Racism and Egyptology
The first source I chose was a peer-reviewed article by Galton and William, in which they analyzed the race of ancient Egypt. Historically, the ancient Kemetics stood out from their neighbors in terms of appearance and culture. Differentiation was not based purely on outward appearances, as with later European and North American theories. The authors could draw that an average Libyan had light brown skin, a shoulder-length strand of hair, and pronouncement. The Kushite people of modern-day Sudan were distinguished by their dark coloring, short, henna-dyed hair, and the abundance of gold earrings they wore.
The only non-African individuals shown were Asians from what is now the Middle East. Historically, depictions of people from this area have typically featured them with yellow complexion and, later, during the Roman Empire, with pink skin. According to Galton and William, Egyptians were represented by beards and clothing that were distinct from other African peoples. Artists represented a wider variety of Egyptians, including those with black, deep red, and brown skin, and a wide variety of attire and hairstyles, compared to depictions of people from other cultures.
Ethnicity: Constructions of Self and Other in Ancient Egypt
My second choice was a scholarly article published by Smith. The author says that a person’s race was not a significant factor in Ancient Egyptian society. Most of the population was black, and racism did not exist anywhere. The artworks of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome all show that having a dark complexion was never viewed as a sign of being inferior. When European forces invaded Africa in the nineteenth century, they brought with them a Western-style civilization. Countless negative consequences for the black community were unleashed as a direct result of this.
The African civilization that had developed on the southern banks of the Nile gave rise to the black pharaohs, who unified the land and adorned it with magnificent structures. Since the white explorers saw blacks as primitive and inferior, western scholars started paying attention to the skin color of Egyptian individuals. The author found that the entire ancient Egyptian royal family is often portrayed as a race of black Africans, from King Tut down to Cleopatra. After defeating non-black domination and attaining various goals, they governed Ancient Egypt for thousands of years. More importantly, black leaders from the south always managed to restore order in Egypt.
The ancient Egyptians did not discriminate based on race and frequently represented the contrasts between themselves and other peoples, such as the Libyans, the Asians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The bulk of Egypt’s black population was undereducated and denied access to information about the natural history of Ancient Egypt, the accomplishments of the black population, and the original works and practices of this group because of racial infiltration (Smith, 2018). The Europeans and the Arab invaders were driving this and promoting it. Racism impacted the study’s outcomes because most conclusions were exclusively attributed to white researchers and their publications. Not only that but several artifacts and specific black accomplishments were altered to show whites in a more favorable light.
After the colonization process in the nineteenth century, the white population in Egypt advocated oppression of the black community regarding education, information, and general achievements that the black African population had introduced to Ancient Egypt. Consequently, most of the things that black people did or accomplished were attributed to white people.
References
Galton, P. & William, M. F. P. (2017). Racism and Egyptology.
Smith, S. T. (2018). Ethnicity: Constructions of self and other in Ancient Egypt. Journal of Egyptian History, 11(1-2), 113-146. Web.