Jebel Barkal in Sudan/Kush ancient Nubia, the Mound of Creation, and the Ancient Egyptian race controversy

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Jebel Barkal

“Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal is a mesa or large rock outcrop located 400 km north of Khartoum, next to Karima in Northern State in Sudan, on the Nile River, in the region that is sometimes called Nubia. The jebel is 104 m tall, has a flat top, and came to have religious significance for both ancient Kush and ancient Egyptian occupiers. In 2003, the mountain, together with the extensive archaeological site at its base (ancient Napata), were named as the center of a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.” ref

“The earliest occupation of Jebel Barkal was that of the Kerma culture, which was also known as Kush, but this occupation is so far known only from scattered potsherds. Around 1450 BCE, the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III conquered Barkal and built a fortified settlement (Egyptian menenu) there as the southern limit of the Egyptian empire. The city and region around it came to be called Napata, and the Egyptian occupation of Jebel Barkal extended through most of the New Kingdom of Egypt. The Egyptians built a complex of temples at the site, centered on a temple to Amun of Napata—a local, ram-headed form of the main god of the Egyptian capital city of Thebes, Egypt. In the last years of the New Kingdom and after its collapse in 1169 BC, there was little construction at Jebel Barkal. Apart from the temples, no trace of this Egyptian settlement has yet been found at the site.” ref

“Jebel Barkal was the capital city of the Kingdom of Kush as it returned to power in the years after 800 BCE as the Dynasty of Napata. The Kushite kings who conquered and ruled over Egypt as the 25th Dynasty, including Kashta, Piankhy (or Piye), and Taharqa, all built, renovated, and expanded monumental structures at the site. After the Kushites were driven out by the Assyrian conquest of Egypt in the mid-7th century BCE, they continued to rule Kush with Jebel Barkal and the city of Meroë as the most important urban centers of Kush. Jebel Barkal’s palaces and temples continued to be renovated from the 7th-early 3rd centuries BCE. Most of the royal pyramid burials of the kings and queens of Kush during this time were built at the site of Nuri, 9 km to the northeast of Jebel Barkal.” ref

“In 270 BCE, the location of Kushite royal burials was moved to Meroë, inaugurating the Meroitic period of the Kingdom of Kush. Jebel Barkal continued to be an important city of Kush during the Meroitic period. A sequence of palaces was built, most notably by King Natakamani, new temples were built, and older temples were renovated. During the 1st century BC – 1st century AD, eight royal pyramid burials were built at Jebel Barkal (rather than at Meroë), for reasons that are not clear, but perhaps reflecting the prominence of one or more families from the city. After the collapse of Kush during the 4th century AD, Jebel Barkal continued to be occupied in the medieval (Christian) period of Nubia, as attested by architectural remains, burials, and burial inscriptions.” ref

Jebel Barkal

Jebel Barkal

Jebel Barkal

Western Deffufa – Kerma

“The Western Deffufa, located in pre historic city of Kerma, Sudan, is a temple dating back to circa 1750 BCE. It is considered the oldest man made structure in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rising about 65 feet (20 meters) high, it was built entirely from sun-dried mudbricks. Inside, the structure consists of a series of chambers and courtyards, thought to have been used for religious activities, rituals, and ceremonies central to the Kerma civilization. The word “Deffufa” comes from the Nubian language, referring to buildings made of mudbrick, which were common Kerma’s architectural style. The Western Deffufa has been the focus of significant archaeological interest since its discovery in the early 20th century. Excavations led by Charles Bonnet and his team have revealed much of the site’s layout and have uncovered numerous artifacts, including pottery, religious icons, and tools, all of which offer insight into the daily and spiritual life of the Kerma civilization.” ref

 “Kerma culture , Sudan. It flourished from around 2500 to 1500 BCE in ancient Nubia.” ref

The above pictures are from Jebel Barkal and the Great Defuffa at Kerma, from Justine Warren 

“There’s a cool-ass natural cave that was enlarged by the Egyptians, too, with a carved Bes pillar. Unfortunately, they were storing a diesel generator in there, and it was too hard to breathe to explore much.” – Justine Warren

“Bes (/ˈbɛs/; also spelled as Bisu, Coptic: Ⲃⲏⲥ, Ⲃⲏⲥⲁ, Arabic: ويصا, romanized: Wīsa), together with his feminine counterpart Beset, is an ancient Egyptian deity, likely of Kushite/Nubian or Nehesi C-Group culture origin worshipped as a protector of households and, in particular, of mothers, children, and childbirth. Bes later came to be regarded as the defender of everything good and the enemy of all that is bad. According to Donald Mackenzie in 1907, Bes may have been a Middle Kingdom import from Nubia or Somalia, and his cult did not become widespread until the beginning of the New Kingdom, but more recently several Bes-like figurines have been found in deposits from the Naqada period of pre-dynastic Egypt, like the thirteen figurines found at Tell el-Farkha. Worship of Bes spread as far north as the area of Syria and as far west as the Balearic Islands (Ibiza) in Spain, and later into the Roman and Achaemenid Empires.” ref

“People in Upper Egypt started venerating Bes long before people in Lower Egypt. The word “bes” means “cat” in Nubian, suggesting a possible Nubian or southern origin of Bes. It is also possible that the name Bes originated from one of two hieroglyphs: “bs”, meaning “flame”, possibly in connection to Re, and/or “bz”, meaning “to be initiated” or “to introduce” possibly in reference to masks apparently used in the cult of the god. Bes originally looked like a cat standing on his hind legs, before becoming more anthropomorphic and usually depicted with a leopard skin around his neck and resembling a person with dwarfism. Bes is first mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, but seems to have been best known and most widely worshiped in the Middle Kingdom. Evidence of Bes worship in some capacity exists into Coptic Egypt, with the latest evidence being a jug depicting Bes found in Tell Edfu dating to the 10th century CE.” ref

“In the Middle Kingdom, Bes is depicted on a variety of objects, including masks, amulets, infant feeding bottles, and magic knives. In the New Kingdom, tattoos of Bes could be found on the thighs of dancers, musicians, and servant girls. Later, in the Ptolemaic period of Egyptian history, chambers were constructed at Saqqara, painted with images of Bes and his female counterpart Beset, thought by Egyptologists to have been for the purpose of curing fertility problems or general healing rituals. Like many Egyptian gods, the worship of Bes or Beset was exported overseas. While the female variant had been more popular in Minoan Crete, the male version would prove popular with the Phoenicians and the ancient Cypriots. At the end of the 6th century BCE, images of Bes began to spread across the Achaemenid Empire, which Egypt belonged to at the time. Images of Bes have been found at the Persian capital of Susa, and as far away as central Asia. Over time, the image of Bes became more Persian in style, as he was depicted wearing Persian clothes and headdress.” ref

Justine “That Woman” Warren: Egyptian Archaeologist and Anthropology Educator (Video)

Ancient Egypt and Black Africa: Early Contacts

“In 1955 a west African scholar, Marcel Diop, argued vehemently that professional Egyptolo­gists had been concealing a startling fact for over half a century; Diop claimed that the ancient Egyptians were Negroes and their characteristic civilization was a Negro achievement. It is, in fact, a not uncommon belief that Egypt was part of Black Africa, but as far as physical appearance goes, this is not true. Thousands of sculpted and painted representations from Egypt and hundreds of well preserved bodies from its cemeteries show that the typical physical type was neither Negroid nor Negro. The second part of Diop’s thesis, however, was that Egyptian civilization had been spread throughout Africa by emigrants from Egypt and presented in dramatic form a genuine and fascinating historical problem. Geographically ancient Egypt was an African country and her civilization was part of a mosaic of African cultures distributed over the face of that vast continent, Was there any serious contact between ancient Egypt and Black Africa, that is the Negroid and Negro peoples of western and central Africa; and, if there was, how important was the flow of influences in either direction?” ref

“This is not just an academic question, for many Africans and Afro-Americans, intensely interested in the history of early African cultures, often feel that the creativity of these cultures has been unfairly minimized by European scholarship. This is not true of prehistorians and historians of Africa today; the old habit of attributing any unusually sophisticated idea or technique appearing amongst Black Africans to the influ­ence or the presence of a racially “superior” Hamite or other non-Negro has rightly been abandoned. However, as the achievements of Black Africa are recognized and increasingly better documented, and the distinctive characters of its many cultures emerge, the role of Egyptian influence becomes even more problematical. Are there any significant similarities between Egyptian and ancient African cultures; if so, how much are they due to a general “African” nature, and how much to cultural interaction?” ref

“Egyptian civilization was in fact peculiarly resistant to outside influence, but many ancient people, including Africans, borrowed from it. This was not, however, indiscriminate borrowing from an overwhelmingly superior culture and was varied in its effects. The Greeks, for example, were impressed by Egypt; their statuary and architecture were at first strongly influenced by Egypt and, according to the Greeks themselves, some of their leading philosophers and scientists went to Egypt to study its ancient knowledge as well as the new learning established after 320 BCE in the Hellenistic city of Alexandria. Yet developed Greek art and thought cannot be mis­taken for Egyptian. Similarly, amongst ancient Black Africans there must have been varied reactions to Egyptian contact, affected both by the cultural strength of each African group and by the role in which the Egyptians appeared. Egyptians in Africa were sometimes traders and employers, sometimes conquerors and colonists, sometimes defeated enemies.” ref

“Physical hindrances to contact must also have affected the potential spread of Egyptian influence. It is generally agreed that in late pre­historic times, between 5000 and 3000 BCE, the chances for contact between the Egyptian Nile valley, the Sahara, and Africa south of the Sahara and along the upper reaches of the Nile were better than in later periods. The Sahara at this time had a moister climate and supported a comparatively large and mobile population, which included Negroid and Negro physical types, as did the communities living near modern Khartoum. Certainly, domesticated animals appear to have spread during this period from Egypt (which had derived them from the Near East) throughout North Africa, deep into the Sahara, and as far south as Khartoum; agriculture was established in Egypt at the same time but spread more slowly. However, there was no comparable spread of Egyptian cultural influence. The many communi­ties along the Egyptian Nile had no political or religious cohesiveness, and the common material culture and neolithic economy that they shared was not very different in its nature from that of contemporary African cultures. The typical pottery and artifacts of prehistoric Egypt are not found outside of the Nile valley or south of the Second Cataract, and only along the upper Nile is some influence perceptible.” ref

“Between the Second Cataract and Khartoum at this time, a typical product of the indigenous population, called the “Khartoum Neolithic” people, was pottery with impressed designs, a tradition inherited from their hunting and gather­ing predecessors. By contrast, the wares of contemporary Egypt were sometimes painted but rarely incised, while the commonest fabric was plain red polished, often with an added black top. This decorative idea was copied on a small scale in the Khartoum Neolithic and eventually became an important feature of later pottery styles in Lower and Upper Nubia. Otherwise, borrowing was restricted to a simple tool, the “gouge” found in fact throughout the Sahara as well as along the Nile.” ref

“The civilization of historical Egypt developed so rapidly in the first centuries of the third mil­lennium BCE that some have suggested that the creative inspiration came from the already developed cultures of Mesopotamia. Literacy, centralized political control, an elaborate religious system, a metal (copper, later bronze) technology, and a developed style in art and monumental architecture were firmly established in Egypt by 2700 BCE. However, it was just at this time that contact with other parts of Africa became more difficult. The Sahara was arid by 2500 BCE and while its retreating population introduced agri­culture and domesticated animals into western and central Africa, the desert routes to Egypt became more difficult to traverse. Even the chief remaining corridor for human movement, the Nile valley, was to a large extent blocked in the south by a vast swamp, the Sudd.” ref

“Some scholars, therefore, doubt that there could have been any significant contact between Egypt and most of Black Africa after 3000 BCE. They suggest that apparent similarities, such as the appearance of centralized political structures and divine kingship, which appear in some Black African groups in the first and second millennia CE, are general and coincidental. Other his­torians believe such similarities are ultimately derived from ancient Egypt, probably via the “Egyptianized” kingdom of Meroe in the Sudan (591 BCE – CE 320), and are perhaps linked to the diffusion of iron technology from the same source. Recently, however, the appearance of iron-working in western Africa has been dated to about 500 BCE, and is unlikely to have come from Meroe, where iron was still rare at the same date. It can no longer be automatically assumed that the iron-working that appeared in central Africa in the early first millennium CE was derived from Meroe since an alternative source is now known to have existed.” ref

“The controversy will be resolved only by extensive archaeological exploration, which so far has taken place only in the extreme north of the principal contact area, the modern Republic of the Sudan. Lower Nubia, the area between the First and Second Cataracts (now shared between Egypt and the Sudan), has been thoroughly explored; since 1900 it has served as an ever-growing reservoir to the Aswan Dam, a fact which has stimulated periodic bursts of salvage archae­ology, culminating in an extraordinary inter­national effort in 1961-1964. Upper Nubia, the valley between the Second and Fourth Cataracts, has been less well explored; recent surveys have reached as far as the Third Cataract, and a handful of early historical sites have been excavated as far as the Fourth Cataract. Further south, the principal excavated sites are Napatan (706-591 BCE), Meroitic, or later. Archaeological coverage is not yet full enough to trace the possible diffusion of Egyptian influence beyond the Sudan in these or earlier times.” ref

“However, the accumulation of data over the last sixty years and its continuous reinterpretation have enabled us to study the earliest effects of ancient Egypt on its nearest southern neighbors, who included considerable numbers of Negroid and Negro peoples, and to guess what the effect may have been on more remote Black Africans. For nearly 1500 years (3000-1570 BCE) the indigenous cultures of Lower Nubia were markedly different from those of historical Egypt, and in Upper Nubia the distinctions carried on into the Meroitic period. The differences are most easily to be seen in the pottery, in which the varied and inventive traditions of the ancient Sudan contrast strikingly with the unimaginative wares of his­torical Egypt, but are to be found also in most other aspects of material culture, in language, and surely, in social and political organizations and in religious beliefs. These latter aspects are poorly documented, since the Sudan did not become literate in its own language until ca. 180 BCE, and even now, the earliest script, Meroitic, remains untranslatable.” ref

Lower Nubia was unlikely to support a highly developed culture. It has access to some impor­tant resources (copper, gold, and some valuable types of stone) but only a small amount of cul­tivable land, and throughout history it has acted as a buffer zone between Egypt and the inhabi­tants of Upper Nubia. Nevertheless, the indigenous population of this region (which, certainly by 2200 BCE, consisted of a mixture of brown and black-skinned peoples, according to Egyptian depictions) was remarkably resistant to Egyptian cultural influence in spite of close and sometimes oppressive contact with the Egyptians. Already by ca. 3050 BCE. Egyptian expeditions had reached the Second Cataract while the people of the contemporary Nubian culture, labeled A-group by archaeologists, buried with their dead foods and liquids in imported Egyptian pots and Egyptian-made copper implements. These were obtained as a result of the A-group’s control over the trade in luxury items, such as ebony and ivory, from further south. The material culture of the Nubians, however, remained basically non-Egyptian right up to the point (ca. 2600 BCE) when they were decimated, enslaved, and expelled by Egyptian troops intent on securing full control of the trade routes and natural resources of the area.” ref

