Ancient Egyptian Phenotype

Wait until the paper with effective Old Kingdom royalty comes out.
 
That's the one I was talking about. Djehutynakht would be effectively Old Kingdom, his mtDNA paper noted that his mummification was an Old Kingdom method that went out of fashion in the Middle Kingdom.

It also noted another tomb of an older mummy called Henu. If we're lucky, we might get DNA from that one.
 
What did ancient egyptians look like? Especially, how did the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom differ from Cyrus' Persians, or Alexander's Greeks, or Caesar's Romans?

I absolutely love the maps you have up at "Distribution maps of autosomal admixtures in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa," and while I can't link to them, they suggest that modern people in those areas are all extremely similar, except that the Egyptians lack any West European Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. But modern and ancient peoples are, of course, not the same. I understand that modern Copts are a reasonable stand-in for the descendants of old Egyptians, and looking at pictures of them, they seem a heterogeneous bunch (probably because I'm getting many non-Coptic people in my searches).

Were the ancient Egyptians most physically similar to Persians?

I think Ancient Egyptians were a Caucasoid type of people with olive skin, but with a darker tone because of the sun. I mean the majority of them, since people have always been mixed. I tend to think that back then people were a lot more racist than we are today, so if they were seen as different coexistence with white races like Romans, Greeks would have been difficult. But there was always trade exchange between Europeans and Egyptians. Today Egyptians show an obvious mix with sub-Saharan people.
 
I think Ancient Egyptians were a Caucasoid type of people with olive skin, but with a darker tone because of the sun. I mean the majority of them, since people have always been mixed. I tend to think that back then people were a lot more racist than we are today, so if they were seen as different coexistence with white races like Romans, Greeks would have been difficult. But there was always trade exchange between Europeans and Egyptians. Today Egyptians show an obvious mix with sub-Saharan people.
Yes, I think this closely reflects the way my own thinking on the subject has changed over the years.

I never saw Egyptians as "black," but I did think of them as their own sort of "brown," and likely somewhere in between classical Africans and Europeans. However, this doesn't accord with genetic findings. Although there are numerous studies (many of which have been mentioned earlier in the thread) one of my favorite reports was something I found on this very website, and is a major reason why I post here:

Neolithic_farmer_admixture.png


Italians, Greeks, Arabs, and (look closely at the fan-shaped area at the southeastern end of the Mediterranean - that's the Nile Delta) Modern Egyptians derive between 80 and 90% of their ancestry from these Early European Farmers. Although the Copts may have a slightly different proportion, and Ancient Egyptians a different proportion still, what we are looking at is a map tying all of these peoples to common genetic origin.

In other words, Egyptians, Italians, Greeks, and Arabs were never really very different genetically. Cavalli-Sforza provides F_ST (x 10,000) values for numerous populations, with high values in the 4000's between Mbuti Pygmies and groups like Aboriginal Australians; the distances between Near-Eastern (Egyptian etc.) peoples is:

Greek: 129
Iranian: 158
Italian: 208
English: 236
Basque: 246

For comparison, here are some more pairs:

Greek x English: 204
Greek x Italian: 77
Greek x Iranian: 70
Italian x English: 51
Italian x Iranian: 133
Iranian x English: 197

Usually, a firm border is drawn across the Mediterranean when ethnic groups are classified. Yet what all of this suggests is that the "European" ethnic group is probably imperfectly described. However powerfully these groups may have diverged culturally, linguistically, and even genetically over the last two millennia, it makes more sense to speak of

1. A Northern European group, exemplified by the Finns and Balts who derive less than 30% of their ancestry from the Early European Farmers, gradually blending into
2. A broad Mediterranean group, exemplified by the Sicilians who derive over 90% of their ancestry from this group. Egyptians then would be on the southern edge of this Mediterranean group, genetically olive-skinned, but as Tutkan Arnaut says, "with a darker tone because of the sun."

What fascinates me especially about this perspective is the way in which it highlights the incredible achievements of this broad "Mediterranean" people - agriculture on the fertile crescent, all the major monotheisms, the earliest literature, all the philosophical, mathematical, and technical inventions of the ancient Occidental world. Even the birth of modern experimental science is ultimately Mediterranean, since almost all of the earliest experimentalists, including

  • Eratosthenes (2nd century BC, possibly early to be called a scientist)
  • Ptolemy (1st century AD)
  • John Philoponus (6th century AD) and
  • Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (10th century AD)
lived, of all places, in Egypt.
 
We'll know enough about Egyptian population history within this year to next. What with the upcoming Egyptian paper, the paper with Mesolithic Tunisian samples, research on Pastoral Neolithic, apparently research on Saudi Arabia.
[h=1][/h]
 
Yes, I think this closely reflects the way my own thinking on the subject has changed over the years.

I never saw Egyptians as "black," but I did think of them as their own sort of "brown," and likely somewhere in between classical Africans and Europeans. However, this doesn't accord with genetic findings. Although there are numerous studies (many of which have been mentioned earlier in the thread) one of my favorite reports was something I found on this very website, and is a major reason why I post here:

Neolithic_farmer_admixture.png


Italians, Greeks, Arabs, and (look closely at the fan-shaped area at the southeastern end of the Mediterranean - that's the Nile Delta) Modern Egyptians derive between 80 and 90% of their ancestry from these Early European Farmers. Although the Copts may have a slightly different proportion, and Ancient Egyptians a different proportion still, what we are looking at is a map tying all of these peoples to common genetic origin.

