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We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.
Cleanup.
To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?
Standardize the Chronology.
A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)
Stub sorting
Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .
Data sorting.
This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.
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re arrange the study to add a newer study about the male haplogroup of the three men whose complete genome was deciphered:
As a result of recent ancestral genaeology study of the first successful genomic wide data of mummies of Ancient Egyptians with successful complete genome data from three males, published in 2017 by Schuenemann et al. extracted DNA from 151 Egyptian mummies from Middle Egypt, confirmed that the ancient Egyptians were most closely related to the non-african peoples of the Near East, particularly from the Levant. This is the Eastern Mediterranean which today includes the countries of Turkey, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The study also found genetic continuity between ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians and no relationship with Ethiopian DNA.
Modern Egyptians share 8% of their genome with central Africans/Sub Saharan, far more than ancient ones, according to the study, published in the journal Nature Communications. The influx of sub-Saharan genes only occurred within the last 700 years.
The genetic did not undergo any major shifts during the 1,300 year timespan studied, suggesting that the population remained genetically relatively unaffected by foreign conquest and rule.
The far-reaching data set gained from looking at mitochondrial/nuclear genomes: “This is not just the DNA of one person. It’s the DNA of the parents, grandparents, grandparents’ parents, grand-grand-grandparents’ parents and so for. This study counters prior skepticism about the possibility of recovering reliable ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies.
This latest edit from Zahida2013 was clearly very unbalanced: [1] Presenting a single study of three individuals is one thing, but acting as though that single study of three individuals allows us to make sweeping generalizations about the ethnic makeup of all ancient Egypt is wildly off-base, and violates not only WP:SECONDARY but WP:NPOV. Generalrelative (talk) 00:21, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Generalrelative the study is about DNA from 91 mummies of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA and 3 complete complete full DNA of three men. the nuclear and mitochondrial of the 91 mummies which is the DNA of the 91 mummies plus their parents and grand parents all showing close affinity with DNA of contemporary and ancient DNA of east Mediterranean Levant. resembling current Egyptian DNA but is far from Ethiopian DNA and central Africans DNA and other DNA of the rest of the world. the study was conforming to archaeological studies mentioned in the study. the study is cited by 5 later studies who used the DNA results in their own analysis. Zahida2013 (talk) 00:32, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
How spread out along the geographic clines of ancient Egypt were these mummies? How representative of the various strata of society? How deep was the time horizon? Not very, right? And even if it were a very representative sample, we'd still need a reliable secondary source in order for us to make a sweeping statement about the ethnic makeup of ancient Egypt. Hell, we'd need several. Because this is, after all, a controversial topic. And by reliable secondary source, I do not mean an op-ed by a non-expert (is this the same Philip Perry who is married to Liz Cheney?) or a press release. Generalrelative (talk) 00:46, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Generalrelative my contribution about 2017by Schuenemman was removed and replaced with incorrect edit that gave themselves to make wrong conclusions not found in the study. the study included 2 previous studies of mummies from upper Egypt. the new edit ignored the nuclear DNA which is a compilation of several generations back in time of each individual of the 91 mummies studied spread along 1300 years. I have provided expert second opinions from 4 articles and i add this does
Watson, T. (2017). "Mummy DNA unravels ancient Egyptians' ancestry". Nature: 546. doi:10.1038/546017a. {{cite journal}}: Text "17" ignored (help)
the new edit is incorrect. I am a physician epidemiologist with 20 years of study of DNA science especially the ancestry genetics ancestral genealogy which this study is about.
nuclear DNA included the gene of whiteness of skin color and 3 complete DNA of three males found to be 2 j1-m267-p58 as reported by another study taking the DNA data from this study. 5 studies have cited this study and used their data in their studies. I will provide the new study later. the third male was haplogroup l1a1 but specific to North Africa. the study found no relationship with Ethiopian DNA and only 2% of subsaharan DNA compared to 8% in current Egyptians confirmed to be from recent influx in the last 700 years. Zahida2013 (talk) 01:49, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry but you do not seem to understand the issue here. My problem was not with the study itself but rather with the interpretation you gave to it, which went far beyond what the authors themselves stated, and the way you used it in the article to make a sweeping conclusion. Further, as WikiUser4020 explained to you in their edit summary, The wider conclusions of the study have already been referenced in a sub section in relation to this topic and criticised for sampling bias. Dumuzid and Austronesier also reverted you and endorsed WikiUser's rationale. Please understand that your expertise is valuable to the project, but only if you can learn and abide by our rules, which include WP:NPOV and WP:CONSENSUS. The latter means that you will actually need to persuade others rather than simply informing us about your credentials. As to your assertion the new edit is incorrect, I'm not sure what you mean, since the four of us have simply reverted what you sought to add. Generalrelative (talk) 02:26, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Generalrelative I did not provide my own interpretation. my contribution only reported info taken verbatim from the citations I included ( the study itself Schuenemman 2017, the report by max blanck website who made the study, another study from Nature journal, and Parabon. you did not read the legitimate citations I provided from nature journal , max blanck, CNN, Parabon etc Zahida2013 (talk) 14:53, 4 September 2023 (UTC) Zahida2013 (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Generalrelative I did not provide my own interpretation. my contribution only reported info taken verbatim from the citations I included ( the study itself Schuenemman 2017, the report by max blanck website who made the study, another study from Nature journal, and Parabon. you did not read the legitimate citations I provided from nature journal , max blanck institute , CNN, Parabon etc Zahida2013 (talk) 14:53, 4 September 2023 (UTC) Zahida2013 (talk) 15:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Umm, I did read them. Telling me I did not is assuming bad faith, which is prohibited.