“From ca. 2590 to 2420 BCE, the Egyptians controlled Lower Nubia from a few weakly de­fended settlements between the First and Second Cataracts, but these were eventually abandoned partly because of political instability in Egypt itself and partly because of an incursion of African people into Lower Nubia. These people, who may well have been related to the A-group. They are called the C-group by the archaeologists and came possibly from the now rapidly drying deserts to the east and west; during their period of occupation, part of, and finally all, Lower Nubia came to be called Wawat. Organized under chieftains, the C-group was war-like enough to be hired as mercenaries by the Egyptians, and they also hindered Egyptian trading expeditions, which until ca. 2185 B.C. were still reaching Upper Nubia. Eventually, the C-group secured complete control of this trade, and as a result, early C-group graves often contain Egyptian artifacts representing both booty and payment.” ref

“Unfortunately, we cannot yet trace through archaeology the development of this important Kushite state, but in 1912-1914 a partially exca­vated cemetery at Kerma revealed what are almost certainly the royal burials of the “rulers of Kush” of the period ca. 1670-1570 BCE and some of their predecessors. The latter probably did not exercise as much power, since the Kushites we know were originally divided into a number of tribes, and the consolidation of control must have been gradual. The latest royal burials are extraordinary structures. The king was placed, with rich funerary equipment, in a central chamber or pit, and at the same time, large numbers of women, presumably from his family, were sacrificed and buried in a nearby corridor or chamber. Over the burial complex was heaped a vast earth mound, sometimes held together by a mud-brick framework and a brick paving over the surface; a large stone cone was sometimes placed at the top.” ref

“These Kushite rulers no doubt maintained control over Upper and Lower Nubia through their exalted positions within the community, with however the support of warrior retainers, whose burials are found in and around the royal tumuli. Typically, a warrior’s funeral equipment includes a formidable metal dagger, and he is usually accompanied by two or three sacrificed women. There are also indications that the Kushites had a fleet of boats, which would have secured them control over the river, the chief means of communication; boats are depicted in some buildings at Kerma and, earlier, the Egyp­tians had regulations against Kushite vessels entering Lower Nubia.” ref

“Kushite culture was, in essentials, non-Egyptian. The Kushites were dark-skinned people with their own language or languages, and their burial structures and customs were, for the most part, unparalleled in contemporary Egypt. The great mass of the artifacts from Kerma are of Kushite manufacture; they include excellent pottery, mainly a very fine red polished black-topped ware in beaker and bowl forms, leather garments, and mica and ivory inlays in animal or geometric form. Nevertheless, the long period of contact inevitably resulted in some cultural interaction with Egypt, the evidence for which needs to be carefully considered.” ref

“Hundreds of objects, mostly fragmentary but certainly of Egyptian origin, were found at Kerma, consisting of statues and statuettes of Egyptian kings and officials, faience and stone vessels, metal and wood objects, jewelry, and pottery. This led the excavator, Reisner, to believe that an Egyptian garrison and manufacturing center had dominated the Kushites, but it is now clear that some of these objects were plundered from Lower Nubia, and the rest were secured through trade. The Kushites evidently were impressed by some aspects of Egyptian civilization; they collected Egyptian artifacts, refurbished some of the Egyp­tian temples in Lower Nubia, and engaged the services of Egyptian scribes and craftsmen, some of whom must have been at Kerma. However, the technical knowledge of these Egyptians was applied to giving material form to Kushite con­ception,s and one may suspect that any intellectual influence from Egypt was similarly transformed.” ref

“Thus, the knowledge of building in mud-brick may have been derived from Egypt, but three massive brick structures found at Kerma are not of tradi­tional Egyptian design. Their enormous walls take up between 80 and 90% of each structure and were meant to support an extensive second story, none of which survived. The ground floor rooms are quite small. One of these buildings, near the river, was perhaps the residence of the Kushite king; the two others, in the cemetery, were chapels and contained wall paintings in Egyptian style but of quite un-Egyptian content. Rows of painted hippopotami, giraffes, and ships indicate a close connection with indigenous beliefs and experience.” ref

“In and around the denuded Kushite town at Kerma, there was evidence for considerable industrial activity, including the making of pottery, faience, and copper or bronze objects. The Kushites were skilled potters, but the faience-workers and metallurgists were probably Egyp­tian; their products, however, reflected Kushite culture. Faience (a powdered stone composition covered with a glassy glaze) occurs frequently, but an un-Egyptian glazing of stone objects is also not uncommon, and some of the material produced, such as lions in blue faience or blue-glazed stone, are of Egyptian form but are not paralleled easily in Egypt itself. The famous Kerma daggers are based on an Egyptian proto­type fitted, however, with a peculiarly Kushite pommel of ivory and tortoise shell, and there are occasional metal copies of typical Kushite pottery shapes.” ref

“The subsequent history of Kushite culture is not yet known. Between 1570 and 1500 BCE, the resurgent Egyptians rapidly reoccupied Lower Nubia and campaigned into Kushite territory until a new Egyptian frontier was established at Napata. For the next 400 years, Wawat (Lower Nubia) and Kush were colonial possessions, governed by an Egyptian bureaucracy and send­ing an annual tribute, primarily of gold, to Egypt. The Nubians of Wawat now became Egyptianized, and their chieftains, absorbed into the administrative system, are found depicted and buried in a completely Egyptian style. In the larger and more diverse province of Kush, the interaction was undoubtedly more complex, but unfortunately, only Egyptian centers have so far been excavated. Resistance to Egyptian control is indicated by serious revolts throughout Dynasty XVIII (1570­1320 B.C.) and may have persisted into later periods. On the other hand, large numbers of Kushites were absorbed into the Egyptian army, and some probably gained high rank in the pro­vincial administration. The last effective viceroy of Kush, for example, was called Penehasi, the Nubian, and although this name was also given to Egyptians, he may well have been a Sudanese. In any case, Penehasi remained in Kush, presum­ably as its independent ruler, when the Egyptians abandoned the province in ca. 1085 BCE.” ref

“There is no textual or archaeological evi­dence on the transition to the later and better-known Napatan and Meroitic periods. It is surely significant, however, that the earliest Napatan royal burials were of an earth-mound type, reminiscent of the Kushite customs at Kerma, and that Egyptian influence did not become strong until the Napatans conquered and, for a brief period (751-656 BCE), ruled Egypt. Thereafter, it is true that certain Egyptian cultural forms in art and religion become evident, but the many differences in detail and emphasis, and the eventual exclusive use of the native Meroitic language and script, emphasize once again the individuality of these early Sudanese civilizations. Turning briefly to the question of African influence on Egypt, it is sometimes said that ancient Egyptian institutions and social structure were, in a general way, “African.” This, however, implies a uniformity of thought and experience throughout the continent, which in fact is unlikely to have existed. More specifically, Egypt seems to have been little affected by African or other foreign cultural influences.” ref

“Their trading and military expeditions certainly must have enabled the Egyptians to learn much about their southern neighbors, but only one or two Nubian gods were absorbed, as minor deities, into the Egyptian pantheon while a few Nubian words appear in the Egyptian language. From early historical times it is true that a steady though proportionately small stream of Nubians entered Egypt as slaves or mercenaries; however, even when immigrants settled down as a community they rapidly absorbed Egyptian culture and within a few gen­erations are virtually indistinguishable from Egyptians in the textual and archaeological record. There is evidence that in the New King­dom especially individual Nubians were appointed to important posts at the royal court in Egypt and, in view of the fact that the pharaohs maintained harems which included Nubian women, it is not unlikely that a few of the Egyptian kings may have been at least partly Nubian. Nevertheless, no resulting cultural influence can be detected aris­ing from this form of contact.” ref

“The significant Black African influence on Egypt was indirect. The mineral and other natural resources of the northern Sudan attracted the Egyptians into the area where they encountered numerous and sometimes well organized and formidable human groups; contact stimulated a variety of com­mercial, diplomatic and military reactions which meant that the southern lands played a role in Egyptian foreign policy approaching in impor­tance that of western Asia. The cultural interaction between Egypt and her nearest Black African neighbors was then a complex matter from very early times; Egyptian influence was sometimes resisted and, if absorbed, underwent a transformation in the process. If it did penetrate into Africa beyond the Nile the transformation was probably even more radical and the resistance of the indigenous cultures to it even stronger.” ref

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Nubia

“Nubia is a region along the Nile river encompassing the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the area between the first cataract of the Nile (south of Aswan in southern Egypt) or more strictly, Al Dabbah. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, the Kerma culture, which lasted from around 2500 BCE until its conquest by the New Kingdom of Egypt under Pharaoh Thutmose I around 1500 BCE, whose heirs ruled most of Nubia for the next 400 years. Nubia was home to several empires, most prominently the Kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt in the eighth century BC during the reign of Piye and ruled the country as its 25th Dynasty.” ref

Kerma culture

“The Kingdom of Kerma or the Kerma culture was an early civilization centered in Kerma, Sudan. It flourished from around 2500 to 1500 BCE in ancient Nubia. The Kerma culture was based in the southern part of Nubia, or “Upper Nubia” (in parts of present-day northern and central Sudan), and later extended its reach northward into Lower Nubia and the border of Egypt. The polity seems to have been one of a number of Nile Valley states during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. In the Kingdom of Kerma’s latest phase, lasting from about 1700 to 1500 BCE, it absorbed the Sudanese kingdom of Sai and became a sizable, populous empire rivaling Egypt. Around 1500 BCE, it was absorbed into the New Kingdom of Egypt, but rebellions continued for centuries. By the eleventh century BCE, the more-Egyptianized Kingdom of Kush emerged, possibly from Kerma, and regained the region’s independence from Egypt. Kerma was evidently a sizable political entity—Egyptian records speak of its rich and populous agricultural regions. Unlike Egypt, Kerma seems to have been highly centralized. It controlled the 1st to 4th Cataracts, which meant its domain was as extensive as ancient Egypt.” ref

“In southern Nubia (near modern Khartoum) from the ninth to the sixth millennia cal BCE, Khartoum Mesolithic fisher-hunter-gatherers produced sophisticated pottery. By 5000 BCE, the people who inhabited what is now called Nubia participated in the Neolithic Revolution. The Sahara became drier, and people began to domesticate sheep, goats, and cattle. Saharan rock reliefs depict scenes that have been thought to suggest the presence of a cattle cult, typical of those seen throughout parts of Eastern Africa and the Nile Valley even to this day. Nubian rock art depicts hunters using bows and arrows in the Neolithic period, which is a precursor to Nubian archer culture in later times. Megaliths discovered at Nabta Playa are early examples of what seems to be one of the world’s first astronomical devices, predating Stonehenge by almost 2,000 years. This complexity as expressed by different levels of authority within the society there likely formed the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.” ref

“American anthropologist, Joseph Vogel wrote that:

“The period when sub-Saharan Africa was most influential in Egypt was a time when neither Egypt, as we understand it culturally, nor the Sahara, as we understand it geographically, existed. Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant.” ref

“British Africanist Basil Davidson outlined that “The ancient Egyptians belonged, that is, not to any specific Egyptian region or Near Eastern heritage but to that wide community of peoples who lived between the Red Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, shared a common “Saharan-Sudanese culture”, and drew their reinforcements from the same great source, even though, as time went by, they also absorbed a number of wanderers from the Near East”. Biological anthropologists Shomarka Keita and A.J. Boyce have stated that the “Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 BCE), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans.” ref

“Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene era and from the 5th millennium BCE onwards, whereas there is “no or scanty evidence” of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation. Several scholars have argued that the African origins of the Egyptian civilization derived from pastoral communities which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese regions of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BCE.” ref

Pre-Kerma: A-Group (3500-3000 BCE)

“The poorly known “pre-Kerma” culture existed in Upper (Southern) Nubia on a stretch of fertile farmland just south of the Third Cataract.” ref

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This is not accurate, it is wrong to believe ancient Egypt was only black cevilization.

“The question of the race of the ancient Egyptians was raised historically as a product of the early racial concepts of the 18th and 19th centuries, and was linked to models of racial hierarchy primarily based on craniometry and anthropometry. A variety of views circulated about the racial identity of the Egyptians and the source of their culture. Some scholars argued that ancient Egyptian culture was influenced by other Afroasiatic-speaking populations in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, or the Middle East, while others pointed to influences from various Nubian groups or populations in Europe. In more recent times, some writers continued to challenge the mainstream view, some focusing on questioning the race of specific notable individuals, such as the king represented in the Great Sphinx of Giza, the native Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, the Egyptian queen Tiye, and the Greek Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII.” ref

“At a UNESCO symposium in 1974, a majority of the international scholars at the event favoured a hypothesis of a mixed population whereas a minority favoured a view of an homogeneous, African population. Mainstream Western scholars reject the notion that Egypt was a “white” or “black” civilization; they maintain that applying modern notions of black or white races to ancient Egypt is anachronistic. In addition, scholars reject the notion – implicit in a black or white Egypt hypothesis – that ancient Egypt was racially homogeneous; instead, skin colour varied between the peoples of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Nubia, who rose to power in various eras of ancient Egypt. Within Egyptian history, despite multiple foreign invasions, the demographics were not shifted substantially by large migrations.” ref

ref

“At the UNESCO “Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic script” in Cairo in 1974, the “Black Hypothesis” and the notion of a homogeneous population in Egypt was proposed by Cheikh Anta Diop in his chapter Origins of the Ancient Egyptians. “Numerous objections were made to the ideas propounded by Diop. These objections revealed the extent of a disagreement which remained profound even though it was not voiced explicitly.” The disagreement was largely due to methodological issues, for example, the insufficient data “to enable provisional conclusions to be drawn with regard to the peopling of ancient Egypt and the successive phases through which it may have passed.” ref

“The arguments for all sides are recorded in the UNESCO publication General History of Africa, with the “Origin of the Egyptians” chapter being written by Cheikh Anta Diop, a proponent of the “Black Hypothesis”. Diop’s chapter was credited in the general conclusion of the symposium report by the International Scientific Committee’s Rapporteur, Jean Devisse, as a “painstakingly researched contribution”, consequently there was a “real lack of balance” in the discussion among participants. At the 1974 UNESCO conference, several participants other than Diop and Obenga concluded that the Neolithic Egyptian population was indigenous to the Sahara, and was made up of people from north and south of the Sahara who had a range of skin colors. The majority of participants in the conference disagreed with Diop’s and Obenga’s views. Similarly, none of the participants voiced support for an earlier postulation that Egyptians were “white with a dark, even black, pigmentation”, although Professor Ghallab stated that “the inhabitants of Egypt in Palaeolithic times were Caucasoids.” ref

