin in Ethiopian Semitic languages, indicating that the techniques of food-production were not one of the Arabian imports. Clark (1988) even suggests that wheat, barley, and the plough may have been introduced from Egypt via Punt.

Some of the graffiti found in eastern Eritrea include names apparently neither South Arabian nor Ethiopian, perhaps reflecting the continued existence of some older ethnic groups in the same cultural matrix. Various stone-age sites and rock-paintings attest to these early Ethiopians in Eritrea and Tigray. At Matara and Yeha, for example, archaeologists have distinguished phases represented by pottery types which seem to owe nothing to South Arabia, but do have some Sudanese affinities. The Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Fattovich, who has particularly interested himself in this study, has suggested that the pre-Aksumite culture might owe something to Nubia, specifically to C— group/Kerma influences, and later on to Meroë/Alodia (Fattovich 1977, 1978, 1989).

Worsening ecological conditions in the savanna/Sahel belt might have induced certain peoples to move from plains and lowlands up to the plateau in the second half of the second millenium BC (Clark 1976), bringing with them certain cultural traditions...

Extremely interesting results have lately come from work in the Gash Delta on the Ethiopo-Sudanese borderland, indicating the existence of a complex society there in the late 3rd-early 2nd millenium BC (Fattovich 1989: 21); possibly the location of the *land of Punt* there reinforces this suggestion (Kitchen 1971; Fattovich 1988: 2, 7). It seems that the new discoveries are of major importance to an understanding of the dynamics of state formation in the Ethiopian highlands..."

The altars, inscriptions, stelae, temples, secular structures, tombs and other material left by the Sabaean-influenced Ethiopian population occur in considerable numbers even from the few excavated sites; those attributed to the Sabaeans themselves occur more rarely.


"Recent work by Italian archaeologists in the Kassala region, noted by Fattovich (1988), has hinted that certain aspects of Aksumite culture may have come from the western lowlands even before this. Fattovich observed features on pre-Aksumite pottery resembling those on pottery of the Sudanese peoples labelled by archaeologists Kerma and C— group, and suggested that even such cultural features as the stelae, so characteristic of later Ethiopian funerary customs, might perhaps have derived from early Sudanese prototypes. Some of these features date back to the late 3rd and early 2nd millenia BC, and the discovery of evidence of fairly complex societies in the region at this early date may suggest, to quote Fattovich, "a more complex reconstruction of state formation in Northern Ethiopia"

Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon in this respect is that by around the middle of the first millenium BC — a date cautiously suggested, using palaeographical information (Pirenne 1956; Drewes 1962: 91), but possibly rather too late in view of new discoveries in the Yemen (Fattovich 1989: 16-17) which may even push it back to the eighth century BC — some sort of contact, apparently quite close, seems to have been maintained between Ethiopia and South Arabia. This developed to such an extent that in not a few places in Ethiopia the remains of certain mainly religious or funerary installations, some of major importance, with an unmistakeable South Arabian appearance in many details, have been excavated. Among the sites are Hawelti-Melazo, near Aksum (de Contenson 1961ii), the famous temple and other buildings and tombs at Yeha (Anfray 1973ii), the early levels at Matara (Anfray 1967), and the sites at Seglamien (Ricci and Fattovich 1984-6), Addi Galamo, Feqya, Addi Grameten and Kaskase, to name only the better-known ones. Fattovich (1989: 4-5) comments on many of these and has been able to attribute some ninety sites altogether to the pre-Aksumite period...

Inscriptions found at some of these sites include the names of persons bearing the traditional South Arabian title of mukarrib, apparently indicating a ruler with something of a priest-king status, not otherwise known in Ethiopia (Caquot and Drewes 1955). Others have the title of king, mlkn (Schneider 1961; 1973). Evidently the pre-Aksumite Sabaean-influenced cultural province did not consist merely of a few briefly-occupied staging posts, but was a wide-spread and well-established phenomenon.

Until relatively recently South Arabian artefacts found in Ethiopia were interpreted as the material signs left behind by a superior colonial occupation force, with political supremacy over the indigenes — an interpretation still maintained by Michels (1988). But further study has now suggested that very likely, by the time the inscriptions were produced, the majority of the material in fact represented the civilisation of the Ethiopians themselves. Nevertheless, a certain amount of contact with South Arabia is very apparent, and had resulted in the adoption of a number of cultural traits (Schneider 1973; 1976).

It appears that there were undoubtedly some South Arabian immigrants in Ethiopia in the mid-first millenium BC, but there is (unless the interpretation of Michels is accepted) no sure indication that they were politically dominant.

The sites chosen by them may be related to their relative ease of access to the Red Sea coast. Arthur Irvine (1977) and others have regarded sympathetically the suggestion that the inscriptions which testify to Sabaean presence in Ethiopia may have been set up by colonists around the time of the Sabaean ruler Karibil Watar in the late fourth century BC; but the dating is very uncertain, as noted above. They may have been military or trading colonists, living in some sort of symbiosis with the local Ethiopian population, perhaps under a species of treaty-status....

