Politically-informed Bad Archaeology
This section explores all the ways in which archaeology is manipulated for political, ethnic, social and religious causes.
Archaeological evidence is often made to fit people’s prejudiced opinions about other people and the world, or it legitimises particular political ideologies and their historical bases. Whether this means discovering Iron Age pottery marked with swastikas or claiming to have found evidence for a mythical god, it constitutes Bad Archaeology.
I have a question, please. Does Salima Ikram really believe the ancient Egyptians and pharoahs were black (as in negroid) as has been asserted by Bauval, author of Black Genesis? If so, what are the motivations that would inspire her to go against Hawass’ assertion that the pharoahs and ancient egyptians for the most part were egyptian–a race that is different from the negroid peoples of some other parts of Africa? I don’t care about race at all, myself, but I passionately care about the truth–in all things and in archeology. I view the paintings and all the artifacts from ancient egypt and I see an Arabic looking people mostly–in the hair, the facial structure, etc. I also see variances in color–with Nefertari almost fair skinned. There are some negroid appearing people, but they are not the pharoahs–they are combatants to the pharoahs–and such. To believe Mr. Bauval, must I disbelieve my own eyes and the research of respected archeologists?
Kate
The whole idea that the ancient Egyptians were a physically sub-Saharan type has been raised a number of times and is one of the cornerstones of the Afrocentric movement. This holds that all important early human innovations originated in Africa and were subsequently “stolen” by Europeans (the Greeks usualy get the blame, hence the title of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena). As one of the world’s oldest known civilisations, the Egyptian must, therefore, have been created by black (i.e. sub-Saharan) Africans.
This idea has been thoroughly debunked. I will do some research and, eventually, write a page specifically on this subject.
Thanks for asking the question!
Thanks for your reply Keith. I look forward to your future writings on this topic. Again, I really don’t think most people care at all what race anyone is— race has no significance in and of itself—but where science is concerned there is value in knowing every detail about the world, and the people and animals in it—-simply for the sake of an accurate body of knowledge from which to base and discover additional truths. If the truth about the origins of civilizations is simply whatever someone with a theory wants it to be—and can be made up by anyone at will— and there are no accepted standards upon which we base evidence— then there can be no value to knowledge, culture or education at all. And that is upsetting to all of us who put our time and money into education!
If I’m not mistaken, I believe that the Nubian pharaohs were black.
The problem comes with what you mean by “black”. Yes, they were much darker-skinned than the olive-skinned Mediterranean Egyptians, but in modern English, the term “black” is usually applied to people of sub-Saharan type (what, in the past, would have been referred to as “negroid”), which the Nubian people are not. Race is a contentious issue at the best of times and I certainly don’t want to get into arguments of that sort!
This seems to be a recurrent discussion, when in all honesty the only answer has to be that Ancient Egiptian rulers had very different ethnic origins depending upon which Dynasty are we analysing.
Just to give to extreme exemples, the XXVth Dynasty(c.760-656 b.C.), came from Kush (modern day Sudan); hence the Pharaohs of the Kushite Dynasty were clearly African in aspect.
On the other end, the XXXIst Dynasty (Ptolomaic Dynasty c.332-30 b.C.) was greek; its founder (Ptolomey I or Ptolomey Soter -”The Saviour”) was born in Macedonia and one of Alexander the Great’s finest generals.
As such, Pharaohs of this period would have a quite European appearence (who knows, maybe Cleopatra did look like Elizabeth Taylor after all…:D)
Best Regards,
Luís
P.S.: Outstanding Site!!!!! Congratulations!