“Subsequent reviewers of the 1974 symposium debate and the UNESCO publication have presented a range of views on the outcome of the debate. According to Larissa Nordholt, the majority of reviewers at the time saw Diop’s chapter as discrediting the publication’s scholarly reputation due to the suggested “weight on politics”. Larissa Nordholt argued that Diop’s chapter was politically motivated, having been published only due to being in line with UNESCO’s political imperatives, despite clashing with accepted historical methods and standards of academic rigor. Peter Shinnie reviewing the GHA volume, wrote that “It seems that UNESCO and [the editor] Mokhtar were embarrassed by the unscholarly and preposterous nature of Diop’s views but were unable to reject his contribution.” ref 

“However, Bethwell Allan Ogot, a Kenyan historian and editor of UNESCO General History of Africa Volume 5, stated that “Cheikh Anta Diop wrested Egyptian civilization from the Egyptologists and restored it to the mainstream of African history”. Stephen Quirke argued that the UNESCO-sponsored conference on the General History of Africa in 1974 “did not change the Eurocentric climate of research” and of the need to incorporate both African-centred studies and White European, academic perspectives. He later outlined that “research conferences and publications on the history and language of Kemet [Egypt] remain dominated, beyond 90%, by those brought up and trained in European, not African societies and languages (which include Arabic)”. A forthcoming General History of Africa Volume IX will update the pre-existing volumes with recent archaeological, anthropological, and historical research accumulated over four decades. This volume will feature 60 historians from 28 countries (Africa, North America, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia).” ref

“In 2011, the genomics company iGENEA launched a Tutankhamun DNA project based on genetic markers that it indicated it had culled from a Discovery Channel special on the pharaoh. According to the firm, the microsatellite data suggested that Tutankhamun belonged to the haplogroup R1b1a2, the most common paternal clade among males in Western Europe. Carsten Pusch and Albert Zink, who led the unit that had extracted Tutankhamun’s DNA, chided iGENEA for not liaising with them before establishing the project. After examining the footage, they also concluded that the methodology the company used was unscientific with Putsch calling them “simply impossible.” ref

“A 2020 DNA study by Gad, Hawass et al., analysed mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups from Tutankhamun’s family members of the 18th Dynasty, using comprehensive control procedures to ensure quality results. They found that the Y-chromosome haplogroup of the family was R1b, which originated in Europe and which today makes up 50–90% of the genetic pool of modern western Europeans. The mitochondrial haplogroup was K, which is most likely also part of a Near Eastern lineage. The profiles for Tutankhamun and Amenhotep III were incomplete and the analysis produced differing probability figures despite having concordant allele results.” ref

“Because the relationships of these two mummies with the KV55 mummy had previously been confirmed in an earlier study, the haplogroup prediction of both mummies could be derived from the full profile of the KV55 data. The 20th Dynasty pair of Ramesses III and his son were found to have the haplogroup E1b1a, which has its highest frequencies in modern populations from West Africa and Central Africa, but which is rare among North Africans and nearly absent in East Africa. Genetic analysis indicated the following haplogroups:

• Amenhotep III YDNA R1b / mtDNA H2b
• Tutankhamun YDNA R1b / mtDNA K
• Akhenaten YDNA R1b / mtDNA K
• Tiye mtDNA K
• Yuya G2a / mtDNA K
• Thuya mtDNA K” ref

“K is a subclade of U8. Haplogroup K is believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago. It is the most common subclade of haplogroup U8b. The lack of U8a lineages in Africa suggests that their ancestors may have originated from West Asia. Haplogroup U8b: This clade has been found in Italy and Jordan. Haplogroup K makes up a sizeable fraction of European and West Asian mtDNA lineages.” ref, ref

“Haplogroup K appears in Central Europe, Southern Europe, Northern Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, South Asia, and West Asia and in populations with such an ancestry. Overall, the mtDNA haplogroup K is found in about 6% of the population of Europe and the Near East, but it is more common in certain populations. Approximately 16% of the Druze of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, belong to haplogroup K. Examples of Druze branches of K are K1a5a and K1a17a. It is also found among 8% of Palestinians. Additionally, K reaches a level of 17% in Kurdistan. Approximately 32% of people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry are in haplogroup K, with about 21% in K1a1b1a alone.” ref

“The more ancient evidence of Haplogroup K has been found in the remains of three individuals from Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian of Spain 11,950 years ago and in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Tell Ramad, Syria, dating from c. 6000 BCE. The clade was also discovered in skeletons of early farmers in Central Europe, dated to around 5500–5300 BCE, at percentages that were nearly double the percentage present in modern Europe. Some farming techniques, together with associated plant and animal breeds, have spread into Europe from the Near East. Evidence from ancient DNA suggests that Neolithic culture was spread by human migration.” ref

“Analysis of the mtDNA of Ötzi, the frozen mummy from 3300 BCE found on the Austria–Italy border, has shown that Ötzi belongs to the K1 subclade. It cannot be categorized into any of the three modern branches of that subclade (K1a, K1b or K1c). The new subclade has provisionally been named K1ö for Ötzi. Multiplex assay study was able to confirm that the Iceman’s mtDNA belongs to a new European mtDNA clade with a very limited distribution amongst modern data sets. A woman buried some time between 2650 and 2450 BCE in a presumed Amorite tomb at Terqa (Tell Ashara), Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria carried Haplogroup K.” ref

A lock of hair kept at a reliquary at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte Baume basilica, France, which local tradition holds belonged to the biblical figure Mary Magdalene, was also assigned to haplogroup K. Ancient DNA sequencing of a capillary bulb bore the K1a1b1a subclade and according to the highly controversial researcher Gérard Lucotte [fr], who claims to have discovered the DNA of Jesus Christ, it would indicate that she would have been of Pharisian maternal origin. Haplogroup K1 has likewise been observed among specimens at the mainland cemetery in Kulubnarti, Sudan, which date from the Early Christian period (CE 550-800). In 2016, researchers extracted the DNA from the tibia of two individuals separately dated to 7288–6771 BCE and 7605–7529 BCE buried in Theopetra cave, Greece, the oldest known human-made structure, and both individuals were found to belong to mtDNA Haplogroup K1c.” ref

“Yuya, a powerful ancient Egyptian courtier during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (circa 1390 BCE), and his wife Thuya, an Egyptian noblewoman associated with the royal family, both belonged to the maternal haplogroup K, as did their descendants:

• Queen Tiye
• Pharaoh Akhenaten
• The Younger Lady (KV35YL)
• Pharoah Tutankhamun” ref

“The remains of 3 Haplogroup K carriers were among ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt as follows beginning with their sample number, followed by clade and date:

• JK2139 K1a AD 54-124
• JK2150 K1a4 BC 650-551
• JK2895 K 16T AD AD 25-111” ref

“Fossils excavated at the Late Neolithic site of Kelif el Boroud in Morocco, which have been dated to around 3,000 BCE, have likewise been observed to carry the K1 subclade.” ref

I see ancient Egyptian as a very mixed culture influenced by other Afroasiatic-speaking populations (especially Chadic languages) in North Africa. And from the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, Nubian groups from the south, and populations in Eurasia/Caucasus mountain region (such as the Leyla-Tepe culture and Maykop culture/Kura–Araxes culture).

ref

“Early Maykop objects from the chieftain’s grave at Maikop, Russia. The lion, bull, necklace, and diadem are gold; the cup with engraved design is silver; the two pots are ceramic; and the other objects are arsenical bronze. The bronze blade with silver rivets is 47 cm (18.5 inches) long and had sharp edges.” ref

“Rostovstev, finding similarities between the art of Ancient Egypt, refuted Tallgren’s argument, describing the Maykop objects as “more primitive” and “much older.” In addition, Schmidt, by analyzing the newly discovered artifacts unearthed at the Early Dynastic Royal Cemetery of Ur, joined Rostovstev in proclaiming a third millennium BCE date.” ref

“In 1956, Alexsandr Iessen reviewed the available material and agreed with earlier claims that Maykop art had a likeness to the Priam Treasure and the art of Ancient Egypt. A more recent examination linking the Maykop to the Sumerians, the earliest known civilization in Southern Mesopotamia, comes from Trifonov, Petrov, and Savelieva, who reanalyzed the scepters found in the Chieftain’s Grave, presenting them alternatively as tubes for communal beer drinking.” ref

“They compared the tubes to ancient Sumerian drinking vessels, which were often made of a long, hollow reed, and through residue analysis, they found traces of barley starch granules. Furthermore, in an arrangement similar to the practices of early royal funerals of the Near East, the tubes were positioned closest to the body to emphasize the importance of the feast in the funerary processions.” ref

“Some have gone further, stating that not only were the Maykop intertwined with the Near East, but that they had a sizable sway in the ancient world. In 2008, Ivanova-Bieg remarked on the numerous Maykop artifacts that reflected the developed stage of Near Eastern societies. She called for a “change in chronological perspective allowing for Maykop as a centre of innovation in its own right.” ref

“In 2019 by Hansen, who, in his attempt to dismantle the grand narrative that all pre-historical technological advancements originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia, pointed to the Maykop as an important intermediary site for the formulation and spread of new ideas. His new approach argued that Egyptian and Mesopotamian success was down to their adaptation of techniques produced in peripheral areas, like the North Caucasus, where the Maykop resided.” ref

“Before, early theorists had recognized a strong Mesopotamian bent to Maykop objects, but usually attributed it to direct Mesopotamian influence on the Maykop. Using later radio-carbon dating of the Chieftain’s Grave, Hansen showed that the crypt was built around 3700-3500 BCE, a thousand years older than previous estimates, implying that it was the Maykop culture that influenced the Mesopotamians.” ref

It revealed that the Chieftain’s Grave represented the oldest evidence for metal vessels and the earliest use of lion iconography in the heraldry of a ruler, showing that tentative steps towards state formation were already being made by the Maykop in the first half of the 4th millennium.

“To add to this, similar copper tools found in the Chieftain’s Grave have also been found in Mesopotamia and as far as the island of Crete. The relatedness of the knives, swords, and axes in Maykop, Mesopotamia, and Crete, advocated the Maykop as an important middle-man in the spread of technology during the 4th millennium BC. Maykop influence has been found even further afield than Crete. In an astounding discovery, Maykop weapons, bows, and quivers were found in Göhlitzsch, Germany, identical to similar armaments from a site in Novosvobodnaya near Maykop.” ref

“Thus, the Maykops had an impact on the development and distribution of technologies during the 4th millennium BCE, being a major player in a system of innovation that incorporated the East, Caucuses, and Central Europe. No doubt the richness of the Caucuses region in ores, pastures, and timber proved extremely attractive to the evolving urban centers that the Maykop became inextricably linked too.” ref

“Acting as an intermediary between East and West, they were also an integral part of the technological revolutions of the 4th millennium BC, which included the wheel, wagon, the domestication of donkeys, sheep, and horses, and the cultivation of olives and wine. Several innovations in metallurgy and wool have been attributed to the Maykop, who were not only effective transferrers of knowledge but also trailblazers in their own right.” ref

ref, ref

Genetic history of Egypt

“The genetic history of Egypt reflects its geographical location at the crossroads of several major biocultural areas: North Africa, the Sahara, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and sub-Saharan Africa.” ref

“Egyptologist Barry Kemp has noted that DNA studies can only provide firm conclusions about the population of ancient Egypt if the sample results are of a significant number of individuals and represent a broad geographical and chronological range. According to historian William Stiebling and archaeologist Susan N. Helft, conflicting DNA analysis on recent genetic samples, such as the Amarna royal mummies has led to a lack of consensus on the genetic makeup of the ancient Egyptians and their geographic origins.” ref

“In 2012, two mummies of two 20th dynasty individuals, Ramesses III and “Unknown Man E” believed to be Ramesses III’s son Pentawer, were analyzed by Albert Zink, Yehia Z Gad, and a team of researchers under Zahi Hawass. Genetic kinship analyses revealed identical haplotypes in both mummies; using the Whit Athey’s haplogroup predictor, the Y chromosomal haplogroup E1b1a was predicted. In another study by the same authors in 2020, which once again deals with the paternal lineage of Ramesses III and the “Unknown Man E” (possibly Pentawer), E1b1a shows its highest frequencies in modern West African populations (~80%) and Central Africa (~60%).” ref

“A study published in 2017 by Schuenemann et al. extracted DNA from 151 Egyptian mummies, whose remains were recovered from Abusir el-Meleq in Middle Egypt. The samples are from the time periods: Late New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman. Complete mtDNA sequences from 90 samples as well as genome-wide data from three ancient Egyptian individuals were successfully obtained and were compared with other ancient and modern datasets. The study used 135 modern Egyptian samples. The ancient Egyptian individuals in their own dataset possessed highly similar mtDNA haplogroup profiles, and cluster together, supporting genetic continuity across the 1,300-year transect. Modern Egyptians shared this mtDNA haplogroup profile, but also carried 8% more African component. A wide range of mtDNA haplogroups was found including clades of J, U, H, HV, M, R0, R2, K, T, L, I, N, X and W. In addition three ancient Egyptian individuals were analysed for Y-DNA, two were assigned to Middle Eastern haplogroup J and one to haplogroup E1b1b1a1b2. Both of these haplogroups are carried by modern Egyptians, and also common among Afroasiatic speakers in Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, and the Middle East. The researchers cautioned that the examined ancient Egyptian specimens may not be representative of those of all ancient Egyptians since they were from a single archaeological site from the northern part of Egypt. The analyses revealed that Ancient Egyptians had higher affinities with Near Eastern and European populations than modern Egyptians do, likely due to the 8% increase in the African component found in modern Egyptians. However, comparative data from a contemporary population under Roman rule in Anatolia, did not reveal a closer relationship to the ancient Egyptians from the Roman period. “Genetic continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians cannot be ruled out despite this more recent sub-Saharan African influx, while continuity with modern Ethiopians is not supported.” ref

“The absolute estimates of sub-Saharan African ancestry in these three ancient Egyptian individuals ranged from 6 to 15%, and the absolute estimates of sub-Saharan African ancestry in the 135 modern Egyptian samples ranged from 14 to 21%, which show an 8% increase in African component. The age of the ancient Egyptian samples suggests that this 8% increase in African component occurred predominantly within the last 2000 years. The 135 modern Egyptian samples were: 100 from modern Egyptians taken from a study by Pagani et al., and 35 from el-Hayez Western Desert Oasis taken from a study by Kujanova et al. The 35 samples from el-Hayez Western Desert Oasis, whose population is described by the Kujanova et al. study as a mixed, relatively isolated, demographically small but autochthonous population, were already known from that study to have a relatively high sub-Saharan African component, which is more than 11% higher than the African component in the 100 modern Egyptian samples. Verena Schuenemann and the authors of this study suggest a high level of genetic interaction with the Near East since ancient times, probably going back to Prehistoric Egypt although the oldest mummies at the site were from the New Kingdom: “Our data seem to indicate close admixture and affinity at a much earlier date, which is unsurprising given the long and complex connections between Egypt and the Middle East. These connections date back to Prehistory and occurred at a variety of scales, including overland and maritime commerce, diplomacy, immigration, invasion, and deportation.” ref