It seems that the pre-Aksumite society on the Tigray plateau, centred in the Aksum/Yeha region but extending from Tekondo in the north to Enderta in the south (Schneider 1973: 389), had achieved state level, and that the major entity came to be called D`MT (Di`amat, Damot?), as appears in the regal title `mukarrib of Da`mot and Saba'.[/b] The name may survive in the Aksumite titulature as Tiamo/Tsiyamo (Ch. 7: 5). Its rulers, kings and mukarribs, by including the name Saba in their titles, appear to have expressly claimed control over the resident Sabaeans in their country; actual Sabaean presence is assumed at Matara, Yeha and Hawelti-Melazo according to present information (Schneider 1973: 388).

"The Sabaeans in Ethiopia appear, from the use of certain place-names like Marib in their inscriptions, to have kept in contact with their own country, and indeed the purpose of their presence may well have been to maintain and develop links across the sea to the profit of South Arabia's trading network.

Naturally, such an arrangement would have worked also to the benefit of the indigenous Ethiopian rulers, who employed the titles mukarrib and mlkn at first, and nagashi (najashi) or negus later; no pre-Aksumite najashi or negus is known.


The inscriptions dating from this period in Ethiopia are apparently written in two languages, pure Sabaean and another language with certain aspects found later in Ge`ez (Schneider 1976). All the royal inscriptions are in this second, presumably Ethiopian, language. A number of different tribes and families seem to be mentioned by the inscriptions of this period, but there is no evidence to show whether any of these groups lasted into the Aksumite period.

Only the word YG`DYN, man of Yeg`az, might hint that the Ge`ez or Agazyan tribe was established so early, though the particular inscription which mentions it is written in the South Arabian rather than the Ethiopian language (Schneider 1961). Some of the other apparently tribal names also occur in both groups of inscriptions. The usual way of referring to someone in the inscriptions is `N. of the family N. of the tribe N.', possibly also reflected later by the Aksumite `Bisi'-title; `king N. man of the tribe/clan (?) N.' (Ch. 7: 5).


It seems that these `inscriptional' Sabaeans did not remain more than a century or so — or perhaps even only a few decades — as a separate and identifiable people. Possibly their presence was connected to a contemporary efflorescence of Saba on the other side of the Red Sea. Their influence was only in a limited geographical area, affecting the autochthonous population in that area to a greater or lesser degree. Such influences as did remain after their departure or assimilation fused with the local cultural background, and contributed to the ensemble of traits which constituted Ethiopian civilisation in the rest of the pre-Aksumite period."

--Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity. Stuart Munro-Hay. 1991

[zarahan]

Several studies of Y-chromosome DNA in Egypt show clustering with African groups and do not
support sweeping claims of mass migration into ancient Kemet from Middle Eastern outsiders



QUOTE:

"The dominant pattern in Egypt is M35/M78, an African derived lineage with highest frequencies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The samples from Egypt are almost as diverse as those of the Horn. Some samples have high frequencies of the ancient M60 marker (haplotype B), but the plurality of studies show M35 lineages as predominating. Traces of M2 are found as they are in the Horn. In Egypt the M35 are also primarily M35/M78 with some M35/M81. Egyptian samples show varying frequencies of M89 derivatives and in one sample these actually are the majority; this is not surprising given its locale and the settlement of people from the Near East during the Islamic period..”

It is important to reiterate that the origin of M35 is in East Africa.. The overall pattern is consistent with a model of the first speakers of Afro-Asiatic having emerged in or near the Horn of Africa or in the Nile Valley. . The evidence is also consistent with the biohistorical Africanity of the base populations of the Horn, Maghreb and Nile valley. These genetic data give population profiles that clearly indicate males of African origin, as opposed to being of Asian or European descent. It is important to say that being biogeographical African does not indicate any specific set of skin colors, hair type or facail features; the populations were constantly subject to the forces of microevolutionary mechanisms. The E haplogroup is clearly African in origin as are A and B..

The genetic data do not support a model of demic diffusion by farmers fro the Levant to explain the Neolithic in northern or eastern Africa, or the spread of Afro-Asiatic languages into Africa..

It is of interest that the M35 and M2 lineages are united by a mutation – the PN2 transition. This PN2 clade originated in East Africa, where various populations have a notable frequency of its underived state. This would suggest that an ancient population in east Africa, or more correctly its males, form the basis of the ancestors of all African upper Paleolithic populations, and subsequent descendants in the present day.”

-S. Keita, 2008, “Geography, selected Afro-Asiatic families, and Y chromosome lineage variation.” pg 3-16. IN: Bengston, John D. (ed.), In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology. 2008.

