1-Basic Database of Nile Valley Studies

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Developed independently of the Babylonian or Indian versions of the notion of "zero"- the Ancient Egyptian variant
recognized the concept, had a sign for it, and applied it in engineering, administration and some geometry, scholars show.

QUOTE:

"However, in two other senses it may be argued, as Lumpkin (2002, pp. 161–67) has done, that the concept of zero was present in Egyptian mathematics. First, there is zero as a number. Scharff (1922, pp. 58–59) contains a monthly balance sheet of the accounts of a traveling royal party, dating back to around 1770 BC, which shows the expenditure and the income allocated for each type of good in a separate column. The balance of zero, recorded in the case of four goods, is shown by the nfr symbol that corresponds to the Egyptian word for “good,” “complete,” or “beautiful.” It is interesting, in this context, that the concept of zero has a positive association in other cultures as well, such as in India (sunya) and among the Maya (the shell symbol).

The same nfr symbol appears in a series of drawings of some Old Kingdom constructions. For example, in the construction of Meidun Pyramid, it appears as a ground reference point for integral values of cubits given as “above zero” (going up) and “below zero” (going down). There are other examples of these number lines at pyramid sites, known and referred to by Egyptologists early in the century, including Borchardt, Petrie, and Reiner, but not mentioned by historians of mathematics, not even Gillings (1972 ),who played such an important role in revealing the treasures of Egyptian mathematics to a wider public. About fifteen hundred years after Ahmes, in a deed from Edfu, there is a use of the “zero concept as a replacement to a magnitude in geometry,” according to Boyer (1968, p. 18)."

--George Gheverghese Joseph 2011. The Crest of the Peacock: non-European roots of mathematics. Princeton University Press. pp 86-87


"A bookkeeper’s record from the 13th Dynasty (about 1700 BC) shows a monthly balance sheet for items received and disbursed by the royal court during its travels. On subtracting total disbursements from total income, a zero remainder was left in several columns. This zero remainder was represented by the hieroglyph, nfr, which also means beautiful, or complete in ancient Egyptian. The same nfr symbol also labeled a zero reference point for a system of integers used on construction guidelines at Egyptian tombs and pyramids. These massive stone structures required deep foundations and careful leveling of the courses of stone. A vertical number line labeled the horizontal leveling lines that guided construction at different levels. One of these horizontal lines, often at pavement level, was used as a reference and was labeled nfr or zero. Horizontal leveling lines were spaced 1 cubit apart. Those above the zero level were labeled as 1 cubit above nfr, 2 cubits above nfr and so on. Those below the zero level were labeled 1 cubit, 2 cubits, 3 cubits, and so forth, below nfr. Here zero was used as a reference for directed or signed numbers. It is quite extraordinary that the Mesopotamian culture, more or less contemporaneous to the Egyptian culture and who had developed a full positional value numeration system on base 60 did not use zero as a number. A symbol for zero as a place-holder appeared late in the Mesopotamian culture."

-Trkh-e Elm. 2008. A Brief History of Zero. Iranian Journal for the History of Science, 6 (2008), pp. 37-48





The Greeks did not make use of the abstractions and practical application of the zero concept.
QUOTE:

"The early Greeks, who were the intellectual inheritors of Egyptian mathematics and science emphasised geometry to the exclusion of everything else. They did not seem interested in perfecting their number notation system. They simply had no use for zero. In any case, they were not greatly interested in “arithmetic, claiming that arithmetic should only be taught in democracies for it dealt with relations of equality”. On the other hand, geometry was the natural study for oligarchies for “it demonstrated the proportions within inequality.”
--Trkh-e Elm. A Brief History of Zero. Iranian Journal for the History of Science, 6 (2008), pp. 37-48


"It is generally agreed that the basic flaw holding back Greek culture was the utter lack of connection between science and practice. The results of science were not translated into practice, and practice made no demands on science, where by practice we mean of course applications of science in the service of society. It can be said that in ancient society we see no trace of science becoming a productive force. Mechanisms, no matter how ingeniously constructed, served purely for amusement or to impress or strike fear into the hearts of pious pilgrims in the temples. Even an outstanding product of ancient technology, the Antikythera mechanism, with its representation of cycles and epicycles, served only astrological ends.. The production of goods was increased not by the introduction of machinery, but by increasing the number of slaves [Santillana 1961]."
--Károly Simonyi and David Kramer 2012. A Cultural History of Physics, p 113