In other words, Egyptians, Italians, Greeks, and Arabs were never really very different genetically. Cavalli-Sforza provides F_ST (x 10,000) values for numerous populations, with high values in the 4000's between Mbuti Pygmies and groups like Aboriginal Australians; the distances between Near-Eastern (Egyptian etc.) peoples is:

Greek: 129
Iranian: 158
Italian: 208
English: 236
Basque: 246

For comparison, here are some more pairs:

Greek x English: 204
Greek x Italian: 77
Greek x Iranian: 70
Italian x English: 51
Italian x Iranian: 133
Iranian x English: 197

Usually, a firm border is drawn across the Mediterranean when ethnic groups are classified. Yet what all of this suggests is that the "European" ethnic group is probably imperfectly described. However powerfully these groups may have diverged culturally, linguistically, and even genetically over the last two millennia, it makes more sense to speak of

1. A Northern European group, exemplified by the Finns and Balts who derive less than 30% of their ancestry from the Early European Farmers, gradually blending into
2. A broad Mediterranean group, exemplified by the Sicilians who derive over 90% of their ancestry from this group. Egyptians then would be on the southern edge of this Mediterranean group, genetically olive-skinned, but as Tutkan Arnaut says, "with a darker tone because of the sun."

What fascinates me especially about this perspective is the way in which it highlights the incredible achievements of this broad "Mediterranean" people - agriculture on the fertile crescent, all the major monotheisms, the earliest literature, all the philosophical, mathematical, and technical inventions of the ancient Occidental world. Even the birth of modern experimental science is ultimately Mediterranean, since almost all of the earliest experimentalists, including

  • Eratosthenes (2nd century BC, possibly early to be called a scientist)
  • Ptolemy (1st century AD)
  • John Philoponus (6th century AD) and
  • Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (10th century AD)
lived, of all places, in Egypt.

I agree! Mediterranean people started everything. Mostly at the earliest times were Egyptians and Arabs. Arabs at about 3000 BC had sea going boats. Meantime Chinese that had a bigger civilization had flat bottom boats up to the first century a.d, that were not sea worth. I think Nile Delta was very important because was a fertile land that could support a lot of people. That played a major role in their civilization.
 
We'll know enough about Egyptian population history within this year to next. What with the upcoming Egyptian paper, the paper with Mesolithic Tunisian samples, research on Pastoral Neolithic, apparently research on Saudi Arabia.
Can you tell us anything about those papers right now? You've mentioned them before, but this is the first I'm hearing of it.

I agree! Mediterranean people started everything.
Living in the modern world it can be hard to see that - I had no awareness of it until recently.

Mostly at the earliest times were Egyptians and Arabs. Arabs at about 3000 BC had sea going boats. Meantime Chinese that had a bigger civilization had flat bottom boats up to the first century a.d, that were not sea worth. I think Nile Delta was very important because was a fertile land that could support a lot of people. That played a major role in their civilization.
Of course (though I might not call the Mesopotamians "Arabs"). The Nile made things incredibly easy because it would flood regularly, rejuvenating the soil. The situation with the Tigris & Euphratis rivers was similar; those areas were dry and free of clouds, yet also marshy, meaning that there was a great abundance of water and sun to grow plants.
 
I did my bachelor in USA schools! They do recognize the contributions of all civilizations! I learned there things about Egyptian, Arabic, Indian civilizations. Not a detailed one but a summary for each one of them. In my country of origin schools concentrate more in European cultures and contributions
 
Up until very recently all U.S. colleges and universities required a year of what was called Western Civilization.

It's clear from those courses that from farming through the growth of cities, metallurgy, literacy and on and on all began in the Near East, what used to be called "The Fertile Crescent" plus Anatolia. Egypt is often considered part of that, but it was a later development.


I firmly believe that part of the nonsense we hear today from campus post modernist radicals, the sheer ignorance of their statements, is because many schools dropped that requirement perhaps 10 years ago.

You can't criticize something about which you know absolutely nothing.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...rses_--_and_end_college_dark_ages_129758.html

Add India and China at least in terms of the beginnings of civilization if you wish, but TEACH THESE KIDS HISTORY.

http://www.csun.edu/~rlc31920/documents/History 110/Syllibus_History_110_(M-W),_Fall_2011.pdf


fertile+crescent+2.png


I don't know what Arabs have to do with it in terms of the initial developments. The inhabitants of that region are not "Arab", except perhaps for some groups which arrived with the Muslim invasion.

Later on, of course, we have Ancient Greece, Rome, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Muslim conservation of many of the source materials etc.
 
Can you tell us anything about those papers right now? You've mentioned them before, but this is the first I'm hearing of it.

The Egypt paper (or at least Harvard's ancient DNA lab autosomal DNA from an Early Middle Kingdom mumy) was leaked here:

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...old-mummy-head?p=565634&viewfull=1#post565634

The paper with Tunisian samples was still getting worked on back in 2018:

https://twitter.com/Cliouch/status/1042807392545779713

The one on Pastoral Neolithic comes from a seminar with David Reich:

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread...-the-News-quot&p=560920&viewfull=1#post560920

The research on Saudi Arabia supposedly refers to what Reich said in a podcast.
 
Last edited:

This thread has been viewed 18057 times.

Back
Top