Since you appear to need this spelled out for you "verbatim", here are some quotes from the original piece (Schuenemman et al. 2017).
1:
It is possible that populations in the south of Egypt were more closely related to those of Nubia and had a higher sub-Saharan genetic component, in which case the argument for an influx of sub-Saharan ancestries after the Roman Period might only be partially valid and have to be nuanced. Throughout Pharaonic history there was intense interaction between Egypt and Nubia, ranging from trade to conquest and colonialism, and there is compelling evidence for ethnic complexity within households with Egyptian men marrying Nubian women and vice versa.
2:
Importantly, there is evidence for foreign influence at Abusir el-Meleq. Individuals with Greek, Latin and Hebrew names are known to have lived at the site and several coffins found at the cemetery used Greek portrait image and adapted Greek statue types to suit ‘Egyptian’ burial practices. The site’s first excavator, Otto Rubensohn, also found a Greek grave inscription in stone as well as a writing board inscribed in Greek. Taken together with the multitude of Greek papyri that were written at the site, this evidence strongly suggests that at least some inhabitants of Abusir el-Meleq were literate in, and able to speak, Greek45. However, a general issue concerning the site is that several details of the context of the individuals analysed in this study were lost over time. All of the material was excavated by Rubensohn in the early twentieth century, whose main interest was to obtain literary papyri from cartonnage rather than to excavate human remains. As is customary for the time, Rubensohn’s archaeological records are highly incomplete and many of the finds made by him were removed undocumented from their contexts. Furthermore, many of his excavation diaries and notes were destroyed during the Second World War19. This lack of context greatly diminishes the possibility of ‘thick description’ of the analysed individuals, at least in terms of their names, titles and materially expressed identity.
@Generalrelative these are the articles I took info verbatim from :
Watson T. Mummy DNA unravels ancient Egyptians' ancestry. Nature. 2017 May 30;546(7656):17. doi: 10.1038/546017a. PMID: 28569832.
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. (2017, May 30). The first genome data from ancient Egyptian mummies: Ancient Egyptians were most closely related to ancient populations from the Near East. ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530115141.htm
Schuenemann, V. J.; Peltzer, A.; Welte, B.; Pelt, W. P. v.; Molak, M.; Wang, C.-C.; Furtwängler, A.; Urban, C.; Reiter, E.; Nieselt, K. et al.: Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods. Nature Communications 8, 15694 (2017)
Even Parabon Nanolabs rereated faces of the three ancient Egyptian men whom all their genome was deciphered using DNA technology and thermal meshing. It showed that all three of the mummies had once been young men with skin the color of modern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern people with deep brown eyes.
I'll say this one last time for your benefit: even if we take facial reconstruction at face value, showing that three individuals "looked Middle-Eastern" tells us almost nothing about ancient Egyptian phenotypes in general. This is because we know that ancient Egypt was highly diverse –– with significant variation along the Nile valley cline in particular –– with near-constant influx of populations from both the Middle-East and Nubia. Further, when we're looking at individuals from the Ptolemaic or Roman periods, there's a good chance we're looking at people who identified as ethnically Greek, Roman or something else. Generalrelative (talk) 16:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Generalrelative the study says the rule of foreigners did not affect the DNA composition from 1400 BCE to 300 AD. two of the men were from pre ptolomic ( see study discussion and were j1-p58 (dubbed semitic per familytreeeDNA website) dominant in current Arabic people. the nuclear DNA composition of the three men which is taken from their parents and grand parents and grand grandparents, and this nuclear DNA (aka autosomal DNA aka genomic AKA chromosomes) are similar to the nuclear DNA mix found in 80 mummies and mitochondrial DNA in all 90 mummies. this nuclear/mitochondrial is the same in all time span spread around from 1400 BCE to 300 AD proving continuity of DNA of the residents of the city proving foreign rule did not change that continuity. also the study confirmed the continuity to present egyptians but with increase from 8% of subsaharan mitochondrial to 16% in current egyptians explained by recent influx of the past 700 years as both this study and Pagani et Al confirmed 80% of ancient Egyptian DNA in non African. this 2017 study utilized Pagani study and all other previous studies in their analysis.
here is what I found in the study and supplements:
Genetic continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians cannot be ruled out by our formal test despite this sub-Saharan African influx, while continuity with modern Ethiopians, who carry >60% African L lineages, is not supported (Supplementary Data 5
The ancient DNA data revealed a high level of affinity between the ancient inhabitants of Abusir el-Meleq and modern populations from the Near East and the Levant. This finding is pertinent in the light of the hypotheses advanced by Pagani and colleagues, who estimated that the average proportion of non-African ancestry in Egyptians was 80% and dated the midpoint of this admixture event to around 750 years ago17.