"Zero had no place within the Pythagorean framework.. Zero would punch a hole in the neat Pythagorean order of the universe, and for that reason it could not be tolerated."
--Charles Seife. 2000. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea


"We have much to thank the Greeks for. Still: the inheritance of Greece has also been a heavy burden on European science. For some of its important legacies to posterity had for many centuries a potently inhibitory effect on scientific thought and enquiry. I need mention only the survival throughout antiquity and the middle ages (almost, though not entirely, without opposition) of such powerful models in astronomy as that of the geocentric universe, or of the circular motions of the heavenly bodies; or of teleology in the biological sciences; or of certain Greek attitudes to work and to the translation of science into technology.“
-- Sabetai Unguru ed. 1991. Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy, 1300-1700: Tension and Accommodation.


"In the Greek scale of values the theorist was always superior to the technologist, and although this ideology did not completely prevent the practical application of scientific discoveries, it certainly inhibited it. and acted as an important barrier to the cross-fertilisation of different intellectual disciplines."
--G. E. R. Lloyd. 1991. Methods and Problems in Greek Science: Selected Papers. p 140

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Skewed textbooks in schools- deAfricanizing Egypt and slighting African diversity

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Haplogroup E3b1-M78 is the second most prevailing one (23%) in the studied sample with E3b1-M78 chromosomes accounting for almost all E representatives (98%) except a single E3b2-M81 and two E3b3-M123 chromosomes (fig. 2). E3b1-M78 is the most common haplogroup E lineage in Europe (Cruciani et al. 2004; Semino et al. 2004). The spatial pattern shown in figure 4(C) depicts a nonuniform E3b1 geographic distribution with a frequency peak centered in south Europe and SEE (13%–16% in southern Italians and 17%–27% in the Balkans).

Declining frequencies are evident toward western (10% in northern and central Italians), central, and eastern Europe (from 4% to 10% in Polish, Russians, mainland Croatians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Herzegovinians, and Bosnians). Noteworthy is a low E3b1 frequency (5%) in Turkey. Apart from its presence in Europe and the Middle East, E3b1 is also found in eastern and northern Africa. Cruciani et al. (2004) estimated that E3b-M78 might have originated in eastern Africa about 23.2 KYA..

.. Almost 93% of SEE E3b1 chromosomes are classified into a cluster. In Europe, the highest E3b1a variance is among Apulians, Greeks, and Macedonians, and the highest frequency of the cluster is among Albanians, Macedonians, and Greeks (table 1)..

The frequency and variance decline of E3b1 in SEE is rather continuous (fig. 4A and B), with a frequency peak extending from the southeastern edge of the region and a variance peak in southwest. Observed high E3b1 frequency in Kosovar Albanians (46%) and Macedonian Romani (30%) represent a focal rather than a clinal phenomenon resulting most likely from genetic drift. E3b1 frequency and variance are significantly correlated with latitude, showing higher values toward south..

--Pericic et al. 2005. High-Resolution Phylogenetic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations. MolBioEvo v22, I10.

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"Haplogroup E3b1-M78 is the second most prevailing one (23%) in the studied sample with E3b1-M78 chromosomes accounting for almost all E representatives (98%) except a single E3b2-M81 and two E3b3-M123 chromosomes (fig. 2). E3b1-M78 is the most common haplogroup E lineage in Europe (Cruciani et al. 2004; Semino et al. 2004). The spatial pattern shown in figure 4(C) depicts a nonuniform E3b1 geographic distribution with a frequency peak centered in south Europe and SEE (13%–16% in southern Italians and 17%–27% in the Balkans).

Declining frequencies are evident toward western (10% in northern and central Italians), central, and eastern Europe (from 4% to 10% in Polish, Russians, mainland Croatians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Herzegovinians, and Bosnians). Noteworthy is a low E3b1 frequency (5%) in Turkey. Apart from its presence in Europe and the Middle East, E3b1 is also found in eastern and northern Africa. Cruciani et al. (2004) estimated that E3b-M78 might have originated in eastern Africa about 23.2 KYA..