The 2017 study has generated academic responses from scholars from other related disciplines, remarking on the conclusions of the study from a multi-disciplinary approach. In 2020, Stuart Tyson Smith, professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, stated: “Additionally, they are oblivious to the fact that the mouth of the Faiyum Oasis, where the sample was located, is well known, through historical documents, as an area where Middle Eastern people, like the Sherden, were settled as a reward for military service, during the late New Kingdom, about 1300 to 1070 BCE. This provides a far more likely explanation for any stronger affinity to Middle Eastern populations, and weaker ties to Sub-Saharan populations than modern Egyptians in their sample, but was not even considered.” ref

“In 2021, Gourdine et al disputed Scheunemann et al’s claim, in an unpublished article, that the increase in the sub-Saharan component in the modern Egyptian samples resulted from the trans-Saharan slave trade. Instead they argued that the sub-Saharan “genetic affinities” may be attributed to “early settlers” and “the relevant sub-Saharan genetic markers do not correspond with the geography of known trade routes”. In 2022, biological anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita argued that there were problems with the study’s approaches and conclusions, such as over-generalizations and a failure to consider alternative explanations. Particularly, he raised issues with the comparative samples from West Africa as a proxy group and generalisations about geographical Egypt and population origins from the sample results. He also drew attention to the fact that the authors draw inference on migrations in line with their Bayesian statistical approach rather than integrate other data into their explanations about the population history.” ref

“In 2022, archaeologist Danielle Candelora stated that there were several limitations with the 2017 Scheunemann et al. study such as “new (untested) sampling methods, small sample size, and problematic comparative data”. In 2023, Stiebling and Helft acknowledged that the 2017 study had performed the largest study on ancient Egyptians but noted that the findings still derived from a small sample of mummies from one site in Middle Egypt, dating to the New Kingdom and later periods. They also stated that this study could not represent earlier populations or Egyptians from Upper Egypt who were geographically closer to Sub-Saharan populations. In 2023, Christopher Ehret argued that the conclusions of the 2017 study were based on insufficiently small sample sizes, and that the authors had a biased interpretation of the genetic data. Ehret also criticised the Schuenemann article for asserting that there was “no sub-Saharan genetic component” in the Egyptian population and cited previous genetic analysis which had identified the Horn of Africa as the origin of the E-M35 paternal haplogroup.” ref

“A 2020 study was conducted on ancient samples from Lebanon. Two individuals who lived in Lebanon around 500 BCE did not cluster with their contemporary Lebanese population. The study used the same Egyptian samples from the 2017 Schuenemann et al. study to further test these two individuals. One of these two individuals was a female who formed a clade with the three ancient Egyptian individuals from Schuenemann et al., implying that she shared all of her ancestry with them or a genetically equivalent population. The other one was a male who derived ~70% of his ancestry from a population related to the female and ~30% from a population related to ancient Levantines. Further testing suggests that the female was an Egyptian woman and the male was her son from a man who himself had both Egyptian and Lebanese ancestries.” ref

“The tomb of two high-status Egyptians, Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht, was discovered by Egyptian workmen directed by Sir William Flinders Petrie and Ernest Mackay in 1907. Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht lived during the 12th Dynasty (1985–1773 BCE) in Middle Egypt and were aged 20 years apart. Their tomb has been called Tomb of Two Brothers because the mummies were buried adjacent to one other and inscriptions on the coffins mention the female name Khnum-Aa, who is described as ‘lady of the house’ and referred to as the mother of both Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht. The Y-chromosome sequences were not complete, but the Y-chromosome SNPs indicated that they had different fathers, suggesting that they were half-brothers. The SNP identities were consistent with mtDNA haplogroup M1a1 with 88.05–91.27% degree of confidence, thus “confirming the African origins of the two individuals” according to the study authors, based on their maternal lineage.” ref

“In 2018, the mummified head of Djehutynakht was analysed for mitochondrial DNA. Djehutynakht was the nomarch of the Hare nome in Upper Egypt during the 11th or 12th Dynasty in the early Middle Kingdom period, c. 2000 BCE. Two laboratories independently analysed Djehutynakht’s DNA and found that he belonged to the mtDNA haplogroup U5b2b5, described by the lead author Odile Loreille as “a European haplogroup”. U5 is thought to have originated in Europe, and U5b2b5 has been found in ancient European samples dating from the Neolithic onwards. U5b2b5 has also been found in 10 samples from Christian Period Nubia, and a related European sequence (U5b2c1) has been observed in an ancient sample from Carthage (6th century BCE). Among ancient Egyptian samples the Djehutynakht sequence resembles a U5a lineage from sample JK2903, a 2000-year-old skeleton from the Abusir el-Meleq site in Egypt. Haplogroup U5 is found in modern Egyptians, and is found in modern Egyptian Berbers from the Siwa Oasis in Egypt. A 2009 study by Coudray et al. recorded haplogroup U5 at 16.7% in the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, whereas haplogroup U6 is more common in other Berber populations to the west of Egypt.” ref

“A study on male child mummies from the Greco-Roman period originating in the Memphite or Luxor area, revealed that the mtDNA for one was T2c1a and the other HV. Identical or phylogenetically close derivatives of these lineages are present in both ancient and modern Egyptians, as well as among several present-day populations of the Near East and North Africa. The researchers noted that mtDNA alone is not enough to reach any precise conclusion about the origin of an individual, but the results are in accordance with an Egyptian origin. The ages of the two mummified corpses ranged from 11–15 years old, and 2–4 years old.” ref

“A 2020 study by Gad, Hawass, et al. analysed mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups from Tutankhamun‘s family members of the 18th Dynasty, using comprehensive control procedures to ensure quality results. The study found that the Y-chromosome haplogroup of the family was R1b. Haplogroup R1b is carried by modern Egyptians. Modern Egypt is also the only African country that is known to harbor all three R1 subtypes, including R1b-M269. The Y-chromosome profiles for Tutankhamun and Amenhotep III were incomplete, and the analysis produced differing probability figures despite having concordant allele results. Because the relationships of these two mummies with the KV55 mummy (identified as Akhenaten) had previously been confirmed in an earlier study, the haplogroup prediction of both mummies could be derived from the full profile of the KV55 data. Genetic analysis indicated the following haplogroups for the 18th Dynasty:

• Amenhotep III: YDNA R1b & mtDNA H2b.
• Tutankhamun: YDNA R1b & mtDNA K.
• Akhenaten: YDNA R1b & mtDNA K.
• Tiye: mtDNA K.
• Yuya: YDNA G2a & mtDNA K.
• Thuya: mtDNA K.” ref

“Both Y-DNA haplogroups R1b and G2a, as well as both mtDNA haplogroups H and K, are carried by modern Egyptians.” ref

“In 2020, the mummy of Takabuti was tested for mitochondrial DNA. Takabuti was a noblewoman from Thebes in Upper Egypt who lived during the 25th Dynasty, c. 660 BC. Analysis of her DNA revealed that she belonged to the mtDNA haplogroup H4a1. The study states that “the H super-haplogroup is the most common mtDNA lineage in Europe and is found also in parts of present-day Africa and western Asia”. Haplogroup H is also carried by modern Egyptians, the subgroup H4 in particular, along with H2a1 and H13a1, account for 42% of H lineages in modern Egypt, with H4 accounting for 16.7% of H lineages in modern Egypt.” ref

“In 2020, three mummies, dating from the 1st millennium BCE, from the Pushkin Museum of Arts collection were tested at the Kurchatov Institute of Moscow for their mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups. One of the mummies was found to belong to the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1b1a1b (R1b-M269), which originated in Eastern Europe, and another to the Y-chromosome haplogroup E1b1b1a1b2a4b5a, which originated in North Africa. They also belonged to mtDNA haplogroups L3h1 and N5, common in Africans and Middle Easterners, respectively. The third mummy was found to belong to mtDNA haplogroup N, which is widely distributed across Eurasia as well as eastern and northeastern Africa.” ref

“In a comment on Hawas et al. (2010& 2012), the anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita pointed out, based on inserting the data into the PopAffiliator online calculator, which only calculates affinity to East Asia, Eurasia, and sub-Saharan Africa, but not to North Africa or the Near East, for instance, that Ramesses III and the Amarna ancient royal family (including Tutankhamun) showed “an affinity with sub-Saharan Africans in one affinity analysis, which does not mean that they lacked other affiliations — an important point that typological thinking obscures. Also, different data and algorithms might give different results, which would illustrate the complexity of biological heritage and its interpretation.” ref

Leyla-Tepe culture (4500 – 4000 BCE) is linked to the Ubaid-Uruk periods, and the founder of the Maykop culture, as well as related to the Kura–Araxes culture.

“Egyptians carry more of the Caucasus hunter-gatherer / Iran Neolithic component compared to other North Africans.” ref

 Ancient Egypt in Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Baltic, and Central Asia

“Egyptian artefacts – amulets, scarabs, jew- ellery – have been found throughout the vast territory stretching from the banks of the Kama in the north to the Tien Shan in the south, and from the Baltic in the west to eastern Siberia. They are particularly common in the Greek colonies around the Black Sea, on the banks of the Volga, Don, Dnieper, Dniester and Kuban, and in the Caucasus; a bronze figurine of the supreme Egyptian god Amun was found in the Perm district of western Siberia, and at Orsk in the Orenburg region a large alabaster ves- sel was found with an inscription in four languages (Akkadian, Babylonian, Persian and Egyptian), which read  ‘Artaxemes, great pharaoh’. Archaeologist Konstantin Smirnov has concluded that the vessel was made in Egypt and given as a gift to the Persian king. However, when the mighty Persian empire went into decline, its enemies invaded it more and more frequently, and the royal palace was plundered by Scythians, so this royal gift, along with other valuable objects, ended up in the southern Urals. Bronze statuettes of gods were discovered in a kurgan in Lithuania. Amulets and scarabs portraying cats and dogs have been found in  Chechen-Ingushetia; and amulets and scarabs decorated with serpents have been discovered in  burial grounds on the banks of the Tbilisi in Georgia.” ref

“In Azerbaijan, a bronze statuette of Bastet – the goddess of love in the form of a woman with a cat’s head – was found in a burial jar at Mingechaur. A considerable number of Egyptian beads and amulets have been discovered in Central Asia: in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, and a bronze statuette of Isis was found near Ashkhabad. In these distant lands, the objects were probably put to the same uses as in the Nile Valley. But, like everything that is alien and consequently not fully understood, they were believed to have miraculous powers. Figurines of the god Bes, the protector of children, women, and the home, depicted as a rabbit with a lion mask and a long tail, are often to be found in children’s tombs in particular. The most ancient Egyptian artefact was found in Armenia. During the Medzamor excavations, Professor Emma Hanzadian found a cylindrical cornelian seal with the image of a man sitting in an armchair next to a large pitcher used for wine and a woman standing. The picture is accompanied by an inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs: ‘Great ruler Kurigalzu’. Kurigalzu, a Babylonian ruler, was a contemporary of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenophis III, the father of the famous Akhenaten, who reigned in the fifteenth century BCE.” ref

“The natural scientist Frederick Falkenburger in 1947, based on a sample set of around 1,800 prehistoric Egyptian crania, noted great heterogeneity amongst his samples. Falkenburger categorized them based on the nasal index, overall head and face form, taking into account width, eye socket structure, amongst other given indicators. He divided and characterized the skulls into four types: Cro-Magnon type, “Negroid” type, Mediterranean type, and mixed types resulting from the mixture of the aforementioned groups. Similarly, the craniometrics of early Egyptians were according to the physician and anthropologist Eugene Strouhal in 1971, designated as either Cro-Magnon of North Africa, Mediterranean, “Negroid” of East Africa, and intermediate/mixed. According to Professor Fekhri A. Hassan, the peopling of the Egyptian Nile Valley from archaeological and biological data was the result of a complex interaction between coastal northern Africans, “neolithic” Saharans, Nilotic hunters, and riverine proto-Nubians with some influence and migration from the Levant (Hassan, 1988).” ref

“Around 6210 BCE, Neolithic settlements appear all over Egypt. Some studies based on morphological, genetic, and archaeological data have attributed these settlements to migrants from the Fertile Crescent in the Near East returning during the Egyptian and North African Neolithic, bringing agriculture to the region. Dating to about 5600-4400 BC of the Faiyum Neolithic, continued expansion of the desert forced the early ancestors of the Egyptians to settle around the Nile more permanently, adopting increasingly sedentary lifestyles. However, some scholars have disputed this view and cited linguistic, physical anthropological, archaeological, and genetic data which does not support the hypothesis of a mass migration from the Levant during the prehistoric period. According to historian William Stiebling and archaeologist Susan N. Helft, this view posits that the ancient Egyptians are the same original population group as Nubians and other Saharan populations, with some genetic input from Arabian, Levantine, North African, and Indo-European groups who have known to have settled in Egypt during its long history. On the other hand, Stiebling and Helft acknowledge that the genetic studies of North African populations generally suggest a big influx of Near Eastern populations during the Neolithic Period or earlier. They also added that there have only been a few studies on ancient Egyptian DNA to clarify these issues. Egyptologist Ian Shaw (2003) wrote that “anthropological studies suggest that the predynastic population included a mixture of racial types (Negroid, Mediterranean and European)”, but it is the skeletal material at the beginning of the pharaonic period that has proven to be most controversial.” ref

Eurasia and Ancient Egypt in the Fourth Millennium BCE

“Technical innovations, new interregional networks, and social upheavals in the fourth millennium BCE. Similar trends in the iconography of the lion, the heraldic animal of power, can be observed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus. This indicates that a process of concentration of power in the hands of strong rulers or kings took place relatively synchronously in these regions. The exchange of coveted raw materials such as copper and silver was connected with the transfer of knowledge between these regions, which can be seen in metal objects such as daggers and knives.” ref

“Analyses reveal that ancient Egyptians shared more ancestry with Near Easterners than present-day Egyptians, who received additional sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times. This analysis establishes ancient Egyptian mummies as a genetic source to study ancient human history and offers the perspective of deciphering Egypt’s past at a genome-wide level.” ref 

“In the Chalcolithic period (ca. 6400–3800 BCE), there is a continuity of Neolithic traditions with an increase in the use of copper. In the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3000–2000 BCE), the region’s rich resources in such metals as tin and silver attract new populations, customs, and artistic styles from the surrounding regions of Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Caucasus Mountains.” ref

“Remains found in Abusir-el Meleq, Middle Egypt, were closest genetic relatives of Neolithic and Bronze Age populations, from 151 mummies, dating from approximately 1400 BCE to CE 400” ref