[zarahan]

Recent Scholars studying Egypt and Nubia show that the two peoples, while varying, shared
several cultural and material commonalities, undermining older, simplistic, separationist 'racial' theories



QUOTE:
"Any Egyptian evidence in Nubia was seen as an import or as cultural influence, while any Nubian evidence in Upper Egypt was viewed as the sporadic presence of foreign people within Egyptian territory.In the last few years, new research on the subject, particularly from a Nubian point of view, shows that the interaction between the two cultures was much more complex than previously thought, affecting the time, space and nature of the interaction (Gatto & Tiraterra 1996; Gatto 2000, 2003a, 2003b). The Aswan area was probably never a real borderline, at least not until the New Kingdom. Of particular importance in this perspective is the area between Armant and Dehmit, south of the First Cataract, as well as the surrounding deserts, and for the availability of data, more specifically the Western Desert.

The data recently collected and a new interpretation of available information are bringing to light a stable and long-term interaction between Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia that has to be seen in a very different perspective. The two regions, and so their cultural entities, are not in antithesis to one another, but in the Predynastic period are still the expression of the same cultural tradition, with strong regional variations, particularly in the last part of the 4th millennium BC. Some of them are clearly connected with the major cultural and political changes of Egypt."

(-- Maria Carmela GATTO (British Museum, London) 2002. "At the Origin of the Egyptian Civilisation: Reconsidering the Relationship between Egypt and Nubia in the Pre- and Protodynastic Periods." Conférence internationale / International Conference L'Egypte pré- et protodynastique. Les origines de l'Etat Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt. Origin of the State. Toulouse (France) - 5-8 sept. 2005)




QUOTE:
“the XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As
expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture
and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far
outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of
this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of
Kush), except such a s came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the
Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract.

Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into
Egyptian territory? Because the Egyptian rulers of Nubian ancestry had become
Egyptians culturally; as pharaohs, they exhibited typical Egyptian attitudes and
adopted typical Egyptian policies."
- (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)

[zarahan]

Many modern Egyptologists now admit clear correlations between
ancient Egyptians and African communities, chiefdoms and states.

"The Egyptian concept of kingship, so akin to African models, seems
very different to that held in the ancient Near East."

"There is a relative abundance of ancient materials relevant to contact
and influence, as well as striking correlations between ancient Egyptian
civilization and the ethnography of recent and current sub-Saharan communities,
chiefdoms and states."

--David O'Connor, Andrew Reid 2007. Ancient Egypt in Africa

[zarahan]

"Limb length proportions in males from Maadi and Merimde group them
with African rather than European populations. Mean femur length in
males from Maadi was similar to that recorded at Byblos and the early
Bronze Age male from Kabri, but mean tibia length in Maadi males was
6.9cm longer than that at Byblos. At Merimde both bones were longer
than at the other sites shown, but again, the tibia was longer proportionate
to femurs than at Byblos (Fig 6.2), reinforcing the impression of an
African rather than Levantine affinity.“

-- Smith, P. (2002) The palaeo-biological evidence for admix.. In: Egypt &
the Levant.. Leicester Univ. 118-128


"The biological characteristics of modern
Egyptians show a north-south cline, reflecting
their geographic location between sub-Saharan
Africa and the Levant. This is expressed in DNA,
blood groups, serum proteins and genetic
disorders (Filon 1996; Hammer et al. 1998; Krings
et al. 1999). They can also be expressed in
phenotypic characteristics that can be identified
in teeth and bones (Crichton 1966; Froment 1992;
Keita 1996). These characteristics include head
form, facial and nasal characteristics, jaw
relationships, tooth size, morphology and
upper/lower limb proportions. In all these
features, Modern Egyptians resemble Sub-Saharan
Africans (Howells 1989, Keita 1995)."

-- Smith, P. (2002) The palaeo-biological
evidence for admixture between populations in the
southern Levant and Egypt in the fourth to third
millennia BCE. in E.C.M van den Brink and TE Levy, eds.
Egypt and the Levant: interrelations from the 4th through the
3rd millenium, BCE. 118-128

[zarahan]

"I would like to see above all a greater number of researchers — Afro-Americans — young Americans — even whites. Why not? Because it’s the young who are least prejudiced. As a consequence, they are the most capable of making triumph ideas which frighten the older generation.

Also, I think that it will be necessary to put together polyvalent scientific teams, capable of doing in-depth studies, for sure, and that’s what’s important. It bothers me when someone takes me on my word without developing a means of verifying what I say ... We must form a scientific spirit capable of seeing even the weaknesses of our own proofs, of seeing the unfinished side of our work and committing ourselves to completing it. You understand? Therefore we should then have a work which could honestly stand criticism, because what we’ve done would have been placed on a scientific plane."

—Cheikh Anta Diop, Interview with Harun Kofi Wangara (Harold G. Lawrence)