.. Almost 93% of SEE E3b1 chromosomes are classified into a cluster. In Europe, the highest E3b1a variance is among Apulians, Greeks, and Macedonians, and the highest frequency of the cluster is among Albanians, Macedonians, and Greeks (table 1).."

--Pericic et al. 2005. High-Resolution Phylogenetic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations. MolBioEvo v22, I10.

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DNA studies of some ancient Egyptians show West African Benin sickle cell anemia variant





Benin HbS Sickle Cell found in ancient predynastic mummies:

QUOTE:
"We conducted a molecular investigation of the presence of sicklemia in six predynastic Egyptian mummies (about 3200 BC) from the Anthropological and Ethnographic Museum of Turin. Previous studies of these remains showed the presence of severe anemia, while histological preparations of mummified tissues revealed hemolytic disorders.. In samples of three individuals, there was a band at the level of the HbS mutated fragment, indicating that they were affected by sicklemia."
--Marin et al 1999. Use of the amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) in the study of HbS in predynastic Egyptian remains. Boll Soc Ital Biol Sper. 1999 May-Jun;75(5-6):27-30.


Ancient African migrations and the Benin Sickle cell haplotype:

QUOTE:
"From a genetic point of view, several recent genetic studies have shown that sub-Saharan genetic lineages (affiliated with the Y-chromosome PN2 clade; Underhill et al. 2001) have spread through Egypt into the Near East, the Mediterranean area, and, for some lineages, as far north as Turkey.. This northward migration of northeastern African populations carrying sub-Saharan biological elements is concordant with the morphological homogeneity of the Natufian populations.. .A late Pleistocene-early Holocene northward migration (from Africa to the Levant and to Anatolia) of these populations has been hypothesized from skeletal data (Angel 1972, 1973; Brace 2005) and from archaeological data, as indicated by the probable Nile Valley origin of the "Mesolithic" (epi-Paleolithic) Mushabi culture found in the Levant (Bar Yosef 1987). This migration finds some support in the presence in Mediterranean populations (Sicily, Greece, southern Turkey, etc.; Patrinos et al.; Schiliro et al. 1990) of the Benin sickle cell haplotype.“

-- Ricaut et al 2008. Cranial Discrete Traits in a Byzantine Pop.. Hum Bio 80:5 535-64

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An excellent article by Keita 1993- still very relevant to AE biological relationships;

www.academia.edu/34184073/STUDIES_AND_COMMENTS_ON_ANCIENT_EGYPTIAN_BIOLOGICAL_RELATIONSHIPS

Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships
S. O. Y. Keita 1993. History in Africa, Vol. 20 (1993), pp. 129-154

Some plain text
egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/thread/3379/studies-comments-egyptian-biological-relationships

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Quick recap- Egyptologist Barry J. Kemp on skewed CRANID database and African proportions in the North




QUOTE(s):
"..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans."
(Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)


"If, on the other hand, CRANID had used one of the Elephantine populations of the same period, the geographic association would be much more with the African groups to the south. It is dangerous to take one set of skeletons and use them to characterize the population of the whole of Egypt." (Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation, Routledge: 2005, p. 55)

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UPDATE:
Huge Meriotic necropolis noted in Dinder Park, Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, showing
that MEriotic/Kushite culture extended comfortably south below the Sahara, making such culture
not merely "north African" but sub-Saharan" as well, a fact also established by anthro studies
of people. This has been obscured by the continuing shift of the desert south making many African
cultures once "sub-Saharan", NON sub-Saharan.

Things like writing such as the Meriotic script were already a product of that culture and in place in
"sub-Saharan" Africa, multiple centuries before Arabs or Europeans showed up.