Population genetic analysis of nuclear DNA:
On the nuclear level we merged the SNP data of our three ancient individuals with 2,367 modern individuals34,35 and 294 ancient genomes36 and performed PCA on the joined data set. We found the ancient Egyptian samples falling distinct from modern Egyptians, and closer towards Near Eastern and European samples (Fig. 4a
Our genetic time transect suggests genetic continuity between the Pre-Ptolemaic, Ptolemaic and Roman populations of Abusir el-Meleq, indicating that foreign rule impacted the town’s population only to a very limited degree at the genetic level.
This scientific study of genetic ancestry reveals that:
Ancient Egyptian mummies DNA data revealed a high level of affinity between the ancient Egyptians and modern populations from the Near East and the Levant, and genetic continuity between ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians” and no proven relationship with Ethiopian DNA or east horn of Africa.
Our 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.
but we clearly show that 2,000 years ago, Egypt was more Near-Eastern, not less, as proposed by the model in Pagani et al. with non-African ancestry appearing more recently. We discuss this in the Discussion section (see line 406 to 419).
we can more reliably estimate the origin and timing of admixture with nuclear data.
@Generalrelative How did you "we know ancient Egypt was highly diverse ethnically, and what made you think Nubia and upper Egypt were different from lower Egypt?? you made assumption that Nubia is not Arabic against nubians belief. DNA testing of Sudan and Nubia show 80% j1 haplogroup. how do you know ancient nubians were different?? Zahida2013 (talk) 00:43, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Generalrelative You took paragraphs from discussion section of study and out of context cutting off the author need for studies to prove premises. a premise that nubians were not semites is baseless, photos on mummies are of Greek persons is guess work because they most likely how the ancient egyptians looked like white but not Greeks Zahida2013 (talk) 14:52, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Zahida2013 This is largely unbalanced and inaccurate. First of all schuenamenn 2017 study concluded that “Genetic continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians cannot be ruled out by our formal test despite this sub-Saharan African influx”, not that “The study also found genetic continuity between ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians and no relationship with Ethiopian DNA.”
another thing you seem to be missing is that the conclusion of this study is exclusive about ancient Egyptians of late period of middle Egypt only. It’s not to be generalized on all late period ancient Egyptians (i.e upper Egypt), nor to be generalized on Egyptians of earlier periods like middle kingdom or old kingdom including their inhabitants of middle Egypt. There is stated by academics and reliable sources. (William H. Stiebing, 2023) in Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture writes:
However, this study was conducted on a small sample sizeof mummies from one site in Middle Egypt dating to the New Kingdom and later. Therefore, the results cannot represent earlier populations of Egyptians or Egyptians from Upper Egypt who were geographically closer to sub-saharan populationsStephan rostie (talk) 04:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Leaving aside the question of whether modern aDNA research can produce meaningful results about the immediate geographical origin (autochthonous, migrants from the northwest, or migrant from the south) of the population that produced the Ancient Egyptian civilization at the current state of spatiotemporal sampling density, what you're doing here is basically applying results of this research to a debate that is based on an obsolete paradigm of "classifying" human diversity, viz. "human races". The Ancient Egyptian race controversy is therefore essentially dead in scientific discourse and only survives in popular discourse kept alive by people who personally choose to continue classifying human individuals into races based on crude phenotypical features even when modern science tells us that this choice is baseless. Throwing in modern aDNA research into this debate is like using modern physics to establish the density of the luminiferous aether, or the distance to the rim of the Flat Earth. –Austronesier (talk) 18:05, 5 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Austronesier the three males have Nuclear DNA (admixture of several generations of 100 ancestral) which match Nuclear DNA found in 80 mummies and found the three males are from the community which did not differ between the three groups ( pre ptolomic, ptolomic, Roman eras) and close to near eastern peoples from near east like Saudi Arabia Yemen Emirates and Levant) . nuclear DNA have the genes for physical features such as eye color, skin color, face physical features such as nose size etc, heights, etc called genetic phenotyping used by forensics. it's not guess work but used by forensics and police to identify old remains in cold cases. Parabon Nanolabs company used DNA phenotyping and physicals of remains to identify the three egyptians.
