Scholar discusses "The Vanishing Evidence of Classical African Civilizations"

Professor Manu Ampim has conducted a vast amount of research into what he considers as the "de-Africanizing" of ancient African civilizations. His work is primarily on a book called Modern Fraud, in which he describes a forgery of an ancient Egyptian couple in an effort to make them appear to have no African heritage. (I don't think he has finished the book yet)

Here's a link to the site where I first started reading about this.

Modern Fraud site

I'm going to keep reading up on this guy, but I am intrigued from what I've read on the site so far. However, it was the PICTURES that really got my attention.

I don't know how to copy pictures on this site, but I'll try to here. If they don't show up, you'll have to look through the different parts (1, 2, and 3) to see them.

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

www.raceandhistory.com...

Guess I'll see if that worked. If not, oh well, I tried.

The things that I noticed most were the nose alterations (a la Great Sphinx) and the pic with the worker. It's kinda hard to say "it was like that when I got here" when you're standing there in front of the damaged wall and a bag of cement.

Pretty wild...

Edit: Well, the pics came out right, but they don't have captions. You'll have to look through the sections to find them. I guess I could do this myself, but I've been online long enough today. I'll do this tomorrow, because you're probably as lazy as me.

[edit on 14-2-2007 by truthseeka]

Excellent!
This periode i am doing some research on African civilizations...

It is said at the area, today lays the country of Mali, that an ancient civilization flourished and made expansions oversea to Yukatan Peninsula creating the civilization of Olmeck. That's a reason we find these african/negritic-like statues...

PS: Don't be lazy


[edit on 14-2-2007 by Dragonlike]

I'm not sure I believe all his evidence (I'd like to see more), but I do believe that traces of older cultures are often erased by the dominant culture. I see this in the way that Native American beliefs are coopted by well-meaning Christians and theorists.

There needs to be a determined effort to clean up the alterations.

Well, I have never been convinced that the egyptians were of negritic stock. The reason being that all of the burial masks and sculptures I have ever seen have all been of dark skinned, thin lipped, angular nosed people.

There are statues in south america that are no doubt negritic in origin.

I personally believe that the egyptians were probably a mix of arabic/greek/berber.

Also, there are no other places deeper in africa where buildings with such sophistication have been built. This leads me to believe that the egyptians were probably not ethnically african, at least not completely.

www.raceandhistory.com...
It seems evident that the darker paint has been deliberately erased on the face and upper body, thus giving the images the illusion of a white-skin appearance.

Thats a bunch of bunk. He's saying that the paint was rubbed off the rest of the body, so that there'd be white stone underneath, but not on the legs.

The charge is baseless. Paint weathers away after 4 thousand years, its hardly surprising that there'd be the least paint on the most exposed or most touched parts of statues.

truthseeka
It's kinda hard to say "it was like that when I got here" when you're standing there in front of the damaged wall and a bag of cement.

Why are you accusing that guy of destroying artifacts and suppressing 'black' history?

www.raceandhistory.com...
. On several occasions in the 1980s and 1990s, these unsupervised minimally-skilled government workers have been caught on video tape plastering over temple images and inscriptions!

Being an incompetent low wage worker who doesn't care about artifacts is hardly the same as 'destroying and suppressing african civilization'.

www.raceandhistory.com...
in a bold attempt to place a strange pale-skinned couple [Ra-Hotep and Nofret ] in the middle of the fourth dynasty African royal family

If whites were making statues to say that egypt was a white nation, then they'd've made statues that were....white. Both the people represented in those statues would've been liable to have crosses burning in their front yard if they lived in the american south. They look like....the people that live in egypt now, the egyptians.

This concern over the 'race' of the egyptians really just illustrates how meaningless race is, and shows that our concepts of what 'black' and 'white' is is meaningless and simply doesn't apply to actual humanity or history.

xphilesphan
I personally believe that the egyptians were probably a mix of arabic/greek/berber.

I've never seen a genetic study on mummies that ever showed that they were substantially different from the people that are in most of egypt now. They're not greeks, they're not arabs, they're Egyptians.

Also, there are no other places deeper in africa where buildings with such sophistication have been built

The empire of Kush was every bit as sophisticated. The west african civilizations were also extremely sophisticated, and South Africa shows traces of advanced civlizations. True enough, the depths of the central african jungle don't have much in the way of cities in the egyptian era. Not unlike Northern Europe at the time.