Ancient Egyptian Contacts with Western and Central Asia

“The Gerzeh culture was preceded by the Amratian culture (“Naqada I”) and followed by the Naqada III (“protodynastic” or “Semainian culture”). Distinctly foreign objects and art forms entered Egypt during this period, indicating contacts with several parts of Asia. Scientific analysis of ancient wine jars in Abydos has shown that there was some high-volume wine trade with the Levant during this period. Objects such as the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently Mesopotamian relief carvings on it, have been found in Egypt, and the silver which appears in this period can only have been obtained from Asia Minor. Lapis lazuli trade, in the form of beads, from its only known prehistoric source – Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan – also reached ancient Gerzeh.” ref

“It is generally thought that cylinder seals were introduced from Mesopotamia to Egypt during the Naqada II period. Cylinder seals, some coming from Mesopotamia and Elam, and some made locally in Egypt following Mesopotamian designs in a stylized manner, have been discovered in the tombs of Upper Egypt dating to Naqada II and III, particularly in Hierakonpolis. Mesopotamia cylinder seals have been found in the Gerzean context of Naqada II, in Naqada, and Hiw, attesting to the expansion of the Jemdet Nasr culture as far as Egypt at the end of the 4th millennium BCE.” ref

“In Egypt, cylinder seals suddenly appear without local antecedents from around Naqada II c-d (3500–3300 BCE). The designs are similar to those of Mesopotamia, where they were invented during the early 4th millennium BCE, during the Uruk period, as an evolutionary step from various accounting systems and seals going back as early as the 7th millennium BCE. The earliest Egyptian cylinder seals are clearly similar to contemporary Uruk seals down to Naqada II-d (circa 3300 BCE), and may even have been manufactured by Mesopotamian craftsman, but they start to diverge from circa 3300 BCE to become more Egyptian in character. Cylinder seals were made in Egypt as late as the Second Intermediate Period, but they were essentially replaced by scarabs from the time of the Middle Kingdom.” ref

“Discoveries at Nekhen include Tomb 100, the oldest known tomb with a mural painted on its plaster walls. The sepulchre is thought to date to the Gerzeh culture (c. 3500–3200 BC). It is presumed that the mural shows religious scenes and images. It includes figures featured in Egyptian culture for three thousand years—a funerary procession of barques, presumably a goddess standing between two upright lionesses, a wheel of various horned quadrupeds, several examples of a staff that became associated with the deity of the earliest cattle culture and one being held up by a heavy-breasted goddess. Animals depicted include onagers or zebras, ibexes, ostriches, lionesses, impalas, gazelles, and cattle. Several of the images in the mural resemble images seen in the Gebel el-Arak Knife: a figure between two lions, warriors, or boats, but are not stylistically similar. Some symbols on Gerzeh pottery resemble traditional Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were contemporaneous with the proto-cuneiform script of Sumer. The figurine of a woman is a distinctive design considered characteristic of the culture. The end of the Gerzeh culture is generally regarded as coinciding with the unification of Egypt, the Naqada III period.” ref

“Although the Gerzeh culture, also called Naqada II is now clearly identified as being the continuation of the Amratian period, significant Mesopotamian influence worked its way into Egypt during the Gerzean. Objects such as the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently Mesopotamian relief carvings on it, have been found in Egypt, and the silver which appears in this period can only have been obtained from Asia Minor/Turkey/Anatolia. In addition, Egyptian objects are created which clearly mimic Mesopotamian forms, although not slavishly. Cylinder seals appear in Egypt, as well as recessed paneling architecture, the Egyptian reliefs on cosmetic palettes are clearly made in the same style as the contemporary Mesopotamian Uruk culture, and the ceremonial mace heads which turn up from the late Gerzean and early Semainean are crafted in the Mesopotamian “pear-shaped” style, instead of the Egyptian native style.” ref

“The route of this trade is difficult to determine, but contact with Canaan does not predate the early dynastic period, so it is usually assumed to have been conducted over water. During the time when the Dynastic Race Theory was still popular, it was theorized that Uruk sailors circumnavigated Arabia, but a Mediterranean route, probably by middlemen through Byblos, is more likely, as evidenced by the presence of Byblian objects in Egypt. The fact that so many Gerzean sites are at the mouths of wadis that lead to the Red Sea may indicate some amount of trade via the Red Sea (though Byblian trade potentially could have crossed the Sinai and then taken the Red Sea). Also, it is considered unlikely that something so complicated as recessed panel architecture could have worked its way into Egypt by proxy, and at least a small contingent of migrants is often suspected.” ref

“Haplogroup J-M304, also known as J, is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is believed to have evolved in Western Asia. The clade spread from there during the Neolithic, primarily into North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Socotra Archipelago, the Caucasus, Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.” ref

“Haplogroup J-M304 is divided into two main subclades (branches), J-M267 and J-M172. J-M304 (Transcaucasian origin) is defined by the M304 genetic marker, or the equivalent 12f2.1 marker. The main current subgroups J-M267 (Armenian highlands origin) and J-M172 (Zagros mountains origin), which now comprise between them almost all of the haplogroup’s descendant lineages, are both believed to have arisen very early, at least 10,000 years ago. Nonetheless, Y-chromosomes F-M89* and IJ-M429* were reported to have been observed in the Iranian plateau (Grugni et al. 2012). Haplogroup J has also been found among two ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from a period between the late New Kingdom and the Roman era.” ref

“Haplogroup J-M267 is found in its greatest concentration in the Arabian Peninsula. Outside of this region, haplogroup J-M304 has a significant presence in other parts of the Middle East as well as in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Caucasus. It also has a moderate occurrence in Southern Europe, especially in central and southern Italy, Malta, Greece and Albania. The J-M410 subclade is mostly distributed in Asia Minor, Greece and southern Italy. Additionally, J-M304 is observed in Central Asia and South Asia, particularly in the form of its subclade J-M172.” ref 

“The term Eurasian backflow, or Eurasian back-migrations, has been used to describe several pre-Neolithic and Neolithic migration events of humans from western Eurasia back to Africa. About 3,000 years ago, or already earlier between 6,000-5,000 years ago, farmers from Anatolia and the Near East migrated into the Horn of Africa. Signs of this migration can be found in the genomes of contemporary peoples from all over East Africa.” ref

“ISOGG states that J-M267 originated in the Middle East. It is found in parts of the Near East, Anatolia and North Africa, with a much sparser distribution in the southern Mediterranean flank of Europe, and in Ethiopia. But not all studies agree on the point of origin. The Levant has been proposed but a 2010 study concluded that the haplogroup had a more northern origin, possibly Anatolia. The origin of the J-P58 subclade is likely in the more northerly populations and then spreads southward into the Arabian Peninsula. The high Y-STR variance of J-P58 in ethnic groups in Turkey, as well as northern regions in Syria and Iraq, supports the inference of an origin of J-P58 in nearby eastern Anatolia. Moreover, the network analysis of J-P58 haplotypes shows that some of the populations with low diversity, such as Bedouins from Israel, Qatar, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates, are tightly clustered near high-frequency haplotypes. This suggests that founder effects with star burst expansion into the Arabian Desert (Chiaroni 2010).” ref

“Genetic analysis of modern Egyptians reveals that they have paternal lineages common to other indigenous Afroasiatic speaking populations in North Africa, West Asia, Anatolia/Turkey and Horn of Africa; Some studies have proposed the view that these lineages would have spread into North Africa and Horn of Africa from Western Asia during the Neolithic Revolution and were maintained by the predynastic period.” ref

“A study by Krings et al. (1999) on mitochondrial DNA clines along the Nile Valley found that a Eurasian cline runs from Northern Egypt to Southern Sudan and a Sub-Saharan cline from Southern Sudan to Northern Egypt, derived from a sample size of 224 individuals (68 Egyptians, 80 Nubians, 76 southern Sudanese). The study also found Egypt and Nubia have low and similar amounts of divergence for both mtDNA types, which is consistent with historical evidence for long-term interactions between Egypt and Nubia. However, there are significant differences between the composition of the mtDNA gene pool of the Egyptian samples and that of the Nubians and Southern Sudanese samples. The diversity of the Eurasian mtDNA type was highest in Egypt and lowest in southern Sudan, whereas the diversity of the sub-Saharan mtDNA type was lowest in Egypt and highest in southern Sudan. The authors suggested in their conclusion that Egypt and Nubia had more genetic contact than either did with southern Sudan and that the migration from north to south was either earlier or lesser in the extent of gene flow than the migration from south to north.” ref

“A study by Luis et al. (2004) found that the male haplogroups in a sample of 147 Egyptians were E1b1b (36.1%, predominantly E-M78), J (32.0%), G (8.8%), T (8.2%), and R (7.5%). The study found that “Egypt’s NRY frequency distributions appear to be much more similar to those of the Middle East than to any sub-Saharan African population, suggesting a much larger Eurasian genetic component … The cumulative frequency of typical sub-Saharan lineages (A, B, E1b1a) is 3.4% in Egypt … whereas the haplogroups of Eurasian origin (Groups C, D, and F–Q) account for 59% [in Egypt].” E1b1b subclades are characteristic of some Afro-Asiatic speakers and are believed to have originated in either the Middle East, North Africa, or the Horn of Africa. Cruciani et al. (2007) suggests that E-M78, E1b1b predominant subclade in Egypt, originated in Northeastern Africa (Egypt and Libya in the study), with a corridor for bidirectional migrations between northeastern and eastern Africa (at least 2 episodes between 23,900 and 17,300 and 18,000–5,900 years ago), trans-Mediterranean migrations directly from northern Africa to Europe (mainly in the last 13,000 years ago), and flow from northeastern Africa to western Asia between 20,000 and 6,800 years ago. Cruciani et al. proposed that E-M35, the parent clade of E-M78, originated in Eastern Africa during the Palaeolithic and subsequently spread to Northeastern Africa, 23,900–17,300 years ago ago. Cruciani et al. also state that the presence of E-M78 chromosomes in Eastern Africa can be only explained through a back migration of chromosomes that had acquired the M78 mutation in Northeast Africa.” ref

“Other studies have shown that modern Egyptians have genetic affinities primarily with populations of North Africa and the Middle East, and to a lesser extent the Horn of Africa and European populations. Another study states that “the information available on individual groups in Ethiopia and North Africa is fairly limited but sufficient to show that they are all separate from sub-Saharan Africans and that North Africans and East Africans (such as Ethiopians) are clearly separate”, and concluded that most Ethiopians came from an admixture and that the larger fraction of Sub-Saharan genes came during the Neolithic times “before the beginning of the Egyptian civilisation”. The study also found the gene frequency of North African populations and, to a lesser extent, East Africa to be intermediate between Africa and Europe. In addition, some studies suggest ties with populations in the Middle East, as well as some groups in southern Europe, and a closer link to other North Africans.” ref

“A 2004 mtDNA study of 58 upper Egyptian individuals included 34 individuals from Gurna, a small settlement on the hills opposite Luxor. The 34 individuals from Gurna exhibited the haplogroups: M1 (6/34 individuals, 17.6%), H (5/34 individuals, 14.7%), L1a (4/34 individuals, 11.8%), and U (3/34 individuals, 8.8%). The M1 haplotype frequency in Gurna individuals (6/34 individuals, 17.6%) is similar to that seen in Ethiopian population (20%), along with a West Eurasian component different in haplogroup distribution in the Gurna individuals. However, the M1 haplotypes from Gurna individuals exhibited a mutation that is not present in the Ethiopian population; whereas this mutation was present in non-M1 haplotype individuals from Gurna. Nile Valley Egyptians do not show the characteristics that were shown by the Gurna individuals. The results of the study suggested that the sample of Gurna individuals had retained elements of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. Another 2004 mtDNA study featured the Gurna individuals samples, and clustered them together with the Ethiopian and Yemeni groups, in between the Near Eastern and other African sample groups.” ref

“A 2005 genetic study found close affinities of eastern sub-Saharan populations with Egypt in the phylogenetic trees through analysis of the short DNA sequences. The authors suggested that the influential role of the Nile River served as a migratory route and an agent of genetic flow which contributed to present-day heterogeneity in Egypt.” ref

“Though there has been much debate of the origins of haplogroup M1 a 2007 study had concluded that M1 has West Asia origins not a Sub Saharan African origin, although the majority of the M1a lineages found outside and inside Africa had a more recent East African origin, as a result of “the first M1 backflow [from Asia] to Africa, dated around 30,000 [years ago]”. The study states that “the most ancient dispersals of M1 occurred in northwestern Africa, reaching also the Iberian Peninsula, instead of Ethiopia”, and states that the evidence points to either “that the Near East was the most probable origin of the primitive M1 dispersals, West into Africa and East to Central Asia … [with] the Sinai Peninsula as the most probable gate of entrance of this backflow to Africa” or “that M1 is an autochthonous North African clad that had its earliest spread in northwestern areas marginally reaching the Near East and beyond.” ref

“However, other authors have proposed the view that the M haplogroup developed in Africa before the ‘Out of Africa’ event around 50,000 years ago, and dispersed from North Africa or East Africa 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Quintana-Murci et al. stated in reference to the M haplogroup that “Its variation and geographical distribution suggest that Asian haplogroup M separated from eastern-African haplogroup M more than 50,000 years ago. Two other variants (489C and 10873C) also support a single origin of haplogroup M in Africa.” ref

“A 2003 Y-chromosome study was performed by Lucotte on modern Egyptians, with haplotypes V, XI, and IV being most common. Haplotype V is common among all North Africans and has a low frequency outside the North African region. Haplotypes V, XI, and IV are all predominantly North African/Horn of African/Sub-Saharan African (related to Bantu expansion) haplotypes, respectively, and they are far more dominant in Egyptians than in Middle Eastern or European groups. The pattern of diversity for these variants in the Egyptian Nile Valley was largely the product of population events that occurred in the late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene through the First Dynasty.” ref

“Keita (2008) examined a published Y-chromosome dataset on Afro-Asiatic populations and remarked that a key subclade of E-M35, namely the key lineage E-M78, was shared between the populations in the locale of original Egyptian speakers and modern Cushitic speakers from the Horn of Africa. These lineages are present in modern Egyptians, Berbers, Cushitic speakers from the Horn of Africa, and Semitic speakers in the Near-East. He noted that variants are also found in the Aegean and Balkans. The origin of E-M35 was in East Africa, whereas the origin of its subclade mutation E-M78 was in Northeast Africa (the area of Egypt and Libya). This parent clade and its subclade mutations in general were dominant in a core portion of Afro-Asiatic speaking populations which included Cushitic, Egyptian, Berber groups, and Semitic speakers from the Near East, where Semitic speakers showed a decline in frequency going west to east in the Levantine-Syria region. He concluded that “the genetic data give population profiles that clearly indicate males of African origin, as opposed to being of Asian or European descent” but acknowledged that the biodiversity does not indicate any specific set of skin colors or facial features as populations were subject to microevolutionary pressures.” ref