the three males had full nuclear DNA mix that matches the partial DNA nuclear mix found in 80 mummies and that's how they decided the sex of mummies. so the three males' nuclear DNA!! was chosen to compare with nuclear DNA of ancient and current nuclear!! DNA of many countries. they closely were matched to near east nuclear DNA. their full!! nuclear DNA contained all the physical features genes of hair type and color face shape skin and eye color etc. Parabon used by department of health in USA and by FBI to see facial and physical profiles of old case remains and suspects with absolute convicting results. codis used to get race of person since 1980s from one str test( native American or white European or Arabic ancestry ). however DNA detective is increasing on fast pace with full genome! collected from hundreds millions around the world with results in seconds by computer informatics apps Zahida2013 (talk) 00:25, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Austronesier nuclear DNA was found partially in 80 mummies and fully from three male mummies. the nuclear DNA was similar along all 80 mummies and the three men were chosen to represent the similar nuclear DNA among the 80 mummies. the nuclear DNA contain morphology genes ( phenotyping, genetic) shown in mugshot photos by Parabon Nanolabs. each nuclear DNA of the 80 mummies represent a mix of last ten generations ( 300 years) of 400 different ancestors of each nuclear DNA profile. all nuclear DNA remnants in 80 mummies across 1300 years were similar ( melting pot) found close affinity to current and ancient Near easterners of Saudi Arabia Yemen Levant. the nuclear DNA in the 80 mummies was enough to distinguish males from females! Zahida2013 (talk) 22:06, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
The problem with Schuenemann-Krause is interpretation and misrepresentation. The mummies and remains they studied were not Ancient Egyptian, they were Late Period, and had nothing to do with the Ancient Egyptians of the New Kingdom, for instance. In the Parabon study, all 3 whole genome mummies were identified as most similar to Mizrahi Jews living in Morocco, Tunesia and Yemen, respectively, even more than the Modern Egyptian population. What seems to stump Schuenemann and Krause is the presence of Bantu and Nilotic dna in the Modern Egyptians, which they attributed to the (19th century) slave trade. Problem: their dna goes back in the region over 10,000 years.
The Snapshot ancestry database of subjects with known ancestry was searched for the subjects with the most similar admixture proportions to each individual. They were found to be Jewish individuals from Yemen, Morocco, and Tunisia, respectively.
On how they guestimated the features of the 3 faces.
The two lower-coverage subjects were both missing the SNP rs12913832, which is the primary SNP associated with eye color, so eye color and hair color were predicted assuming AA and AG genotypes, which are the most common genotypes in the Middle Eastern population. There were also very few skin color SNPs available for these two subjects, resulting in low-confidence predictions.
They may have 3 or so haplotypes from the New Kingdom era, which doesn't justify the claim that his study spans the width of the New Kingdom and Late Period to Roman Era. The 3 whole genome mummies or remains are dated to the 8th-6th century BC and the 1st century BC, the Roman Era.
JK2134 776 – 569 BC
JK2888 97 – 2 BC
JK2911 769 – 560 BC
How did they end up with the faces we're now familiar with?
Each subject was compared to the previous subject and heat maps were calculated to show the differences among the face predictions. These differences were then emphasized to create caricatured faces, which were combined with the pigmentation predictions to create composites of the individuals’ likely appearance at age 25 by a forensic artist.
So this is the problem: in Egyptology, the whole Fayoum complex is considered not Ancient Egyptian. So when Schuenemann and Krause talk about "These Ancient Egyptians", they're either being deceptive or fraudulent. And when they elevate the Late Period remains from an obscure graveyard south of Cairo, over the dna from the Valley Of The Kings, of famous pharaohs, that's an agenda.
Exactly, we already have the DNA of the 18th dynasty, why won't they test those through their filters? What are they afraid of? Modern Egyptian backlash, you know people who worship Allah and not AuSetTa. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 02:15, 5 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Academic views on bias in Egyptology/modern studies Pov
Latest comment: 14 days ago23 comments6 people in discussion
The sheer amount of cherrypicked Afrocentric pov in this section is astounding the arguments put forward here are no different than those of any other afrocentric conspiracy theory and give undue weight to these fringe views i recommend this section which is entirely the product of a single agenda driven account should be deleted 64.90.222.34 (talk) 04:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@ In line with Generalrelative’s comments. A range of mainstream sources are included and this subsection has already Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).received consensus agreement from other users over the previous year. The only identifiable source which can be described as “Afrocentric” is Cheikh Anta Diop who predates the concept and was a professional historian that served as a member of the International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of the General History of Africa which is a key source for this article. WikiUser4020 (talk) 08:02, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Christopher Ehret and S.O.Y Keita are both well known to be sympathetic to afrocentrism. The egyptian section of the General History of Africa has been widely criticized and Is generally considered suspect amongst anthropologists, archeologists, and egyptologists precisely because Cheik Anta Diop inserted his biases into it 64.90.222.34 (talk) 16:32, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
The personal sympathies of the authors does not diminish the quality of their academic output. All historians have perspectives and personal persuasions. Keita and Ehret are both mainstream sources and widely cited across the field. Keita has also worked with the UNESCO President of the International Scientific Committee for Volume IX of General History of Africa, Augustin Holl, who will iterate the consensual view on the issue. The initial reception to the Diop’s chapter was initially negative although this has improved over time with some authors noting the Eurocentric climate during the context of his writings (1974-1981). You have not presented any opposing references which dispute the criticisms raised by these authoritative sources. Also, critics of Afrocentrism are also cited such as Frank Yurco, Zahi Hawass, Bernard R. Ortiz De Montell and Mary Lefkowitz. Although, several of these critics have died or have become inactive over the years. Regardless, the article captures a wide range of views. All the sources including Ehret and Keita share the current consensus view that Ancient Egypt was a heterogeneous society but the latter two have a greater scholarly focus on its early origins and its African context. WikiUser4020 (talk) 17:23, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Ancient Egypt had far more in common with the rest of Africa than the middle east. They had pygmies for Christ sake. They were leopards furs, they shaped their childrens heads to elongate them. All African tribes do this. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 02:17, 5 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
what about E WALLIS BUDGE was he an Afrocentric too? Read him. He says their culture their language and their religion was distinctly African. He translated the book of the dead. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 04:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
"Various scholars have highlighted the role of colonial racism in shaping the attitudes of early Egyptologists, and criticised the continued over-representation of North American and European perspectives in the field."