QUOTE:
""However, the most recent survey by the Sudanese Department of Antiquities in
the Dinder Park, on the border with Ethiopia, discovered an imposing necropolis with
large tumuli and Meroitic pottery.. confirming the enormous extent of the Meroitic
presence and its intensive relationships with the southern countries.."
--Liverani and Merighi (2003). Arid lands in Roman times : papers from the international
conference, Rome, July 9th-10th, 2001. Univ Rome. pp 80-86

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On certain Zygomatic bone traits (in facial cheek area) Ancient Egyptians cluster
primarily with Nubians and sub-Saharan Africans.



quote:
"Bipartition of the zygomatic bone is less frequent in
the European region than in the eastern part of the
Old World. Few temporal changes are evident among
5 series of the samples from the United Kingdom. The
westward and eastward shift of the occurrence of the
European bipartite zygomatic bone can be detected.
In the North African area, the late Dynastic samples
of Egypt and Nubia show the highest frequency
among the samples from this region. The frequency in
the pre-Dynastic samples is much less than that of the
samples from the Dynastic period. No samples from
recent North Africa have the bipartite zygomatic
bone."
-- T. Hanihara. 1998. Os zygomaticum bipartitum: frequency distribution
in major human populations. J.Anat. (1998),192, pp. 539-555

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DNA studies of some 20th Dynasty Ancient Egyptian lineages indicate the presence of African DNA elements among royal pharaonic and commoner samples. Other modern studies show the presence of African variant sickle-cell disease variant among ancient Egyptian samples, and spread of Benin African variant outside Africa.

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Shakes up some commonly accepted assumptions, and explores key themes
on Egypt seen in books, articles and even online forums.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION:

"At the mention of ancient Egyptian society,
our minds most often conjure images of pyramids,
golden funerary masks, and militant kings. Yet
this socio-historical narrative is rooted in Egyptology’s
colonial origins and is replete with ingrained and oft-repeated adages:

Egypt is the gift of the Nile. Egypt is Kemet,
the Black Land: a land without cities, a land of
gold, whose king was a god and smote his foreign
enemies to defeat chaos. The ancient Egyptians
were obsessed with death and religion, feasted on
bread and beer, treated women relatively well (by
ancient standards), and despite the wealth of
preserved material culture, had no true art.
Ancient Egyptian society featured a pyramid-like
hierarchy with the king at the top, followed by
the elites, administrators, craftsmen, and
peasants. They were an inward-looking society,
rejecting outside people and practices.

Most people who have read an introductory book,
taken a class, or watched a documentary about
Ancient Egyptian society will fnd all of this
familiar—yet to difering extents, all of these
adages stem from assumptions, some true, some
questionable, some changing according to time and
circumstance, but all ingrained into the study of
ancient Egypt. Indeed, the very discipline of
Egyptology has only just begun to grapple with its
colonial foundations, and its scholarship has long
prioritized the state’s grand royal artistic and
textual production over all else. Indeed, the
agenda of political elites is often so convincing
that it is easy to accept the narrative provided
by these select communities, making it difficult to
fnd or “read” evidence to the contrary. It is
therefore important to recognize that ancient
Egypt had many societies at any given time, all of
them overlapping, mixed and interacting."

ref: Danielle Candelora, Nadia Ben-Marzouk, Kathlyn M. Cooney. (2022)
Ancient Egyptian Society_ Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches-Routledge. pg 3






CONTENTS

Introduction 1
1 Investigating Ancient Egypt’s Societies: Past Approaches
and New Directions 3
Danielle Candelora, Nadia Ben-Marzouk, and Kathlyn M. Cooney

SECTION I
Power 9
2 Power and the Study of Ancient Egyptian Society 11
Nadia Ben-Marzouk
3 Hidden Violence: Reassessing Violence and Human
Sacrifce in Ancient Egypt 17
Roselyn A. Campbell
vi Contents
4 Making the Past Present: The Use of Archaism and
Festivals in the Transmission of Egyptian Royal Ideology 29
Jefrey Newman
5 Divine Kingship and the Royal Ka 40
Jonathan Winnerman
6 Trade, Statehood, and Confgurations of Power in Ancient
Egypt (Early-Middle Bronze Age) 49
Juan Carlos Moreno García
7 The Social Pyramid and the Status of Craftspeople
in Ancient Egypt 62
Caroline Arbuckle MacLeod
8 Ancient Egyptian Decorum: Demarcating and Presenting
Social Action 74
John Baines
9 Co-regency in the 25th Dynasty: A Case Study of the
Chapel of Osiris-Ptah Neb-ankh at Karnak 90
Essam Nagy

