Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy

Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy

The question of the race of ancient Egyptians was raised historically as a product of the scientific racism of the 18th and 19th centuries, and was linked to models of racial hierarchy. A variety of views circulated about the racial identity of the Egyptians and the source of their culture. These were typically identified in terms of a distinction between the "Black African" and pale or "darkened Caucasian" (including Eurasian and Asiatic) racial categories. Some accounts argued that Egyptian culture emerged from more southernly African peoples, while others pointed to influences from the Near East, and yet others proposed that at least the upper classes were pale or "darkened" Caucasians.

Since the second half of the 20th century, scholarly consensus has held that applying modern notions of race to ancient Egypt is anachronistic. The 2001 Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt states that "Any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depends on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study.” Frank M. Snowden asserts that "Egyptians, Greeks and Romans attached no special stigma to the colour of the skin and developed no hierarchical notions of race whereby highest and lowest positions in the social pyramid were based on colour." Additionally, typological and hierarchical models of race have increasingly been rejected by scientists. Recent studies suggest that the modern population is genetically consistent with an ancient Egyptian indigenous to northeast Africa.

In the late 20th century, the typological model was revived in the domain of Afrocentric historiography and Black nationalism which suggests that Ancient Egypt was a "black civilization". This includes a particular focus on links to southern African (Sub Saharan) cultures and the questioning of the race of specific notable individuals from Dynastic times, including Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII, and the king represented in the Great Sphinx of Giza.