-- This tries to insinuate that the supposed over-representation of modern North American and European scholars in the field is the same thing as bias (in particular racist bias), which it isn't. The second part of the sentence should be removed as the geographic or ethnic origin of scholars is not in itself relevant to the issue of bias.
"Christopher Ehret in 1996 wrote that "Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots. The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt".
-- This claim by Ehret is not relevant to the issue of bias so should be removed. It's just a statement of Ehret's theories regarding the origin of Egypt.
"In 2023, Ehret recounted that the previous two centuries of Western scholarship had presented Egypt as an “offshoot of earlier Middle Eastern developments”. He continued to argue that these old ideas had influenced the attitudes of scholars in other disciplines such as genetics and their approaches even when existing archaeological, linguistic and biological anthropological evidence had determined the founding locales of Ancient Egypt to be the descendants of longtime populations in Northeastern Africa which included Nubia and the northern Horn of Africa."
-- This paragraph just asserts that Ehret's theories are correct and insinuates that anyone who has a different view is biased. This whole paragraph should be removed.
"Stuart Tyson Smith wrote in 2018 that a common practice among Egyptologists was to "divorce Egypt from its proper northeast African context, instead framing it as fundamentally part of a Near Eastern or "Mediterranean" economic, social and political sphere, hardly African at all or at best a crossroad between the Near East, the eastern Mediterranean and Africa, which carries with it the implication that it is ultimately not really part of Africa". He explicitly criticises Van De Mieroop's comments that ancient Egypt was clearly 'in Africa' it was not so clearly 'of Africa' as reflecting "long-standing Egyptological biases". He concluded that the interrelated cultural features shared between northeast African dynamic and Pharaonic Egypt are not "survivals" or coincidence, but shared traditions with common origins in the deep past"."
-- This is just another assertion that anyone who disagrees with the "African origin" theories of people like Stuart Tyson Smith are necessarily biased, rather than just having a different view.
"Andrea Manzo wrote in 2022 that early Egyptologists had situated the origins of dynastic Egypt within a "broad Hamitic horizon that characterised several regions of Africa" and that these views had continued to dominate in the second half of the twentieth century. Manzo stated more recent studies had "pointed out the relevance of African elements to the rise of Egyptian culture, following earlier suggestions on Egyptian kingship and religion by Henri Frankfort" which countered the traditional view that considered Egypt "more closely linked to the Near East than to the rest of Africa"."
-- This is just about different theories not about bias. Again the insinuation is that anyone who supports a 'Middle Eastern origin' rather than an 'African origin' of Egypt is necessarily biased, just because they have a different view. The paragraph should be removed
"Genetic studies have been criticised by several scholars for a range of methodological problems and providing misleading, interpretations on racial classifications."
-- This is just trying to insinuate that genetic studies can't be trusted and are biased. "misleading, interpretations on racial classifications" doesn't mean anything but makes it sound like genetic studies are racist somehow. Most of the references are old and pre-date the proper development of ancient DNA studies so are outdated.
"Boyce and Keita argued that certain studies have adopted a selective approach in sampling, such as using samples drawn mostly from northern (Lower) Egypt, which has historically had the presence of more foreigners from the Mediterranean and the Near East, and using those samples as representing the rest of Egypt. Thus, excluding the 'darker' south or Upper Egypt which presents a false impression of Egyptian variability. The authors also note that chromosomal patterns have featured inconsistent labelling such as Haplotype V as seen the with use of misleading terms like "Arabic" to describe it, implying this haplotype is of 'Middle Eastern' origins. However, when the haplotype V variant is looked at in context, it does have a very high prevalence in African countries above the Sahara and in Ethiopia."
