Afrocentrism: Were the ancient Egyptians black?

[fyauthor]

There is no such thing as an intelligence test for no so-called intelligence test measures motivation, creativity, or pondering which is how new things are invented, discovered, or created!

Considering Einstein's comment regarding inspiration/perspiration, is it possible that black people are not inherently stupid, just lazy?

And that' why laws were created to keep black folk from going to school, reading books, and taught whites folks how to farm just as the indigenous folks had, created many inventions, and wrote many songs that were either stolen or bought cheaply! White folks know that black folks are smart, and called them "clever" to down-grade their intelligence, why? Far as being lazy, no ethnic group were ever more oppressed as black Americans for they took away their history, language, religion, and self-respect; worked them twelve hours everyday, and like good Christian they abused them in every way! Only an ass-hole can called them lazy.

 

[IanC]

to a large extent simple everyday life is an intelligence test. and a character test. blacks on average have low achievement in life, just as they do on IQ tests. sorry, but reality sucks for some.

 

[Tank]

And that' why laws were created to keep black folk from going to school, reading books, and taught whites folks how to farm just as the indigenous folks had, created many inventions, and wrote many songs that were either stolen or bought cheaply! White folks know that black folks are smart, and called them "clever" to down-grade their intelligence, why? Far as being lazy, no ethnic group were ever more oppressed as black Americans for they took away their history, language, religion, and self-respect; worked them twelve hours everyday, and like good Christian they abused them in every way! Only an ass-hole can called them lazy.

If blacks is so smart, how come they were so easy to enslave?

 

[defyinwitelies]

There is no such thing as an intelligence test for no so-called intelligence test measures motivation, creativity, or pondering which is how new things are invented, discovered, or created!

Considering Einstein's comment regarding inspiration/perspiration, is it possible that black people are not inherently stupid, just lazy?

You quote Einstein to prove the supposed laziness of black people. I dare you to quote a single self respecting archaeologists or anthropologists to prove that ancient Egyptians were anything less than a civilization wholly indigenous to the African continent and mapping closest biologically to East Africans like Somalians, Ethiopians and Nubians. I dare you, or are you just too lazy to do so!

 

[defyinwitelies]

to a large extent simple everyday life is an intelligence test. and a character test. blacks on average have low achievement in life, just as they do on IQ tests. sorry, but reality sucks for some.

Why do you Eurocentric cowards keep straying from the topic? If you have so much faith in the stupidity of black people then come up with intelligent arguments to support your point against the blacks you oppose in this debate who argue that ancient Egypt was black. Instead you resort to petty litttle insults, not related to the topic. Where is that wealth of Knowledge and intelligence which you seem to think your mighty Aryan race has such a monopoly on?

Awe me with your learned and glorious whiteness!!! Make your mighty white ancestors like Aristotle, Socrates and not to mention--the whitest of them all Imhotep--proud. Am begging you please. Because yours are the dimmest lights of intelligence i have encountered so far in all my interactions with your mighty and glorious race.

 

[IanC]

to a large extent simple everyday life is an intelligence test. and a character test. blacks on average have low achievement in life, just as they do on IQ tests. sorry, but reality sucks for some.

Why do you Eurocentric cowards keep straying from the topic? If you have so much faith in the stupidity of black people then come up with intelligent arguments to support your point against the blacks you oppose in this debate who argue that ancient Egypt was black. Instead you resort to petty litttle insults, not related to the topic. Where is that wealth of Knowledge and intelligence which you seem to think your mighty Aryan race has such a monopoly on?

Awe me with your learned and glorious whiteness!!! Make your mighty white ancestors like Aristotle, Socrates and not to mention--the whitest of them all Imhotep--proud. Am begging you please. Because yours are the dimmest lights of intelligence i have encountered so far in all my interactions with your mighty and glorious race.

you quoted me from message 122 which was a direct response to message 121. if you are unhappy that the topic has strayed then just ignore the off topic comments.

the whole 'egypt was black' thing is ridiculous. define your terms. egypt was not full of subsaharan blacks, which is what people think of when you say black. are north african berbers black or white? what about all the semetic tribes of the middle east? if you want to play the semantics game of changing the definition of the term 'black', or call egyptians africans because they are technically on the african continent, go ahead and delude yourself. just don't lump subsaharan blacks in with 'other blacks'.

 

[Tank]

It's funny when people say how smart blacks used to be.

 

[defyinwitelies]

to a large extent simple everyday life is an intelligence test. and a character test. blacks on average have low achievement in life, just as they do on IQ tests. sorry, but reality sucks for some.