“Babiker, H et al. (2011) examined the genotypes of 15 STRs for 498 individuals from 18 Sudanese populations and featured comparative genotype data with Egypt, Somalia and the Karamoja population from Uganda. Overall, the results showed that the genotypes of individuals from northern Sudan clustered with those of Egypt, the Somali population was found to be genetically distinct and individuals from southern Sudan clustered with those from the Karamoja population. The study determined that similarity of the Nubian and Egyptian populations suggested that migration, potentially bidirectional, occurred along the Nile river Valley, which is consistent with the historical evidence for long-term interactions between Egypt and Nubia.” ref

“An allele frequency comparative study led by the Egyptian Army Major General Doctor Tarek Taha conducted STR analysis in 2020 between the two main Egyptian ethnic groups, Muslims and Christians, each group represented by a sample of 100 unrelated healthy individuals, supported the conclusion that Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Christians genetically originate from the same ancestors.” ref

“A Nov 2023 study by Hammarén et al isolated the non-african parts of the genomes of modern day northeast Africans found that Sudanese Copts and Egyptian muslims from Cairo bore most similarities to Levantines, unlike other populations in the region which had predominant genetic contributions from the Arabian peninsula rather than Levant for their Non-African genetic component. The study also found that Egyptian muslims and Sudanese Copts are genetically most similar to Middle Eastern groups rather than the other African populations, they estimated the admixture date for modern Egyptians with Eurasians to have occurred around the 14th century, however the authors noted that “most, if not all, of the populations in this study have or have had admixture with populations from the Middle East during the Arab expansion, and this newer admixture is obscuring older admixture patterns”. The study overall points that the distribution of Eurasian ancestry in modern Eastern and Northeast Africa is the result of more recent migrations, many of which are recorded in historical texts rather than ancient one.” ref

“R1b1a2 is defined by the presence of SNP marker V88, the discovery of which was announced in 2010 by Cruciani et al. Apart from individuals in southern Europe and Western Asia, the majority of R-V88 was found in the Sahel, especially among populations speaking Afroasiatic languages of the Chadic branch.” ref

“Based on a detailed phylogenic analysis, D’Atanasio et al. (2018) proposed that R1b-V88 originated in Europe about 12,000 years ago and crossed to North Africa between 8000 and 7000 years ago, during the ‘Green Sahara‘ period. R1b-V1589, the main subclade within R1b-V88, underwent a further expansion around 5500 years ago, likely in the Lake Chad Basin region, from which some lines recrossed the Sahara to North Africa.” ref

“Marcus et al. (2020) provide strong evidence for this proposed model of North to South trans-Saharan movement: The earliest basal R1b-V88 haplogroups are found in several Eastern European Hunter Gatherers close to 11,000 years ago. The haplogroup then seemingly spread with the expansion of Neolithic farmers, who established agriculture in the Western Mediterranean by around 7500 years ago. R1b-V88 haplogroups were identified in ancient Neolithic individuals in Germany, central Italy, Iberia, and, at a particularly high frequency, in Sardinia. A part of the branch leading to present-day African haplogroups (V2197) was already derived in Neolithic European individuals from Spain and Sardinia, providing further support for a North to South trans-Saharan movement. European autosomal ancestry, mtDNA haplogroups, and lactase persistence alleles have also been identified in African populations that carry R1b-V88 at a high frequency, such as the Fulani and Toubou. The presence of European Neolithic farmers in Africa is further attested by samples from Morocco dating from c. 5400 BCE onwards.” ref

“Studies in 2005–08 reported “R1b*” at high levels in Jordan, Egypt, and Sudan. Subsequent research by Myres et al. (2011) indicates that the samples concerned most likely belong to the subclade R-V88. According to Myres et al. (2011), this may be explained by a back-migration from Asia into Africa by R1b-carrying people. Contrary to other studies, Shriner & Rotimi (2018) associated the introduction of R1b into Chad with the more recent movements of Baggara Arabs.” ref

The Mesopotamians built the earliest pyramidal structures, called ziggurat.

“The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period, a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. In South Mesopotamia it is the earliest period known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. In the south it has a very long duration between about 6500 and 3800 BC when it is replaced by the Uruk period.” ref

“The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Caucasian Albania belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C. The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). Other sites belonging to the same culture are in the Armenian held Karabakh valley of the partially recognized state of the Republic of Artsakh.” ref

“The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, closely associated with subsequent civilizations found on the Armenian Highlands. This is evident with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets, which closely resemble Armenian tonirs. It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BCE.” ref

“Leyla-Tepe pottery is very similar to the ‘Chaff-Faced Ware’ of the northern Syria and Mesopotamia. It is especially well attested at Amuq F phase. Similar pottery is also found at Kultepe, Azerbaijan. Among the sites associated with this culture, the Soyugbulag kurgans or barrows are of special importance. They were dated to the beginning of the fourth millennium BCE, which makes it the oldest kurgan cemetery in Transcaucasia.” ref

“The excavation of these kurgans, located in Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia, demonstrated an unexpectedly early date of such structures on the territory of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. Several other archaeological sites seem to belong to the same ancient cultural tradition as Soyuq Bulaq. They include Berikldeebi, Kavtiskhevi, Leilatepe, Boyuk Kesik, and Poylu, Agstafa, and are characterized by pottery assemblages “mainly or totally in the North Mesopotamian tradition”.

“The Kurgans provide us with an “earlier” people who buried their dead in a manner which must be regarded as a technological precursor to the later burial mounds of Babylon and Egypt, a people of Europe. We find a clear correlation between the megaliths of Anatolia and the ones of Western Europe. Dolmens and Menhirs found in eastern Anatolia are similar to the ones found in western France and northern England.” ref 

Ancient Egyptian trade

“Ancient Egyptian trade developed with the gradual creation of land and sea trade routes connecting the ancient Egyptian civilization with ancient India, the Fertile Crescent, Arabia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Epipaleolithic Natufians carried parthenocarpic figs from Africa to the southeastern corner of the Fertile Crescent, c. 10,000 BCE. Later migrations out of the Fertile Crescent would carry early agricultural practices to neighboring regions—westward to Europe and North Africa, northward to Crimea, and eastward to Mongolia. The ancient people of the Sahara imported domesticated animals from Asia between 6000 and 4000 BCE. In Nabta Playa by the end of the 7th millennium BCE, prehistoric Egyptians had imported goats and sheep from Southwest Asia.” ref

“Foreign artifacts dating to the 5th millennium BCE in the Badarian culture in Egypt indicate contact with distant Syria. In predynastic Egypt, by the beginning of the 4th millennium BCE, ancient Egyptians in Maadi were importing pottery as well as construction ideas from Canaan. By the 4th millennium BCE shipping was well established, and the donkey and possibly the dromedary had been domesticated. Domestication of the Bactrian camel and use of the horse for transport then followed. Charcoal samples found in the tombs of Nekhen, which were dated to the Naqada I and II periods, have been identified as cedar from Lebanon. Predynastic Egyptians of the Naqada I period also imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes.” ref 

“The Naqadans traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean to the east. Pottery and other artifacts from the Levant that date to the Naqadan era have been found in ancient Egypt. Egyptian artifacts dating to this era have been found in Canaan and other regions of the Near East, including Tell Brak, Uruk, and Susa in Mesopotamia. By the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, the gemstone lapis lazuli was being traded from its only known source in the ancient world—Badakhshan, in what is now northeastern Afghanistan—as far as Mesopotamia and Egypt.” ref

“The overland route through the Wadi Hammamat from the Nile to the Red Sea was known as early as predynastic times; drawings depicting Egyptian reed boats have been found along the path dating to 4000 BCE. Ancient cities dating to the First Dynasty of Egypt arose along both its Nile and Red Sea junctions, testifying to the route’s ancient popularity. It became a major route from Thebes to the Red Sea port of Elim, where travelers then moved on to either Asia, Arabia, or the Horn of Africa. Records exist documenting knowledge of the route among Senusret I, Seti, Ramesses IV, and also, later, the Roman Empire, especially for mining.” ref

“The Darb el-Arbain trade route, passing through Kharga in the south and Asyut in the north, was used from as early as the Old Kingdom of Egypt for the transport and trade of gold, ivory, spices, wheat, animals, and plants. Later, Ancient Romans would protect the route by lining it with varied forts and small outposts, some guarding large settlements complete with cultivation. Described by Herodotus as a road “traversed … in forty days,” it became by his time an important land route facilitating trade between Nubia and Egypt. Its maximum extent was northward from Kobbei, 25 miles north of al-Fashir, passing through the desert, through Bir Natrum and Wadi Howar, and ending in Egypt.” ref

“Shipbuilding was known to the Ancient Egyptians as early as 3000 BCE, and perhaps earlier. Ancient Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull, with woven straps used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that the earliest dated ship—75 feet long, dating to 3000 BCE—may have possibly belonged to Pharaoh Aha.” ref

“An Egyptian colony stationed in southern Canaan dates to slightly before the First Dynasty. Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in Canaan—with his name stamped on vessels—and exported back to Egypt, from regions such as Arad, En Besor, Rafiah, and Tel Erani. In 1994, excavators discovered an incised ceramic shard with the serekh sign of Narmer, dating to c. 3000 BCE. Mineralogical studies reveal the shard to be a fragment of a wine jar exported from the Nile valley to Palestine. Due to Egypt’s climate, wine was very rare and nearly impossible to produce within the limits of Egypt. In order to obtain wine, Egyptians had to import it from Greece, Phoenicia, and Palestine. These early friendships played a key role in Egypt’s ability to conduct trade and acquire goods that were needed.” ref

“The Palermo stone mentions King Sneferu of the Fourth Dynasty sending ships to import high-quality cedar from Lebanon. In one scene in the pyramid of Pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty, Egyptians are returning with huge cedar trees. Sahure’s name is found stamped on a thin piece of gold on a Lebanon chair, and 5th dynasty cartouches were found in Lebanon stone vessels. Other scenes in his temple depict Syrian bears. The Palermo stone also mentions expeditions to Sinai as well as to the diorite quarries northwest of Abu Simbel.” ref

“The oldest known expedition to the Land of Punt was organized by Sahure, which apparently yielded a quantity of myrrh, along with malachite and electrum. Around 1950 BCE, in the reign of Mentuhotep III, an officer named Hennu made one or more voyages to Punt. In the 15th century BCE, Nehsi conducted a very famous expedition for Queen Hatshepsut to obtain myrrh; a report of that voyage survives on a relief in Hatshepsut’s funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri. Several of her successors, including Thutmoses III, also organized expeditions to Punt.” ref

ref

Ancient Egypt–Mesopotamia relations

“Egypt–Mesopotamia relations were the relations between the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, in the Middle East. They seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia (circa 4000–3100 BCE) and the half a millennium younger Gerzean culture of Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500–3200 BCE), and constituted a largely one way body of influences from Mesopotamia into Egypt. Prior to a specific Mesopotamian influence there had already been a longstanding influence from West Asia into Egypt, North Africa and even into some parts of the Horn of Africa and the Sahel in the form of the Neolithic Revolution which from circa 9000 BCE diffused advanced agricultural practices and technology, gene-flow, certain animals and crops and the likely spread of Proto-Afroasiatic language into the region, with Semitic languages being introduced via the Arabian Peninsula and Levant into the Horn of Africa and North Africa respectively after 1000 BCE.” ref

“Mesopotamian influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in architecture, in technology, weaponry, in imported products, religious imagery, in agriculture and livestock, in genetic input, and also in the likely transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt and generated “deep-seated” parallels in the early stages of both cultures. There was generally a high-level of trade between Ancient Egypt and the Near East throughout the Pre-dynastic period of Egypt, during the Naqada II (3600–3350 BCE) and Naqada III (3350–2950 BCE) phases. These were contemporary with the Late Uruk (3600–3100 BCE) and Jemdet Nasr (3100–2900 BCE) periods in Mesopotamia. The main period of cultural influence, particularly consisting in the transfer of Mesopotamian imagery, symbols and technology to Egypt, is considered to have lasted about 250 years, during the Naqada II to Dynasty I periods.” ref

“Distinctly foreign objects and art forms entered Egypt during this period, indicating contacts with several parts of Western Asia. The designs that were emulated by Egyptian artists are numerous: the Uruk “priest-king” with his tunic and brimmed hat in the posture of the Master of animals, the serpopards, winged griffins, snakes around rosettes, boats with high prows, all characteristic of long established Mesopotamian art of the Late Uruk (Uruk IV, c. 3350–3200 BCE) period. The same “Priest-King” is visible in several older Mesopotamian works of art of the end of the Uruk period, such as the Blau Monuments, cylinder seals and statues. Objects such as the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently Mesopotamian relief carvings on it, have been found in Egypt, and the silver which appears in this period can only have been obtained from Asia Minor/Turkey.” ref

“Red-slipped spouted pottery items dating to around 3500 BCE (Naqada II C/D), which were probably used for pouring water, beer or wine, suggest that Egypt was in contact with and being influenced by Mesopotamia around that time. This type of pottery was manufactured in Egypt, with Egyptian clay, but its shape, particularly the spout, is certainly Mesopotamian in origin. Such vessels were new and rare in pre-Dynastic Egypt, but had been commonly manufactured in the Mesopotamian cities of Nippur and Uruk for centuries. This indicated that Egyptians were familiar with Mesopotamian types of pottery. The discovery of these vessels initially encouraged the development of the dynastic race theory, according to which Mesopotamians would have established the first Pharaonic line, but is now considered by many scholars to be simply indicative of cultural influence and borrowings circa 3500 BCE, although there is an established gene flow from Mesopotamia and West Asia into Egypt.” ref

“Spouted jars of Mesopotamian design start to appear in Egypt in the Naqada II period. Various Uruk pottery vases and containers have been found in Egypt in Naqada contexts, confirming that Mesopotamian finished goods were imported into Egypt, although the past contents of the jars have not been determined yet. Scientific analysis of ancient wine jars in Abydos has shown there was some high-volume wine trade with the Levant and Mesopotamia during this period. Egyptians used traditional disk-shaped maceheads during the early phase of Naqada culture, circa 4000–3400 BCE. At the end of the period, the disk-shaped macehead was replaced by the militarily superior Mesopotamian-style pear-shaped macehead as seen on the Narmer Palette.^[16] The Mesopotamian macehead was much heavier with a wider impact surface, and was capable of giving much more damaging blows than the original Egyptian disk-shaped macehead.” ref

“It is generally thought that cylinder seals were introduced from Mesopotamia to Egypt during the Naqada II period. Cylinder seals, some coming from Mesopotamia and also Elam in Ancient Iran, and some made locally in Egypt copying earlier Mesopotamian and Elamite designs in a stylized manner, have been discovered in the tombs of Upper Egypt dating to Naqada II and III, particularly in Hierakonpolis. Mesopotamian cylinder seals have been found in the Gerzean context of Naqada II, in Naqada and Hiw, attesting to the expansion of the Mesopotamian Jemdet Nasr culture as far as Egypt at the end of the 4th millennium BCE.” ref