-- This is from a 2005 paper which pre-dates the proper development of ancient DNA studies. Terms like 'Haplotype V' aren't even used anymore. Again it insinuates that DNA studies are biased, rather than possibly lacking sufficient data. The section is supposed to be about bias so this paragraph can be removed.
"In 2022, Danielle Candelora criticised how modern DNA studies are misused for political and racist agendas. As an example she cites the media echo about the Schuenemann genome study published in 2017, which was "sensationalized in the media as proof that Egyptians were not black Africans" in spite of its methodological limits, and taken by white suprematists as "scientific evidence" to justify their view on the achievements of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation. Candelora also noted that the media overlooked methodological limitations with the study such as the "untested sampling methods, small sample size, and problematic comparative data".
-- This is about media reporting on ancient DNA studies rather than supposed bias in Egyptology or genetic studies. It insinuates that the media is biased by insinuating that they intentionally "overlooked" supposed shortcomings in the Scheunemann study, rather than just reporting the findings of the study. It tries to smear the media and Schuenemann by mentioning white supremacists and 'political and racist agendas'. The misuse of DNA studies by white supremacists doesn't in itself have anything to do with supposed bias (or lack of bias) in DNA studies. None of this paragraph really has any demonstrable connection to bias in the media or in genetic studies so should be removed. Ario1234 (talk) 08:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
None of the assertions above have any supporting, sources. Various academic sources have stated that bias has been an underlying feature of the race controversy and approach of the related disciplines. None of the cited sources state or implicitly imply that genetic studies should not be trusted. They are critical of the interpretations and use of the genetic studies to make wider, conclusive claims in relation to this topic. Your claims are a clear, misrepresentation of the sources. Hence, unless you can provide countervailing sources then this is rooted in your personal lay views which should not take precedence over credible, well sourced references as noted by Generalrelative. WikiUser4020 (talk) 09:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
The problem is rather your presentation of sources, your inclusion of irrelevant content/sources, outdated sources, meaningless statements, insinuations etc, which are all clearly driven by your personal agenda, which can be seen from your other comments further up this page. Ario1234 (talk) 11:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Ario1234 You ignored my point about providing credible sources to support your views and continue with these claims of bad faith. The sources are clearly quoted, the material is directly relevant for this article in terms of providing a more rounded, contextual basis and the statements are far from meaningless but carry strong informative value for the wider public. Your inability to provide credible sources, accusations of bad faith and continued disruptive edit warring show this is a fruitless discussion. Others have reverted your edits and your actions lack consensus hence the paragraph can stand. In future, I would recommend you raise disputes via talk rather than simply remove credible sources simply because you dislike the information and have a particular viewpoint. WikiUser4020 (talk) 12:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's pretty obvious what game you're trying to play here, inserting your spam into every page about Egypt and pretending that its reasonable because you post a bunch of 'sources'. Ario1234 (talk) 14:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Ario1234 You again ignore my points repeatedly about providing supporting sources and evidence. Instead, you continue with personal attacks as you cannot or seem reluctant to provide objective and credible sources which counter the views of experts in those fields. Attacking my efforts to help develop the encyclopedia for public information does not help your case either. I will not respond to any of your personal attacks but await others to make any conclusive judgements on this matter per consensus. WikiUser4020 (talk) 14:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
E Wallis Budge himself wrote the Egyptian religion and culture was central African. And he was the pre iminent Egyptologist of the 19th and 20th centuries SamuelRoth79 (talk) 02:19, 5 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ok if DNA samples are "scientific" and can be trusted. What about the DNA tribes article. That was recently peer reviewed by Keita and published 93 percent sub Saharan DNA 18th dynasty SamuelRoth79 (talk) 04:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I won't address all points raised, and will first of all refrain from labelling any of the participants in this discussion with ideological tags (which is a silly excercise, unless you're out to get blocked).
About Candelora (2022): it is a very intelligent and insightful piece that deserves to be cited here. I had some issues before with the way WikiUser4020 paraphrased its key points into wikitext, but this has long been settled. Nothing in her paper is a "smear"; read it well. If you find fault with the way her observations are represented here, I am open to further changes. But a big NO from me if you want to remove it as a source.
Ehret (1999) is indeed misplaced in the section "Scholarly views on bias...". I have repeatedly explained that this article is not to present arguments in favor of one or the other side of the "Ancient Egyptian race controversy"; obviously, this is not the place to enact the controversy here (which is a stupid thing to do in the 21th century, not just here, but generally). Ok, Ehret says that the "Ancient Egyptian civilization was [...] fundamentally African". Great, but how is this related to the question of bias? Ehret is of course 100% citeable as a giant of African studies, but please always in the proper context. It's not material for this article, but belongs in an article about the Origins of the Ancient Egyptian civilization without any reference to the fucking dead "race controversy". (The smear starts when you contexualize great scholarship such as Ehret's in a pseudo-scientific discussion such as the "Ancient Egyptian race controversy".)