There are statues in south america that are no doubt negritic in origin.

Actually, despite what people think those Olmec 'heads' look like, they're representations of the peopel that originally lived in the area, who still live today and apparently look just like the statues.

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
Well, I have never been convinced that the egyptians were of negritic stock. The reason being that all of the burial masks and sculptures I have ever seen have all been of dark skinned, thin lipped, angular nosed people.

There are statues in south america that are no doubt negritic in origin.

I personally believe that the egyptians were probably a mix of arabic/greek/berber.

Also, there are no other places deeper in africa where buildings with such sophistication have been built. This leads me to believe that the egyptians were probably not ethnically african, at least not completely.

Your description shows the problem right there. The problem is the racial classifications created and still foolishly used by some today. Terms like Negritic, Negroid, Caucasoid, etc. It amplifies the false theory of the "True Negro." There are dark-skinned African Americans with thin lips andwavy hair!!!

I personally believe that the egyptians were probably a mix of arabic/greek/berber.

False. The Greeks didn't enter Egypt as a cultural force until the Ptolemaic Dynasty...and actually, they weren't Greek but Macedonian. By then though, Ancient Egypt as we know it was basically gone. Also, no serious scholar believes Ancient Egypt to be of Berber (or Amazigh) origin.

I encourage everyone to read what CURRENT scholars are saying. I'm tired of reading these old regurgitated arguments using old terminology like Negritic. If you want to know about the makeup and culture of Ancient Egypt you need to look into Pre-Dynastic Egypt.

origines2.free.fr...

The above PDF file is a long resume of an international conference held in France in 2005 between September 5-8. It discusses the roots of dynastic Egypt and talks in length about Pre-Dynastic Egypt. Here's an excerpt...

"Can we suppose after the split-up of the Afro-asiatic unity, the Proto-Egyptian tribes had a long coexistence with the ancestors of Chadic as well as of Nilo-Saharan somewhere in the Saharan macro-area? Can we idenify the bearers of the paleolithic-neolithic Saharan culture with a wide conglomoration in which Proto-Egypto-Chadic and other ancient African (Nilo-Saharan, Bantu, etc...) populations also could have taken part? Can we suppose that the Proto-Egyptian tribes migrated from the south or the south-west to Upper Egypt to gradually occupy the entire Nile Valley? Can we suppose a later (secondary) Egypto-Semitic coexistence already in the neolithic Nile Valley and place it after the split up of the Chadic-Egyptian union?" (Takacs 1999:47)

Ok, Pikkon. You asked for it.

I will henceforth refer to negritic as negros or blacks, if it so pleases you.


The biggest problem I have with the claim that ancient egyptians were black is that there is little evidence to support that other than the fact they sit in the north eastern corner of the continent.

Why would the ancient egyption artisans depict their pharoahs as having non-black features if they were black?

Also, If the statement that most of the egyptians alive today comprise what was the ancient egyptians of the past is true, then the certainly were not black. To me, the egyptians look more arabic/semetic than black.

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
Why would the ancient egyption artisans depict their pharoahs as having non-black features if they were black?

What exactly are 'non-black' features? What features can a person have that prevents them from being 'black'?

Also, If the statement that most of the egyptians alive today comprise what was the ancient egyptians of the past is true, then the certainly were not black. To me, the egyptians look more arabic/semetic than black.

Looks are meaningless though. COnsider that the semitic langauges are part of a larger language family called the Afro-semitic language group. They are all tied up together. THink about arabs living in arabia along the red sea, crossing it into nubia and the like, and nubians crossing back over. These people have been mixing, like everyone else, for millenia.

Its really simply meaningless to try to take modern ideas about ethnicity and apply them to past civilizations. The egyptians, in their frescoes, represent themselves in a different way than any other people in their artwork, they draw libyans (who I beleive would be considered berbers), nubians, arabs, greeks, etc, all distinctly, and draw themselves distinctly from all of them.

The ancient egyptians weren't 'black', and they weren't 'non-black'. "black" didn't exist back then, its a social term, not a real-world biological one. They were egyptians.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
Why would the ancient egyption artisans depict their pharoahs as having non-black features if they were black?

What exactly are 'non-black' features? What features can a person have that prevents them from being 'black'?