SECTION II
People 101
10 The Egyptianization of Egypt and Egyptology: Exploring
Identity in Ancient Egypt 103
Danielle Candelora

11 Ancient Egyptian “Origins” and “Identity” 111
S. O. Y. Keita

12 Eight Medjay Walk into a Palace: Bureaucratic
Categorization and Cultural Mistranslation of Peoples
in Contact 122
Kate Liszka
Contents vii
13 The Value of Children in Ancient Egypt 140
Caroline Arbuckle MacLeod
14 Orientalizing the Ancient Egyptian Woman 152
Jordan Galczynski
15 The Ancient Egyptian Artist: A Non-Existing Category? 163
Dimitri Laboury and Alisée Devillers
16 Hellenistic Warfare and Egyptian Society 182
Christelle Fischer-Bovet
17 Revealing the Invisible Majority: “Hegemonic” Group
Artefacts as Biography Containers of “Underprivileged”
Groups 195
Gianluca Miniaci
18 Reevaluating Social Histories: The Use of Ancient Egypt
in Contemporary Art 210
Nicholas R. Brown

SECTION III
Place 223
19 People of Nile and Sun, Wheat and Barley: Ancient
Egyptian Society and the Agency of Place 225
Kathlyn M. Cooney
20 Shifting Boundaries, Conficting Perspectives:
(Re)establishing the Borders of Kemet Through Variable
Social Identities 235
Danielle Candelora
21 Urban versus Village Society in Ancient Egypt: A New
Perspective 248
Nadine Moeller
viii Contents
22 Reassessing the Value of Autobiographical Inscriptions
from the First Intermediate Period and “Pessimistic
Literature” for Understanding Egypt’s Social History 265
Ellen Morris
23 Othering the Alphabet: Rewriting the Social Context
of a New Writing System in the Egyptian Expedition
Community 279
Nadia Ben-Marzouk
24 Language Policy and the Administrative Framework
of Early Islamic Egypt 299
Jennifer Cromwell
25 New Methods to Reconstruct the Social History of Food
in Ancient Egypt: Case Studies from Nag ed Deir and
Deir el Ballas 313
Amr Khalaf Shahat
26 Stop and Smell the Flowers: A Re-Assessment of the
Ancient Egyptian “Blue Lotus” 325
Robyn Price
27 The Body of Egypt: How Harem Women Connected a
King with his Elites 336
Kathlyn M. Cooney, Chloe Landis and Turandot Shayegan

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WHILE OFTEN EXCLUDED or overlooked IN POPULAR MEDIA, NUMEROUS ANCIENT
EGYPTIAN STATUTES AND ICONOGRAPHY SHOW DARK SKINNED PEOPLE

Old Kingdom





Middle Kingdom





New Kingdom



(^when this portrait was originally posted Antalas claimed it was a modern 'Afrocentric' fake LOL)



modern Egyptians





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Some studies of ancient Egyptian mummies show high levels of melanin
typical of some African populations.

QUOTE:

"Skin sections showed particularly good tissue preservation, although cellular outlines were never distinct. Although much of the epidermis had already separated from the dermis, the remaining epidermis often was preserved well (Fig. 1). The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin."

FROM: --A-M Mekota1 and M Vermehren2. 2005. Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation
and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues.
Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005. 80(1): 7-13

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World's Oldest underground mining found in Nubian/Sudanic area - Nazlet Khater site

"Fully fledged Upper Paleolithic assemblages were identified in Nazlet Khater 4 (Fig. 5.3),
where there were places of exploitation of chert pebbles from the terraces of the Nile analogous
to the mines in Nazlet Safaha and Taramsa 1 dated to the MSA. Vertical shafts, trenches, and
underground galleries filled with Upper-Paleolithic flake artifacts dated to ca. 38–33 ka
were identified in Nazlet Khater 4 and 7. This is the oldest evidence of underground
mines in the world."
--Geoff Emberling and Bruce Williams. 2020. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia. p. 89