Your Egypt

[Dienrose]

in Egyptology? What about the Eurocentrists?
Ausar, I felt so bad when I saw the mess of spam you just had to deal with on that other board you moderate...
Reading that board I often wonder if some of the people so consumed with the race issue (on both sides of the argument) have any other interest in other subjects relating to Ancient Egyptian history.
I believe there are often valid points raised, and some of the antiquated views regarding Ancient Egyptian History need revision, but there are some people that just seem stuck on the one subject.
Are there any other members here that have a view about it?
:?

[Ausar]

Dienrose, this is a deep unsettling issue that goes deeper than just what you see on the board. For so long early Egyptologist taught their own racist version of ancient Egyptian history,and forced it upon the world. Even native Egyptians were considered to be non-inheritors of the civlization that was rightfully their own. Following this issue you have to understand the complexity of social issues like colonialization,racism,and postmodernism.


I have read some of the accounts that early Egyptologist had on the modern Egyptian people in comparison to their ancient ancestors. The Egyptologist said that modern Egyptians were mongrelized imposters. Read Sir Grafton Smith and others on this issue.


Know the problem arises in modern America you obviously have a down trodden minority that has been taught they are inferior by social standards. Thus the need to attach themselves and plunge deep into African antiquity for the lack of their own or from a culture that was stolen from them.


I have been to just about every Egyptology forum on the net,and the race question always pops up on each and every one of the forums. Things were real bad on soc.culture.egyptian back about five years ago. Cross posting and flame wars between African Americans and white supremist over the ethnicity and race of the ancient Egyptians.



If you are wondering where the Afrocentric movement came from then I will tell you it was started by Molefi Assante during the early 80's. It was never a big issue in academia untill about the time when Martin Bernal's book Black Athena came out,and then it became a major issue. The gatekeepers of Western civlization could not see ancient Egypt giving birth to Greek civlization,nor could it have an African base to it's culture and people.



Please understand I am a rather moderate person in history. I don't believe ancient Egypt founded every civlization,nor that ancient Greece was an Egyptian colony. I do believe the Africaness of the culture and people of ancient Egypt needs to be examined and understood better in the framework of academia.

[Dienrose]

Ausar, I definitely agree that there are issues and perspectives that need to be investigated and redressed. I only wonder at the people who seem to have little interest in other aspects of Egyptology outside of the race issues.
I would think that people who identify themselves strongly with the Ancients would find all the heritage and history they left behind all the more interesting, instead of discounting all other elements as superficial as compared to racial phenotypes.
You are certainly one person who is obviously learned and learning in so many aspects of Egyptology - including the ancestry of the Ancients.
There are others that do not appear to have such an all encompassing interest.

[Ausar]

Quote: Ausar, I definitely agree that there are issues and perspectives that need to be investigated and redressed. I only wonder at the people who seem to have little interest in other aspects of Egyptology outside of the race issues.

Well, I think much of this falls upon the shoulders of early Egyptologist like Maspero,Grafton Smith and Sir Flinders Petrie. At the conception of Egyptology race based slavery,colonization,and racial ideals were prominent in the minds of most Egyptologist. The Egyptologist were confronted by a non-white civlization which did not fall into the streotype of being backwards or primitive. Since the hierarchy of race was large during this time so the Egyptologist put their own racial bias into their own Egyptology. Most of the early Egyptologist were very racist.




The early forms of racism was invented and developed by a man named Comete Degobineau,a member of the French aristocracy.




Most of these issues are highly charged and politically based. As an Egyptian deeply interested in my ancestors, I am somewhat disapointed on how mainstream Egyptologist has presented the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians. After all people like Grafton Smith through the modern Egyptians were not worth ancient Egypt.


Quote: I would think that people who identify themselves strongly with the Ancients would find all the heritage and history they left behind all the more interesting, instead of discounting all other elements as superficial as compared to racial phenotypes.


The problem is that most modern soceities particulary judge people by what accomplishments their race has done in the past. Personally, my family were poor sharecropping Fellahin from Southern Egypt. Although ancient Egyptians are my ancestors that makes me no better or less a person from a aboriginal from Australia who might not have had a glorious past as in my ancestors. In America I am just a average immigrant alienated by my very own country of my ancestors.




This is why something like the pyramid does not impress. The heart and soul of any soceity are it's people;not large monuments. Ancient Egyptian legacy is something that lives within the modern Upper Egyptian and rural Fellahin in the Delta. Despite what racial admixture we might have going through our veins, the ancient culture persisted and still persists amung the modern rural Egyptians. This is the most important thing to me.




Quote: You are certainly one person who is obviously learned and learning in so many aspects of Egyptology - including the ancestry of the Ancients.
There are others that do not appear to have such an all encompassing inter


Thanks for this compliment. I appreciate your expertise on this subject. Since you are incontact with the Egyptologist and scholars, I would ask that you convince many of them to document the surviving aspects of the ancient Egyptian traditions that persist both amungst the Muslim and Chistians populations. Some work has already and is being done,but I suggest that more film documentation. Much of these traditions might die due to globalization,and as more Egyptians become modernized.