Ehret (2023) is a different story. It is very explicitly about bias; maybe it needs to be paraphrased more clearly (what about citing what Ehret says about where old biased notions come from: "rooted as they are in the self-serving racialist presumptions of nineteenth-century Europeans"). So again, no, don't remove it. –Austronesier (talk) 18:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Austronesier You offer some valid points and are proposing amendments rather than outright removal which is a far more constructive point of discussion. However, I still disagree with the point about Ehret’s 1997 quotation. He is noting that the Africa origins of Ancient Egypt is not usually recognized which is suggestive of implicit bias in interpretations and wider perceptions. I can agree with moving it into the section on modern scholarship rather than a total removal. WikiUser4020 (talk) 18:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict)"In ways and to an extent usually not recognized" is about facts, not causes (= bias). Anyway, moving it to a different section is a good solution.
Maybe off-topic here, but what is actually the purpose of "Position of modern scholarship"? IMO, it should present the position of modern scholarship about the controversy (in a nutshell: the "Ancient Egyptian race controversy" is dumb, per Yurco and myriads of other scholars). Nothing else. Plus maybe about one or two pointers to what acutally matters in modern scholarship when discussing the origins of the Ancient Egyptian civilization (+ links to WP pages that cover these things). Origins means a lot. Origins of cultural expression, the physical origins of its people, the origins of its language. Three related but different things that defy one-dimensional monocausal narratives. –Austronesier (talk) 19:27, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Austronesier@Generalrelative, Austronesier can perhaps add the specific quote from Ehret in relation to bias as this issue is discussed across several pages in his 2023 book.
In relation to the point on modern scholarship, it appears to convey the views of current scholars on the ethnicity of ancient Egyptian which overlaps with the history of the race controversy. These two subject matters are often featured in academic publications as interchangeable. The purpose of the article may need to be expanded upon to account for this in that case considering the difficulty in maintaining a separate distinction over the long-term. WikiUser4020 (talk) 19:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 13 days ago22 comments4 people in discussion
"Africans have nothing to do with the pyramids scientifically" - >this cannot be right since Egyptians are Africans and the pyramids were built by inhabitants of Africa. (t · c) buidhe06:26, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Buidhe: That's a direct quotation taken from one of the cited sources. Two sources are cited for that statement. One of them contains the quotation, and the other one says the same thing paraphrased, and makes it clear that "Africans" in this context refers to the Black race, not the inhabitants of the entire continent, which includes a variety of ethnic groups. This quote was made in response to attempts by US comedian Kevin Hart promoting the revisionist claim that ancient Egypt's rulers and its people were Black. This context seems clear enough in the sentences following that quotation. ~Anachronist (talk) 07:26, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I read the surrounding text.
Perhaps it's verifiable, but I don't think it's necessary to include. The only source supporting the translation may not be wp rs. There's another quote later on which gets the point across and doesn't make him sound like an idiot. (t · c) buidhe14:26, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Did you write "Even in the afterlife we are prohibited from looking at the Akashic Records, those are for the mental dimensional beings like DjaHuTa and SeshEtTa , the God's Thoth and Seshet. They are the gatekeepers of our galaxy’s mental dimension. Beyond the galaxy is higher level Akashic Records that is open only to the fates"? Doug Wellertalk16:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
well maybe you should read my book. It's ok the Kemetic space page on Quora. It's somewhat fictionalized for entertainment but it's accurate, and just because you don't even know what I am talking about,that just means you aren't in the know. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 19:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
College of William and Mary
BA French
Beijing language and Culture University
Chinese.
Speaks French, Chinese, ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian. Maybe if you wouldn't judge people based off their spiritual beliefs you would learn something. Maybe you too would be able to see through all the smoke and mirrors pulled over our eyes. Daily. Did you know the supreme racist Flinders Petrie even agreed that many dynastirs were founded by "Nubians" read his Wikipedia article. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 19:48, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
my book. This is just the first 3 chapters, if you wish to continue the rest is on my Kemetic religion space
revisionist? You do know the top Egyptologist of the 19th and 20th century believed their culture, skin color, and language was central African right? E Wallis Budge SamuelRoth79 (talk) 02:41, 5 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
@SamuelRoth79 He died in 1934. Not the top Egyptologist in the 20th century. And from E. A. Wallis Budge"According to Egyptologist James Peter Allen, Budge's books "were not too reliable when they first appeared and are now woefully outdated." You don't seem to really know much about this. Doug Wellertalk14:46, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
He was the most renowned Égyptologue of the late 19th and Early 20th century. All of the "paypri of the dead" were translated by him and him alone. He spoke Hebrew, Arabic, French, Amharic (Language of Ethiopia) Aramaic, and Ancient Egyptian. Also some Meroitic. He was a polysavant that contributed the most to the British Museum. He procured for them over $500,000,000 in antiquities. In today's dollars. That's an approximation. And every time he tries to say they came from inner Africa he got booed and yelled at. But he stuck to the truth. Google "books on religion of Egypt" and I guarantee you half of them will have been written by him. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 19:21, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 13 days ago10 comments4 people in discussion
It cannot slip anyone's mind, that the actual dna from the Valley Of The Kings clearly shows they have no strong connection to modern Middle Easterners, and have extremely strong connection to today's Sub-Saharan Africans. SSA = Sub-Saharan African, EA = Eurasian, A = Asian.
