by Melchior Antoine

Created on: June 16, 2010   Last Updated: June 17, 2010

To speak about ancient Egyptians being a race of either black/negro or white/Caucasian or even mixed is both non-scientific and anachronistic. Scientist recently have confirmed the concept of race as nonexistent; all human beings belong to the one and same species of homo sapiens. And furthermore the AE's had no appreciation for the kind of social and political meaning we in the 21st century give to words like white or black. Instead the AE's like most ancient people saw themselves in terms of ethno-nationality. It makes more sense to ask other questions such as: What are the cultural origins of ancient Egypt. When we look at AE are we looking at something with cultural affinities closer to Europe, the Levant (Palestine), Mesopotamia or its African neighbors?

There is growing evidence disproving the old and familiar Dynastic Race Theory- the idea that AE was some how inspired by nomadic Eurasians who civilized the ' African Savages'. Growing evidence which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the inspiration of Egypt was further to the south, namely ancient Nubia. Recent archaeological discoveries, especially of pre-dynastic era such as the Naqadan and Badarian have shown Nubian peoples practicing certain aspects of Pharaonic culture , long before there was such a thing in the world as an Egyptian Pharaoh. Also in terms of language the ancient Egyptians spoke a branch of the Afro-Asiatic family group which originates from the East Horn of Africa.

.And even recently some scholars argue the case for existing parallels between the culture of Ancient Egyptians and the culture of traditional peoples in Africa. One of the earliest example is Cheik Anta Diop who pointed out circumcision and totemism as aspects of Ancient Egypt which continue to be carried out with much vitality throughout the African continent by traditional African cultures, in places as far apart and diverse as Ethiopia in East Africa, the Congo in Central africa or Mali in West Africa. Anthropological research like that carried out by Shomarka Keita in the field of cranial studies and osteology also shows the strong bio-cultural links between early ancient Egyptians in terms of facial features and limb elongation ratios with other African groups like Nubians , Ethiopians and Somalians.

Shomarka Keita also takes time to point out the inherent racial bias in past and even recent Anthropological research trying to find what population groups the Egyptians map closest to. The kind of research where the

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