Why do you Eurocentric cowards keep straying from the topic? If you have so much faith in the stupidity of black people then come up with intelligent arguments to support your point against the blacks you oppose in this debate who argue that ancient Egypt was black. Instead you resort to petty litttle insults, not related to the topic. Where is that wealth of Knowledge and intelligence which you seem to think your mighty Aryan race has such a monopoly on?

Awe me with your learned and glorious whiteness!!! Make your mighty white ancestors like Aristotle, Socrates and not to mention--the whitest of them all Imhotep--proud. Am begging you please. Because yours are the dimmest lights of intelligence i have encountered so far in all my interactions with your mighty and glorious race.

you quoted me from message 122 which was a direct response to message 121. if you are unhappy that the topic has strayed then just ignore the off topic comments.

the whole 'egypt was black' thing is ridiculous. define your terms. egypt was not full of subsaharan blacks, which is what people think of when you say black. are north african berbers black or white? what about all the semetic tribes of the middle east? if you want to play the semantics game of changing the definition of the term 'black', or call egyptians africans because they are technically on the african continent, go ahead and delude yourself. just don't lump subsaharan blacks in with 'other blacks'.

Who is playing the game of semantics here? You actually believe that there is something wrong with calling Ancient "Egyptians africans because they are technically on the african continent"? Do you proof read the stuff you write? What you think or what i think really does not matter. What matters is what the experts have to say. Listen to one of them( I hope you have the mental stamina to read the whole thing)--his name is Christopher Ehret:

Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture.

Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.

The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.

A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.

During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period.

One of the exciting archeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East.

One major technological advance, pottery-making, was also initiated as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East.

Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era.

But several notable early Egyptian crops came from Sudanic agriculture, independently invented between 7500 and 6000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharan peoples (Ehret 1993:104-125). One such cultivated crop was the edible gourd. The botanical evidence is confirmed in this case by linguistics: Egyptian bdt, or "bed of gourds" (Late Egyptian bdt, "gourd; cucumber"), is a borrowing of the Nilo-Saharan word *bud, "edible gourd." Other early Egyptian crops of Sudanic origin included watermelons and castor beans. (To learn more on how historians use linguistic evidence, see note at end of this article.)

Between about 5000 and 3000 B.C. a new era of southern cultural influences took shape. Increasing aridity pushed more of the human population of the eastern Sahara into areas with good access to the waters of the Nile, and along the Nile the bottomlands were for the first time cleared and farmed. The Egyptian stretches of the river came to form the northern edge of a newly emergent Middle Nile Culture Area, which extended far south up the river, well into the middle of modern-day Sudan. Peoples speaking languages of the Eastern Sahelian branch of the Nilo-Saharan family inhabited the heartland of this region.

From the Middle Nile, Egypt gained new items of livelihood between 5000 and 3000 B.C. One of these was a kind of cattle pen: its Egyptian name, s3 (earlier *sr), can be derived from the Eastern Sahelian term *sar. Egyptian pg3, "bowl," (presumably from earlier pgr), a borrowing of Nilo-Saharan *poKur, "wooden bowl or trough," reveals still another adoption in material culture that most probably belongs to this era.

One key feature of classical Egyptian political culture, usually assumed to have begun in Egypt, also shows strong links to the southern influences of this period. We refer here to a particular kind of sacral chiefship that entailed, in its earliest versions, the sending of servants into the afterlife along with the deceased chief. The deep roots and wide occurrence of this custom among peoples who spoke Eastern Sahelian languages strongly imply that sacral chiefship began not as a specifically Egyptian invention, but instead as a widely shared development of the Middle Nile Culture Area.

After about 3500 B.C., however, Egypt would have started to take on a new role vis-a-vis the Middle Nile region, simply because of its greater concentration of population. Growing pressures on land and resources soon enhanced and transformed the political powers of sacral chiefs. Unification followed, and the local deities of predynastic times became gods in a new polytheism, while sacral chiefs gave way to a divine king. At the same time, Egypt passed from the wings to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.

A Note on the Use of Linguistic Evidence for History

Languages provide a powerful set of tools for probing the cultural history of the peoples who spoke them. Determining the relationships between particular languages, such as the languages of the Afrasian or the Nilo-Saharan family, gives us an outline history of the societies that spoke those languages in the past. And because each word in a language has its own individual history, the vocabulary of every language forms a huge archive of documents. If we can trace a particular word back to the common ancestor language of a language family, then we know that the item of culture connoted by the word was known to the people who spoke the ancestral tongue. If the word underwent a meaning change between then and now, a corresponding change must have taken place in the cultural idea or practice referred to by the word. In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, it attests to a thing or development that passed from the one culture to the other. The English borrowing, for example, of castle, duke, parliament, and many other political and legal terms from Old Norman French are evidence of a Norman period of rule in England, a fact confirmed by documents.