Also, If the statement that most of the egyptians alive today comprise what was the ancient egyptians of the past is true, then the certainly were not black. To me, the egyptians look more arabic/semetic than black.

Looks are meaningless though. COnsider that the semitic langauges are part of a larger language family called the Afro-semitic language group. They are all tied up together. THink about arabs living in arabia along the red sea, crossing it into nubia and the like, and nubians crossing back over. These people have been mixing, like everyone else, for millenia.

Its really simply meaningless to try to take modern ideas about ethnicity and apply them to past civilizations. The egyptians, in their frescoes, represent themselves in a different way than any other people in their artwork, they draw libyans (who I beleive would be considered berbers), nubians, arabs, greeks, etc, all distinctly, and draw themselves distinctly from all of them.

The ancient egyptians weren't 'black', and they weren't 'non-black'. "black" didn't exist back then, its a social term, not a real-world biological one. They were egyptians.

It's called Afro-Asiatic, not Afro-Semitic. And it is safe to assume that the very early dynasties of Egypt were in fact heavily dark-skinned. Let's remember something, there was no real "ethnic takeover" or invasion of Ancient Egypt until the Hyksos came into power. And seeing as how like I said scholars are beginning to admit that AE was influenced from the south both culturally and ethnically...

are you making this up as you go along
dna studies have already proved that the early dynasties of egypt were a mixture of african and levantine dna
the egyptian culture arose from the Badarian people who also have shown from dna studies that they had a mixture of afrcian and levant dna
if you want to pretend that physical features indicate racial origin then heres the pharoahs responsible for the Giza plateau

Khafre


Khufu


Menkaure

and heres daddy
Sneferu


what no thick lips wide noses and kinky hair
must be a racist white plot
if it is
its an ancient egyptian racist white plot

Originally posted by Marduk
are you making this up as you go along
dna studies have already proved that the early dynasties of egypt were a mixture of african and levantine dna
the egyptian culture arose from the Badarian people who also have shown from dna studies that they had a mixture of afrcian and levant dna
if you want to pretend that physical features indicate racial origin then heres the pharoahs responsible for the Giza plateau

Khafre


Khufu


Menkaure

and heres daddy
Sneferu


what no thick lips wide noses and kinky hair
must be a racist white plot
if it is
its an ancient egyptian racist white plot

Why do you assume that I believe in a racist white plot? Are you denying that racism hasn't played a role in the way history is depicted and received? I've also said that there is no generic way Black people look, so this "thick lips, kinky hair" argument is a strawman. And read the PDF I give above that clearly says AE was influenced both politically and culturally from the South and West.

Where is your DNA study showing genetic influence from the Levant?

EDIT: Did you know that the excavations at Heirakonpolis have uncovered evidence showing important trade and economic ties predynastic Egypt had with 'Nubia' to the south, specifically the A-group people of Ta-Seti? Did you also know that Ta-Seti was ONE of the southern kingdoms that went on to form Ancient Egypt?

Listen, I'm not doubting outside influences occured. What I'm saying is AE should be recognized as an African Empire and not some modern tripe of being some sort of "Middle Eastern Arab" thing (which Dynastic Egypt never was).

Are you aware of the Qustal incense burner discovered in Sudan? And how in northern "Nubia" (or Sudan) the Qustal line of kings actually predates those of the first pharoahs of Egypt? The people of these early cultures buried their dead in stone-lined pit graves, accompanied by pottery and cosmetic articles. At this time, Nubia was known to the Egyptians as "Ta Seti," the "Land of the Bow," because of the fame of Nubian archers.

www.homestead.com...

For the entire history of this exhaustive debate, you should REALLY read this, it's lengthy, but it's well worth it.

[url]http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/finally.html[/ur]

Some people have suggested that the terms "Black African" and "Negro" be dropped from the biological lexicon altogether in favor of "Saharo-tropical variant" which subsumes the range of morphologies of great time depth found in Africa'. No serious argument can be made to the position that Egypt was a 'Nilotic-African' culture 'on all levels'. It was Frank Yurco that said, "The whole matter of black or white Egyptians is a chimera, cultural baggage from our own society that can only be artificially imposed on ancient Egyptian society."

