Ancient Egyptians Were Not Black — They Were Near Eastern

The Ancient Egyptians Were Not Black — They Were A Near Eastern People. I have come across a falsehood repeated through social media in the western world that the Ancient Egyptians were black.

They were an African people, sure, by geographical location, but not by blood, ancestry, or culture. The people of Ancient Egyptian were only African by virtue of the fact that Egypt exists on the African Continent. However, they were not Black Africans — they did not have a dark brown-to-black skin tone.

We know this because the ancient Egyptians had a name for the Nubians — a truly dark-skinned African people — in their own tongue. In the ancient Egyptian language the word for Nubians, black people, is “burnt-faces.”

Everything else aside, all that this description of “burnt-faces” that the Ancient Egyptians used for the Nubians means, is that relative to the Egyptian people of this time — of the earliest phase of history — their people were significantly more fair-skinned compared to the properly dark-skinned original peoples of the African continent.

Ancient Egyptian culture is directly linked to the cultures of Mesopotamia. Indeed, Ancient Egypt is considered within the Ancient History of the Near East because culturally, it is. Egypt traded with Sumer, Mesopotamia, Crete and beyond, and was influenced by them in return.

Their history is entwined with peoples of the fertile crescent (like the Jews) as is the Old Egyptian language (with all Semitic languages) and there are a great many similarities in myth, legend, and religious tradition between Sumer, Greece, Egypt, and beyond.

In short, the Ancient Egyptians were a Near Eastern people by culture, and probably ethnicity as well.

There appears to be an ongoing movement to reclaim African heritage and history — more power to you. However, this shouldn’t be a process of changing the interpretation of history in support of ideals, nor should it ignore facts.

The ancient Egyptians description of “burnt-faces” is quite clear on the difference in skin tone between these two ancient peoples. While the people of Africa had many great achievements over the longest unbroken chain of habitation of any group of homo sapiens, Ancient Egyptian Civilization was not one of them — except for the dynasty of Nubian kings who ruled Egypt for a time during the New Kingdom. (I believe.) Doing right by the gods, ancient traditions, and the pharaoh before them during their rule.

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