“In Egypt, cylinder seals suddenly appear without any local antecedents from around Naqada II c-d (3500–3300 BCE). The designs are similar to and clearly inspired by those of Mesopotamia, where they were invented during the early 4th millennium BCE, during the Uruk period, as an evolutionary step from various accounting systems and seals going back as early as the early 7th millennium BCE in Mesopotamia. The earliest Egyptian cylinder seals are clearly similar to earlier and contemporary Uruk seals down to Naqada II-d (circa 3300 BCE), and may even have been manufactured by Mesopotamian craftsmen and subsequently sold to the Egyptians, but they start to diverge from circa 3300 BCE to become more Egyptian in character. Cylinder seals were made in Egypt as late as the Second Intermediate Period, but they were essentially replaced by scarabs from the time of the Middle Kingdom.” ref

“Lapis lazuli was imported in great quantity by Egypt, and already used in many tombs of the Naqada II period. Lapis lazuli probably originated in what is today northern Afghanistan, as no other sources are known, and had to be transported across the Iranian plateau to Mesopotamia as part of the established Mesopotamian trade network with South and Central Asia, and from there sold on to Egypt by the Mesopotamians.” ref

“In addition, Egyptian objects were created which clearly mimic Mesopotamian forms, although not slavishly. Cylinder seals appear in Egypt, as well as recessed paneling architecture, the Egyptian reliefs on cosmetic palettes are clearly made in the same style as the earlier and contemporary Mesopotamian Uruk culture, and the ceremonial mace heads which turn up from the late Gerzean and early Semainean are crafted in the Mesopotamian “pear-shaped” style, instead of the Egyptian native style. The first man/animal composite creatures in Egypt were directly copied from earlier Mesopotamian designs.It is also considered as certain that the Egyptians adopted from Mesopotamia the practice of marking the sealing of jars with engraved cylinder seals for informational purposes.” ref

“Egyptian architecture also was influenced, as it adopted various elements of earlier Mesopotamian temple and civic architecture. Recessed niches in particular, which are characteristic of Mesopotamian temple architecture, were adopted for the design of false doors in the tombs of the First Dynasty and Second Dynasty, from the time of the Naqada III period (circa 3000 BCE). It is unknown if the transfer of this design was the result of Mesopotamian builders and architects in Egypt, or if temple designs on imported Mesopotamian seals may have been a sufficient source of inspiration for Egyptian architects to manage themselves.” ref

“The design of the ziggurat, which appeared in Mesopotamia in the late 5th millennium BCE, was clearly a precursor to and an influence on the Egyptian pyramids, especially the stepped designs of the oldest pyramids (step pyramid), the earliest of which (Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara) dates to circa 2600 BCE, well over two thousand years younger than Mesopotamian ziggurats/step pyramids. This again strongly suggests early cultural and technological influence on Egypt by Mesopotamia. The original pyramidal structure, the Mesopotamian “Anu Ziggurat” dates to around 4000 BCE, and the White Temple was built on top of it circa 3500 BCE. The design of the ziggurat was probably a precursor to that of the Egyptian pyramids, the earliest of which dates to circa 2600 BCE.” ref

“The route of this trade is difficult to determine, but direct Egyptian contact with Canaan in the Levant does not predate the early dynastic era, so it is usually assumed to have been by sea trade. During the time when the dynastic race theory was still popular, it was proposed that Mesopotamian sailors circumnavigated Arabia, but a Mediterranean route, probably by middlemen through the Canaanite port of Byblos, is also likely, as evidenced by the presence of Canaanite Byblian objects in Egypt. Glyptic art also seems to have played a key role, through the circulation of decorated cylinder seals across the Levant, a common hinterland of both empires, particularly Mesopotamia.” ref

“The intensity of the exchanges suggest however that the contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia were often direct, rather than merely through middlemen or through trade. Uruk had known colonial outposts of as far as Habuba Kabira, in modern Syria, insuring their presence in the Levant. Numerous Uruk cylinder seals have also been uncovered there. There have been suggestions that Uruk may have had a colonial outpost and a form of colonial presence in northern Egypt. The site of Buto in particular was suggested, but it has been rejected as a possible candidate.” ref

“The fact that so many Gerzean sites are at the mouths of wadis which lead to the Red Sea may indicate some amount of trade via the Red Sea (though Byblian trade potentially could have crossed the Sinai and then be taken to the Red Sea). Also, it is considered unlikely that something as complicated as recessed panel architecture could have worked its way into Egypt by proxy, and a possibly significant contingent of Mesopotamian migrants or settlers is often suspected. These early contacts probably acted as a sort of catalyst for the development of Egyptian culture, particularly in respect to the inception of writing, the codification of royal and vernacular imagery and architectural innovations.” ref

“While there is clear evidence the Naqada II culture borrowed abundantly from Mesopotamia, there is also a commonly held view that many of the achievements of the later First Dynasty were also the result of a long period of indigenous cultural and political development. Such developments are much older than the Naqada II period, the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period, and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.” ref

“Although there are many examples of Mesopotamian influence in Egypt in the 4th millennium BCE, the reverse is not true, and there are no traces of Egyptian influence in Mesopotamia at any time, clearly indicating a one way flow of ideas. Only very few Egyptian Naqada period object have been found beyond Egypt, and generally in its vicinity, such as a rare Naqada III Egyptian cosmetic palette in the shape of a fish, of the end of 4th millennium BCE, found in Ashkelon or Gaza.” ref

“Early Egyptologists such as Flinders Petrie were proponents of the Dynastic race theory which hypothesised that the first Egyptian chieftains and rulers were themselves of Mesopotamian origin, but this view has been abandoned among modern scholars. The current position of modern scholarship is that the Egyptian civilization was an indigenous Nile Valley development and that the archaeological evidence “strongly supports an African origin” of the ancient Egyptians.” ref

“It is generally thought that Egyptian hieroglyphs “came into existence a century or so after Sumerian script, and were probably invented under the influence of the latter”, and that it is “probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia“. The two writing systems are in fact quite similar in their initial stages, relying heavily on pictographic forms and then evolving a parallel system for the expression of phonetic sounds. Standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the strong suggestion the former influenced the latter.” ref

^{“There is, however, a lack of direct evidence that Mesopotamian writing influenced Egyptian form, and “no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt”.} Some scholars point out that “a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt…” Since the 1990s, the discovery of glyphs on clay tags at Abydos, dated to between 3400 and 3200 BCE, may challenge the classical notion according to which the Mesopotamian symbol system predates the Egyptian one, although perhaps tellingly, Egyptian writing does make a ‘sudden’ appearance at that time with no antecedents or precursors, while on the contrary Mesopotamia already had a long evolutionary history of sign usage in tokens dating back to circa 8000 BCE, followed by Proto-Cuneiform. Pittman proposes that the Abydos clay tags are almost identical to contemporary clay tags from Uruk, Mesopotamia.” ref

“Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar argued that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from “fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African” and in “regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality” although he acknowledged the geographical location of Egypt made it a receptacle for many influences. According to Frank Yurco, “Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument”. After this early period of exchange, and the direct introduction of Mesopotamian components into Egyptian culture, Egypt soon started to assert its own style from the Early Dynastic Period (3150–2686 BCE), the Narmer palette being seen as a turning point.” ref

“Egypt seems to have provided some artistic feedback to Mesopotamia at the time of the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia (2900–2334 BCE). This is especially the case with royal iconography: the figure of the king smiting his enemies with a mace, and the depiction of dead enemies being eaten by birds of prey appeared in Egypt from the time of the Narmer palette, and were then adopted centuries later (possibly from Egypt) by Mesopotamian rulers Eannatum and Sargon of Akkad. This depiction appears to be part of an artistic system to promote “hegemonistic kingship”. Another example is the usage of decorated mace heads as a symbol of kingship. There is also a possibility that the depictions of the Mesopotamian king with a muscular, naked, upper body fighting his enemies in a quadrangular posture, as seen in the Stele of Naram-Sin or statues of Gudea (all circa 2000 BCE) were derived from Egyptian sculpture, which by that time had already been through its Golden Age during the Old Kingdom.” ref

“Rare etched carnelian bead have been found in Egypt, which are thought to have been imported from the Indus Valley civilization via Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria. This is related to the flourishing of the Indus Valley civilization, and the development of Indus-Mesopotamia relations from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Examples of etched carnelian beads found in Egypt typically date to the Late Middle Kingdom (c. 1800 BCE). They were found in tombs and represented luxury items, often as the centerpiece of jewelry.” ref

“Egypt records various exchanges with Semitic West Asian foreigners from around 1900 BCE, as in the paintings of the tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan. From circa 1650 BCE, the Hyksos, Semitic foreigners of Canaanite Levantine origin, established the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (1650–1550 BCE) based at the city of Avaris in the Nile delta, from where they ruled the northern part of the country. Khyan, one of the Hyksos rulers, is known for his wide-ranging contacts, as objects in his name have been found at Knossos and Hattusha indicating diplomatic contacts with the Minoans of Crete and the Hittites and Hurrians of Anatolia, and a sphinx with his name was bought on the art market at Baghdad and might demonstrate diplomatic contacts with the Mesopotamian states of Assyria and Babylonia, possibly with the first Kassites ruler Gandash.” ref

“Exchanges would again flourish between the two cultures from the period of the New Kingdom of Egypt (c. 1550 – c. 1069 BCE) and the Middle Assyrian Empire (c. 1392 – c. 1025 BCE) this time an exchange between two mature and well-established civilizations. These exchanges also included tributes of gold paid to Assyrian kings during the 16th and 15th centuries BCE, in an attempt to ellicit their support in Egypt’s conflict with the Hittite and Hurrian–Mitanni empires.^{[citation needed]} Assyria eventually annexed much of the territory of the former, and completely destroyed the latter, and the growing power of Assyria may have been a factor in Egypt withdrawing from their Levantine colonies, which were subsequently annexed by the Middle Assyrian Empire which came to dominate Western Asia and the East Mediterranean. In the 11th century BCE the Assyrian king Ashur-bel-kala is known to have received a tribute of exotic animals and plants from Egypt for his Zoological and Botanical gardens in Assur.” ref

“In the last phase of historic exchanges during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935 BC-605 BCE), the Assyrian conquest of Egypt occurred, and Assyrian rule and influence lasted till 655 BCE. after Assyria had invaded and conquered Egypt with remarkable speed, defeating and driving out the Nubian Kushite Empire, the 25th Dynasty of Egypt, which had provoked Assyria by repeatedly but unsuccessfully attempting to gain an influence in the Southern Levant and Northern Arabian Peninsula by instigating and supporting rebellions by Israelites, Judeans, Moabites, Edomites, Phoenicians and Arabs against Assyrian rule during the reigns of Shalmaneser IV, Sargon II and Sennacherib.” ref

“The Egyptian 26th Dynasty had been installed in 663 BCE as native puppet rulers by the Assyrians after the destruction and deportation of the foreign Nubians of the 25th Dynasty by king Esarhaddon and then came under the dominion of his successors Ashurbanipal. However, during the fall of the Neo Assyrian Empire between 612 and 599 BCE, Egypt attempted to aid its former masters probably due to the fear that without a strong Assyrian buffer they too would be overrun, having already been raided by marauding Scythians. As a result, Egypt came into conflict with Assyria’s fellow Mesopotamian state of Babylonia, which along with the Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Cimmerians and Scythians, amongst others, were fighting to throw off Assyrian rule, and Pharaoh Necho II fought alongside the last Assyrian emperor Ashur-uballit II (612-c.605 BCE) against Nabopolassar, Cyaxares and their allies for a time. After the Assyrian Empire fell, Egypt engaged in a number of conflicts with Babylonia during the late 7th and early 6th century BCE in the Levant, before being driven from the region by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia.” ref

“The Achaemenid Empire, though Iranic and not Mesopotamian, was heavily influenced by Mesopotamia in its art, architecture, written script and civil administration, the Persians having previously been subjects of Assyria for centuries, invaded Egypt and established satrapies, founding the Achaemenid Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt (525–404 BCE) and Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt (343–332 BCE).” ref

ref

Egypt and the Chad region

“The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.” ref

“During the 7th millennium BCE, the northern half of Chad was part of a broad expanse of land, stretching from the Indus River in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, in which ecological conditions favored early human settlement. Rock art of the “Round Head” style, found in the Ennedi region, has been dated to before the 7th millennium BCE and, because of the tools with which the rocks were carved and the scenes they depict, may represent the oldest evidence in the Sahara of Neolithic industries. Many of the pottery-making and Neolithic activities in Ennedi date back further than any of those of the Nile Valley to the east. In the prehistoric period, Chad was much wetter than it is today, as evidenced by large game animals depicted in rock paintings in the Tibesti and Borkou regions.” ref

“Recent linguistic research suggests that all of Africa’s major language groupings south of the Sahara Desert (except Khoisan, which is not considered a valid genetic grouping anyway), i.e. the Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger–Congo phyla, originated in prehistoric times in a narrow band between Lake Chad and the Nile Valley. The origins of Chad’s peoples, however, remain unclear. Several of the proven archaeological sites have been only partially studied, and other sites of great potential have yet to be mapped.” ref

“The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or “phylum”) of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel.” ref

“Research on the connection between Egypt and the Chad region is important with regard to observations made on shared linguistic features and the recent hypothesis that rock drawings at Gilf Kebir display possible precursors to Egyptian religious concepts.” ref

“The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 196 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, and northern Cameroon. By far the most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa, particularly Niger and the northern half of Nigeria.” ref

“In contrast to scholars who argue for an early split of Chadic from Afroasiatic, scholars of the Russian school tend to argue that Chadic and Egyptian are closely related, and scholars who rely on percentage of shared lexicon often group Chadic with Berber.” ref

“The absolute latest date for when Proto-Afroasiatic could have been extant is c. 4000 BCE, after which Egyptian and the Semitic languages are firmly attested. However, in all likelihood, these languages began to diverge well before this hard boundary. The estimations offered by scholars as to when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken vary widely, ranging from 18,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE. Nevertheless, there is a long-accepted link between the speakers of Proto-Southern Cushitic languages and the East African Savanna Pastoral Neolithic (5,000 years ago), and archaeological evidence associates the Proto-Cushitic speakers with economic transformations in the Sahara dating c. 8,500 years ago, as well as the speakers of the Proto-Zenati variety of the Berber languages with an expansion across the Maghreb in the 5th century CE. Likewise, all Semitic languages are fairly similar to each other, whereas the African branches of Afroasiatic are very diverse; this suggests the rapid spread of Semitic out of Africa.” ref