Table 1: Geographical region affinities of Amarna and Ramesside mummies based on popAffiliator 1 analysis of 8 pairs of STR
Now this information is 1) based on the peer reviewed and published results from Zahi Hawass, who is an anti-Afrocentrist and 2) is repeatable by anyone with access to popAffiliator. This is not from someone going 'I've got a secret', this is public, repeatable information.
When 12 years ago, dna testing company DNA Tribes put the Valley Of The Kings dna through their genetic database, they found the same thing, except with greater detail than just 'Sub-Saharan African' - within Sub-Saharan Africa, they identified African Great Lakes (Malawi) and Southern Africa as the closest matches by far. Even the average clusters most strongly to Southern African and African Great Lakes. Highest MLI = Most Like.
Table 1: Top MLI (Match Likelihood Index) scores for Amarna mummies based on the world regions identified by DNA Tribes STR analysis.
MLI for World Region
Thuya
Yuya
KV35EL
Amen‐hotep III
KV55
KV35YL
Tut
Average
Southern African
359.72
34.48
20.73
108.53
174.90
71.17
1,519.03
326.94
African Great Lakes
233.49
35.53
20.87
222.53
381.30
44.58
1,328.01
323.76
Tropical West African
142.84
8.91
6.93
37.43
53.03
22.99
314.00
83.74
Horn of Africa
14.65
0.79
5.17
12.03
4.54
22.00
44.35
14.79
Sahelian
39.14
0.74
5.76
2.97
4.40
16.85
30.41
14.33
Levantine
0.40
1.56
0.66
10.30
6.07
8.40
21.08
6.92
Aegean
0.12
0.35
0.87
9.06
7.05
20.16
9.85
6.78
Arabian
0.12
0.42
0.70
5.58
2.83
21.41
10.91
6.00
Northwest European
0.21
0.28
1.26
3.99
10.41
15.01
5.33
5.21
Mediterranean
0.08
0.23
0.74
4.54
5.81
16.80
6.04
4.89
North African
2.22
0.21
0.75
3.39
3.25
12.63
6.55
4.14
Mesopotamian
0.06
0.41
0.63
6.24
2.69
11.54
5.27
3.84
Source: DNA Tribes Digest January 1, 2012
Last of the Amarna Pharaohs: King Tut and His Relatives
Historical Background
Who lives there? The Eastern Bantu. What is the Eastern Bantu's history? They came from the 2nd Bantu Expansion, which came from the Urewe Culture, which appeared 'out of nowhere', at the source of the Nile in Uganda, 3,000 years ago, around the end of the New Kingdom. In fact when the Zulus/Nguni return to the land of the ancestors as some Ngoni/Nguni have done, they return the Land of Mbo, which means origins. They're known as the Ngoni of Mbo and live 150 km west of Lake Albert, the origin of the Nile.
The problem with the Schuenemann data is that 1) they stubbornly refuse to look at the dna from the Valley Of The Kings and 2) they almost exclusively use haplogroups, which were best evidence 20 years ago, but isn't today when Principal Component Analysis rules the roost in accuracy and precision. 2001:1C00:1E20:D900:D108:E292:4ECE:682B (talk) 12:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I totally agree and this should definitely be added to the article. If it's not than this article is moot and meant to obfuscate the truth. We already have the DNA from the 18th dynasty, why won't that be tested? Hmm SamuelRoth79 (talk) 02:27, 5 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
here is the "peer reviewed" data on the Amarna mummies
nobody is saying to use DNA tribes. SOY Keita took the DNA from the haram conspiracy samples. And he with his coworkers ran the DNA samples. And got back the image and data I posted. SamuelRoth79 (talk) 11:47, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I believe that would be useful, however, the article later addresses the reliability of genetic studies:
Genetic studies have been criticised by several scholars for a range of methodological problems and providing misleading racial classifications.
The issue now is that we have to find a way to neutrally summarize the impact and usage of genetic studies in this certain area. Below is a rough draft I have produced. I believe something along the lines of this would be appropriate for including in the lede prargraph:
Genetic studies have contributed significantly to modern understanding of Ancient Egypt's racial heritage by providing data for the distribution and origins of the population's genetic markers, but their use has been criticized by several scholars for their methodology and the misleading conclusions that can willfully be drawn from them.{{efn | The main content about the use of genetic studies can be found [[Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy#cite_ref-82|here]].}}
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