[edit on 19-2-2007 by Pikkon]

Listen, I'm not doubting outside influences occured. What I'm saying is AE should be recognized as an African Empire and not some modern tripe of being some sort of "Middle Eastern Arab" thing (which Dynastic Egypt never was).

what everyone else is saying including egyptologists is that it is not an african empire because the people who made it were not african
now thats a fact
whichever way you want to cut it and whichever way you think it was the facts state that it was not black so not african and not arab so not arabian and not white so not white supremacist

It was Egyptian
and they were a mixed culture

I've also said that there is no generic way Black people look

does that include skin colour ?
this illustration is from the tomb of Seti the 1st


From left to right: four Libyans, Nubian, Syrian and Egyptian
you will note that the egyptian does not have black skin
so by definition
is not black

we already went over this subject a couple of weeks ago
it is an afrocentrist view to regard these people as members of a black race
it is a racist white view to regard them as white and in fact nobody does (well maybe a few rednecks)


If you like I will dig out the dna studies that prove that the early egyptians were a mixed race right from the start
but you could always dig them out yourself if you are genuinely interested in the truth
but from what I've seen so far you aren't
youre quite happy to claim black is black and that black also contains features found only in other races of this period to suit your agenda
thats not good science
thats racism

they were members of the human race Pikkon
surely thats good enough for you ?

Originally posted by Marduk

Listen, I'm not doubting outside influences occured. What I'm saying is AE should be recognized as an African Empire and not some modern tripe of being some sort of "Middle Eastern Arab" thing (which Dynastic Egypt never was).

what everyone else is saying including egyptologists is that it is not an african empire because the people who made it were not african
now thats a fact
whichever way you want to cut it and whichever way you think it was the facts state that it was not black so not african and not arab so not arabian and not white so not white supremacist

It was Egyptian
and they were a mixed culture

I've also said that there is no generic way Black people look

does that include skin colour ?
this illustration is from the tomb of Seti the 1st


From left to right: four Libyans, Nubian, Syrian and Egyptian
you will note that the egyptian does not have black skin
so by definition
is not black

we already went over this subject a couple of weeks ago
it is an afrocentrist view to regard these people as members of a black race
it is a racist white view to regard them as white and in fact nobody does (well maybe a few rednecks)


If you like I will dig out the dna studies that prove that the early egyptians were a mixed race right from the start
but you could always dig them out yourself if you are genuinely interested in the truth
but from what I've seen so far you aren't
youre quite happy to claim black is black and that black also contains features found only in other races of this period to suit your agenda
thats not good science
thats racism

they were members of the human race Pikkon
surely thats good enough for you ?

I updated my post above...

If it wasn't African than what was it? You do realize Egypt is IN Africa right? So therefore, that would make it African. Do you say that Rome wasn't European? Of course not...so why play with words when it comes to Ancient Egypt?

In his essay, Christopher Ehret confirms that the earliest domestic cattle and pottery makers came from the south of Egypt, adding to the evidence that the main features of Egyptian civilisation came from the south. (85) Fekri A. Hassan declares, in his take on predynastic Egyptian civilisation, that the 'cultural continuity with an African substratum and the strong historical cultural interactions between Egypt and other African societies clearly demonstrate that Africa was the cradle of Egyptian civilization'. (86) Martha Ehrlich finds similarities between mother and child figures in Egypt and the rest of Africa, while Lanny Bell and Chapurukha Kusimba concur on the question of ancestor worship and divine kingship. The section on body art reveals fascinating similarities in painting, scarring and tattooing, while the case over circumcision--a feature previously noted by authors from Herodotus to Diop--is again argued.

After twenty years of hot debate over the archaeologist Bruce Williams's claim that there were southern predecessors of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, (90) one of the latest results of archaeological explorations in the northern Sahara should be noted:

"The Sahara west of the Nile in southern Egypt was hyperarid and unoccupied during most of the late Pleistocene epoch. About 11,000 years ago the summer monsoons of central Africa moved into Egypt, and temporary lakes or playas were formed. The Nabta Playa depression, which is one of the largest in southern Egypt, is a kidney shaped basin of roughly 10km by 7km in area. We report the discovery of megalithic alignments and stone circles next to locations of Middle and Late Neolithic communities at Nabta, which suggest the early development of a complex society. The southward shift of the monsoons in the Late Neolithic age rendered the area once again hyperarid and uninhabitable

I hate this post limit...

...Anyway, it's also important to note that your Table of Nations pic from the tomb of Ramses III is not what was actually on the wall. That, like most others, are artistic recreations.