 

[IanC]

Who is playing the game of semantics here? You actually believe that there is something wrong with calling Ancient "Egyptians africans because they are technically on the african continent"? Do you proof read the stuff you write? What you think or what i think really does not matter. What matters is what the experts have to say. Listen to one of them( I hope you have the mental stamina to read the whole thing)--his name is Christopher Ehret:

yes I have a problem with people who think ancient egypt had more contact with the bulk of africa than they did with their trading partners in the middle east. geographical fluke rather than cultural circle.

and no, I am not going to read your long cut&paste. for one- you did not set it up by putting your own idea down, and then adding supplimental material. and two- it is against the guidelines of the board to put down more than a few paragraphs, especially when you don't link to the source.

 

[Bass v 2.0]

Who is playing the game of semantics here? You actually believe that there is something wrong with calling Ancient "Egyptians africans because they are technically on the african continent"? Do you proof read the stuff you write? What you think or what i think really does not matter. What matters is what the experts have to say. Listen to one of them( I hope you have the mental stamina to read the whole thing)--his name is Christopher Ehret:

yes I have a problem with people who think ancient egypt had more contact with the bulk of africa than they did with their trading partners in the middle east. geographical fluke rather than cultural circle.

and no, I am not going to read your long cut&paste. for one- you did not set it up by putting your own idea down, and then adding supplimental material. and two- it is against the guidelines of the board to put down more than a few paragraphs, especially when you don't link to the source.

Listen you stupid monkey, you can ignore all of the evidence all you like and keep up with your strawman argument about IQ, but the evidence clearly states that Ancient Egyptians were Africans, who spoke a language that evolved in Africa, had a culture that was African grown with people who originated from Africa, not the Middle East and yes Ancient Egyptians had a hell of a lot of contact with other Africans, their non-African contacts consisted most of their colonies. Why don't you post evidence that refutes the fact that AEs were Africans? Come on monkey, whats taking so long?

 

[IanC]

I am shocked that you would call me names! shocked, I tell you!

is there any point to putting up information that contradicts your point of view? this subject has been done a hundred times before. no one changes their mind and I personally could care less.

the exodus of man out of africa is pretty clearly laid out by genetic examination. the subsaharan blacks that were left behind just didn't develop and evolve the way the rest of humanity did (perhaps with the exception of australian aboriginies). no pyramids south of the sahara, or anything else.

 

[topspin]

we are all descendents of Africa, babylon is temporary

 

[defyinwitelies]

Who is playing the game of semantics here? You actually believe that there is something wrong with calling Ancient "Egyptians africans because they are technically on the african continent"? Do you proof read the stuff you write? What you think or what i think really does not matter. What matters is what the experts have to say. Listen to one of them( I hope you have the mental stamina to read the whole thing)--his name is Christopher Ehret:

yes I have a problem with people who think ancient egypt had more contact with the bulk of africa than they did with their trading partners in the middle east. geographical fluke rather than cultural circle.

and no, I am not going to read your long cut&paste. for one- you did not set it up by putting your own idea down, and then adding supplimental material. and two- it is against the guidelines of the board to put down more than a few paragraphs, especially when you don't link to the source.

Just as i thought. Another eurocentric suffering from self delusions. Your argument about ancient Egypt being anything or everything else besides African is based not on any kind of scientific research but simply silly white supremacist ideas floating around in your head. I quote you an entire essay from one of the world's most prestigious Africanist and you whine about the darn thing being too long.

First off its not a question of who the ancient Egyptians had most contact with-- Subsaharan Africans vs Middle easterners. Its simply a question of accepting the historical fact that ancient Egypt was invented, populated and sustained by subsaharan africans. If you had gone through my long cut and paste you would have read:

"The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east."

All the fundamental aspects of Ancient Egypt--the language; population ethnicity; political structure;religion and agriculture originated from Ethiopian or Sudanic people. To argue against such a salient scientifict fact is the equivalent of arguing against the earth being round. You are deluding yourself. Again I dare you to quote me a single scientific expert on ancient Egypt to justify the arguments you keep posting. Or do you think that you are an authority in and of yourself when it comes to Ancient Egypt. Do you believe that you have the magical ability to just open your mouth and say something and just because you say it that makes it real? That would make you a magician.

I will quote you a second expert David Yurco on Ancient Egypt proving the kinship between Ancient egypt and Subsaharan Africa:

"Among the foreigners, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians. In the late predynastic period (c. 3700–3150 B.C.E.), the Nubians shared the same culture as the Egyptians and even evolved the same pharaonic political structure."

Is it possible for you to respond by quoting at least one expert who believes otherwise or would you rather rely on your white magic?