“A significant minority of scholars supports an Asian origin of Afroasiatic, most of whom are specialists in Semitic or Egyptian studies. The main proponent of an Asian origin is the linguist Alexander Militarev, who argues that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken by early agriculturalists in the Levant and subsequently spread to Africa. Militarev associates the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic with the Levantine Post-Natufian Culture, arguing that the reconstructed lexicon of flora and fauna, as well as farming and pastoralist vocabulary indicates that Proto-AA must have been spoken in this area. Scholar Jared Diamond and archaeologist Peter Bellwood have taken up Militarev’s arguments as part of their general argument that the spread of linguistic macrofamilies (such as Indo-European, Bantu, and Austro-Asiatic) can be associated with the development of agriculture; they argue that there is clear archaeological support for farming spreading from the Levant into Africa via the Nile valley.” ref

“Egyptian, Cushitic, Berber, Omotic, and most languages in the Semitic branch require every syllable to begin with a consonant (with the exception of some grammatical prefixes). Igor Diakonoff argues that this constraint goes back to Proto-Afroasiatic. Some Chadic languages allow a syllable to begin with a vowel; however, in many Chadic languages verbs must begin with a consonant. In Cushitic and Chadic languages, a glottal stop or glottal fricative may be inserted to prevent a word from beginning with a vowel. Typically, syllables begin with only a single consonant. Diakonoff argues that proto-Afroasiatic did not have consonant clusters within a syllable.” ref

“With the exception of some Chadic languages, all Afroasiatic languages allow both open syllables (ending in a vowel) and closed syllables (ending in a consonant); many Chadic languages do not allow a syllable to end in a consonant. Most words end in a vowel in Omotic and Cushitic, making syllable-final consonant clusters rare. Syllable weight plays an important role in Afroasiatic, especially in Chadic; it can affect the form of affixes attached to a word.” ref

ref

“Movements of main non-sub-Saharan ancestry components in the Green Sahara 8,000–7,000 years ago and a possible scenario for the formation of the Green Saharan population.” ref

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“The Green Sahara period, 5,000–12,000 years ago. Green shading indicates that the present-day Sahara Desert was green and fertile. The colors within the large oval represent the four Y-chromosomal haplogroups deduced to be present in the region at this time; specific locations are not implied. The arrows indicate the inferred origins of these haplogroups to the north or south, but specific origins and routes are not implied.” ref

“The reasons for the very rapid R-V88 expansion 5,000–6,000 years ago and E-M81 expansion ~ 2,000 years ago, and how do these expansions fit within general worldwide patterns of male-specific expansions, which in other cases have been linked to cultural and technological changes?” ref

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The West Beyond the West: The Mysterious “Wernes” of the Egyptian Underworld and the Chad Palaeolakes

“One of the Egyptian guides to the underworld, provides specific descriptions and measurements relating to the first three hours after sunset, during which the sun god repasses through an interstitial realm (the first hour) before arriving at two gigantic sweet-water oceans (the second and third hours). Rather than seeing in this imagery reflections of the unconscious and antecedents of modern psychotherapy (as has been proposed by some modern scholars), the present work argues that the description was inspired by actual knowledge of the environment of the region to the distant southwest of the NileValley, beyond heGilfKebir and Gebel Uweinaton modern Egypt’s southwest corner. Recent evidence has made it plausible that the Abu Ballas Trail connected Egypt with the Chad Basin of Central Africa. Elements of the factual description provided in the Amduat (including environmental and linguistic details, e.g., the hitherto unexplained name “Wernes”) can be corroborated by modern palaeoecological reconstruction of the area, which comprises gigantic palaeolakes, as well as linguistic and narrative evidence.” ref

“The archaeological evidence for the “green Sahara” (c. 12,000-3500 BCE or around 14,000 to 5,500 years ago) has led to an increasing realization that ancient Nubia and Egypt have common origins in a pastoral complex that thrived in what is today a barren desert across a wide swath of northeast Africa.” ref

Green Sahara

“The predynastic and early dynastic cultures of the ancient Nile Valley are firmly rooted in the cultural traditions of the Green Sahara.” ref

“The humid period began about 14,600–14,500 years ago at the end of Heinrich event 1, simultaneously to the Bølling–Allerød warming. Rivers and lakes such as Lake Chad formed or expanded, glaciers grew on Mount Kilimanjaro and the Sahara retreated. Two major dry fluctuations occurred; during the Younger Dryas and the short 8.2 kiloyear event. The African humid period ended 6,000–5,000 years ago during the Piora Oscillation cold period. While some evidence points to an end 5,500 years ago, in the Sahel, Arabia and East Africa, the end of the period appears to have taken place in several steps, such as the 4.2-kiloyear event.” ref

“The AHP led to a widespread settlement of the Sahara and the Arabian Desert, and had a profound effect on African cultures, such as the birth of the Ancient Egyptian civilization. People in the Sahara lived as hunter-gatherers and domesticated cattle, goats and sheep. They left archaeological sites and artifacts such as one of the oldest ships in the world, and rock paintings such as those in the Cave of Swimmers and in the Acacus Mountains. Earlier humid periods in Africa were postulated after the discovery of these rock paintings in now-inhospitable parts of the Sahara. When the period ended, humans gradually abandoned the desert in favour of regions with more secure water supplies, such as the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia, where they gave rise to early complex societies.” ref

“Between 8500 and 5000 BCE, monsoon rains reached the northern Sahara, supporting the growth of the savanna. As a consequence of annual precipitation of up to 100 mm, the area supported hunter-gatherer groups capable of covering vast distances. They brought with them ceramic technology and possibly domesticated cattle (for the question of the domestication of the Bos in Africa, see Marshall and Hildebrand 2002). Although we can only speculate on the relationships between the eastern Sahara and the Nile Valley during this time due to the lack of data from the Valley itself, it is clear that the region we currently identify as “desert” was not the large area of hyperaridity that exists today, nor was it a barrier between the Saharan nomadic populations and the inhabitants of the Valley.” ref 

“Beginning around 7,000 years ago, the Sahara began changing from a savannah to a desert. The climate changes in the Sahara occurred in two episodes — the first 6,700 to 5,500 years ago and the second 4,000 to 3,600 years ago. These changes may have occurred when the African monsoons and Mediterranean winds returned to their normal locations. By 2000 BCE, the Sahara was as dry as it is now. The last lake dried up around 1000 BCE The people who lived in the region were forced to leave and migrate south to find food and water. Some scientists believe some of these people settled on the Nile and became the ancient Egyptians.” ref

“In the sixth millennium BCE the landscape changed. The gradually increasing seasonality of rains and the increasing rate of evaporation during the hot seasons rendered pools and lakes temporary, necessitating that people be highly mobile on the one hand and agglomerate in permanent water areas (e.g., oases and the Nile Valley) on the other (Riemer 2007): thus they adopted a radical new way of life based on livestock breeding.” ref

“The large surveys conducted over the past thirty years by American and German expeditions in the eastern Sahara have provided an overview of the environmental and cultural changes that occurred during the Holocene in Egypt’s Western Desert and have revolutionized our knowledge of the emergence of Predynastic cultures in Middle and Upper Egypt. In the 1970s, Wendorf and his team concentrated on the Bir Sahara-Bir Tarfawi area. Over the next two decades, the BOS and ACACIA German expeditions surveyed more than 1500 sites, revealing several new sites that exhibited extended periods of occupation along with short-lived climatic oscillations. From 8500 to 1500 BCE the climatic history of the Eastern Sahara was dominated by a gradual aridization that had increased dramatically by about 3500 BCE.” ref

“The climatic and ecological variations determined the dynamics of the human population, who had necessarily to adapt to the changing conditions….In the fifth millennium BCE, the drastic shift toward aridity prompted far-reaching migrations to areas with permanent water sources and consequent restricted activity in waterless areas. As shown by specific types of vessel and by strong similarities in the lithic equipment, an original culture, the Tasian, which constitutes a branch of a Nubian tradition, flourished from the Gilf Kebir to the southern part of the Western and Eastern deserts. The chronological classification of the Tasian culture and its status as a cultural entity have been long debated. Nevertheless, the Tasian is believed to have given birth to the Badarian—the first Egyptian Predynastic culture—in northern Upper Egypt.” ref

“The development of Predynastic regional cultures at the end of the fifth millennium was thus determined largely by the regional adaptation to new living strategies in the unsteady context of climatic and ecological changes. While the adoption of food production was a response to the drastic environmental deterioration of the eastern Sahara, the choice of Asiatic species suggests a connection with the northern regions, and the marshy areas of the Delta, which first became available to agricultural settlers around 6500 – 5500 BCE.” ref

Sumerians and Ancient Egyptians: mountains, mounds, and temples: Ziggurats or Pyramids, with related Deities, as well as Mythology

“Mound of Creation’ refers to the Primeval Mound that was created by the Ogdoad, the eight gods of creation from ancient egyptian mythology. After the mound came the egg, from which the sun was hatched, allowing the process of life/creation to begin.” ref 

“In the creation myth of the Heliopolitan form of ancient Egyptian religion, Benben was the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which the creator deity Atum settled. The Benben stone is associated with the top stone of a pyramid, which is called a pyramid’s pyramidion (or benbenet). It is also related to the obelisk. In the Pyramid Texts, e.g. Utterances 587 and 600, Atum himself is at times referred to as “mound”. It was said to have turned into a small pyramid, located in Heliopolis (Egyptian: Annu or Iunu), within which Atum was said to dwell. Other cities developed their own myths of the primeval mound. At Memphis, the god Tatenen, an earth god and the origin of “all things in the shape of food and viands, divine offers, all good things”, was the personification of the primeval mound. From the earliest times, the portrayal of Benben was stylized in two ways; the first was as a pointed, pyramidal form, which was probably the model for pyramids and obelisks. The other form was round-topped; this was probably the origin of Benben as a free-standing votive object and an object of veneration. During the Fifth Dynasty, the portrayal of benben was formalized as a squat obelisk. Later, during the Middle Kingdom, this became a long, thin obelisk. In the Amarna Period tomb of Panehesy, the benben is seen as a large, round-topped stela standing on a raised platform.” ref

“According to Kushite (Nubian) beliefs, before creation, the world was all covered with water. Then a mound of earth has risen out of the water. On top of this mound, Atum, the first god on earth, was born.” ref 

“During the Islamic history of Egypt, slaves were mainly of three categories: male slaves used for soldiers and bureaucrats, female slaves used for sexual slavery as concubines, and female slaves and eunuchs used for domestic service in harems and private households. At the end of the period, there was a growing agricultural slavery. The people enslaved in Egypt during Islamic times mostly came from Europe and Caucasus (who were referred to as “white”), or from the Sudan and Africa South of the Sahara through the Trans-Saharan slave trade (who were referred to as “black”).” ref

“Ancient Egypt saw a succession of thirty dynasties spanning three millennia. During this period, Egyptian culture underwent significant development in terms of religion, arts, language, and customs. Egypt fell under Hyksos rule in the Middle Bronze Age. The native nobility managed to expel the conquerors by the Late Bronze Age, thereby initiating the New Kingdom. During this period, the Egyptian civilization rose to the status of an empire under Pharaoh Thutmose III of the 18th Dynasty. It remained a super-regional power throughout the Amarna Period as well as during the 19th and 20th dynasties (the Ramesside Period), lasting into the Early Iron Age.” ref

“The Bronze Age collapse that had afflicted the Mesopotamian empires reached Egypt with some delay, and it was only in the 11th century BCE that the Empire declined, falling into the comparative obscurity of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. The 25th Dynasty of Nubian rulers was again briefly replaced by native nobility in the 7th century BCE, and in 525 BCE, Egypt fell under Persian rule. Egypt fell under Greek control after Alexander the Great‘s conquest in 332 BCE. The Late Period of ancient Egypt is taken to end with his death in 323 BCE. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt from 305 BCE to 30 BCE and introduced Hellenic culture to Egyptians. 4,000 Celtic mercenaries under Ptolemy II had even attempted an ambitious but doomed coup d’état around the year 270 BCE.” ref

“Throughout the Pharaonic epoch (viz., from 2920 to 525 BCE in conventional Egyptian chronology), divine kingship was the glue which held Egyptian society together. It was especially pronounced in the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom and continued until the Roman conquest. The societal structure created by this system of government remained virtually unchanged up to modern times. The role of the king was considerably weakened after the 20th Dynasty. The king in his role as Son of Ra was entrusted to maintain Ma’at, the principle of truth, justice, and order, and to enhance the country’s agricultural economy by ensuring regular Nile floods. Ascendancy to the Egyptian throne reflected the myth of Horus who assumed kingship after he buried his murdered father Osiris. The king of Egypt, as a living personification of Horus, could claim the throne after burying his predecessor, who was typically his father. When the role of the king waned, the country became more susceptible to foreign influence and invasion.” ref

“The attention paid to the dead, and the veneration with which they were held, were one of the hallmarks of ancient Egyptian society. Egyptians built tombs for their dead that were meant to last for eternity. This was most prominently expressed by the Great Pyramids. The ancient Egyptian word for tomb pr nḥḥ means House of Eternity. The Egyptians also celebrated life, as is shown by tomb reliefs and inscriptions, papyri and other sources depicting Egyptians farming, conducting trade expeditions, hunting, holding festivals, attending parties and receptions with their pet dogs, cats and monkeys, dancing and singing, enjoying food and drink, and playing games. The ancient Egyptians were also known for their engaging sense of humor, much like their modern descendants.” ref

“Another important continuity during this period is the Egyptian attitude toward foreigners—those they considered not fortunate enough to be part of the community of rmṯ or “the people” (i.e., Egyptians.) This attitude was facilitated by the Egyptians’ more frequent contact with other peoples during the New Kingdom, when Egypt expanded to an empire that also encompassed Nubia through Jebel Barkal and parts of the Levant.” ref

“The Egyptian sense of superiority was given religious validation, as foreigners in the land of Ta-Meri (Egypt) were anathema to the maintenance of Maat—a view most clearly expressed by the admonitions of Ipuwer in reaction to the chaotic events of the Second Intermediate Period. Foreigners in Egyptian texts were described in derogatory terms, e.g., ‘wretched Asiatics’ (Semites), ‘vile Kushites’ (Nubians), and ‘Ionian dogs’ (Greeks). Egyptian beliefs remained unchallenged when Egypt fell to the Hyksos, Assyrians, Libyans, Persians, and Greeks—their rulers assumed the role of the Egyptian Pharaoh and were often depicted praying to Egyptian gods.” ref

“Ancient Egypt was among the earliest and greatest civilizations during which the Egyptians maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe, the Near East, and Africa. After the period generally recognized as ancient Egypt, the Egyptians themselves came under the influence of Hellenism, Christianity, and Islamic culture. Egyptians carry more of the Caucasus hunter gatherer / Iran Neolithic component compared to other North Africans, more of the Natufian related component and less of the Iberomaurusian related component than other North Africans, and also less of the Steppe / European hunter gatherer component, consistent with Egypt’s geographical proximity to southwest Asia.” ref

Afrocentrism and African Religions