What did the Ancient Egyptians look like?

[Bear Stearns]

A black actor playing Cleopatra(and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me whether this film is portraying the historical figure or the Shakespeare character) would not paint all of history black. It's not as if this casting choice is going to be replicated in every work created for the next hundred years.

Would you be fine with Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham playing Shaka Zulu, if they're to make a film featuring South African history?

that would be hilarious. let's do it

[Aureumterra III]

A black actor playing Cleopatra(and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me whether this film is portraying the historical figure or the Shakespeare character) would not paint all of history black. It's not as if this casting choice is going to be replicated in every work created for the next hundred years.

Would you be fine with Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham playing Shaka Zulu, if they're to make a film featuring South African history?

Dwayne Johnsons is half black and half Samoan… that would open up a entirely new can of worms

I’m all for it, just to see how those people would react

[Bear Stearns]

Amy Schumer should star in a biopic about Assata Shakur

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Tom cruise should play Idi Amin in a Biopic about the dictator.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

As I said, what ever color the Greeks are.

Disagree: Greece hs had a significant admixture of Asian (Turkish/ Jewish/ Arabic) genes during the Ottoman empire. Back then, there were whole lot more blond and blonde-ish Greeks. Alexander the Great was blonde. Cleo's grandmother was blonde.

We should look for whatever colour the Macedonians USED TO BE 2000 YEARS AGO.

Southern europrans have always been dark due to the climate they live in. The nordic Greeks are a myth.

[Aureumterra III]

Tom cruise should play Idi Amin in a Biopic about the dictator.

The only person who can pull off African dictators without offending snowflakes is Sacha Baron Cohen

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Pretty sure genetic evidence shows they were very similar to Ancient Greeks and Ancient Anatolians.

Egyptians looked different only due to hairstyle and clothing.

[Greed and Death]

Pretty sure genetic evidence shows they were very similar to Ancient Greeks and Ancient Anatolians.

Egyptians looked different only due to hairstyle and clothing.

You mean the Nubian wig they liked to wear ?

[Bear Stearns]

The story of Simon Weisenthal, starring Mel Gibson

[Salandriagado]

Your occasional recurring reminder that coming up with a simple answer to address any question relating to a civilisation that lasted more than 3000 years is always going to be problematic; and that trying to classify people in the distant past on the basis of modern racial classification is always going to be tricky.


Anyway, what does the NSG mob want me to do here? Would you like your friendly neighbourhood archaeologist (who was indeed working in Cairo until August) to try and address the questions raised by the OP as quickly and succinctly as possible? Because while it's basically well-intentioned, there's a lot of assumptions to unpack there.

That's pretty much what I was skimming through the thread looking for.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Your occasional recurring reminder that coming up with a simple answer to address any question relating to a civilisation that lasted more than 3000 years is always going to be problematic; and that trying to classify people in the distant past on the basis of modern racial classification is always going to be tricky.


Anyway, what does the NSG mob want me to do here? Would you like your friendly neighbourhood archaeologist (who was indeed working in Cairo until August) to try and address the questions raised by the OP as quickly and succinctly as possible? Because while it's basically well-intentioned, there's a lot of assumptions to unpack there.

What did the Egyptians typically look like? Race is a construct but physical descriptions are real.

[Greed and Death]

Your occasional recurring reminder that coming up with a simple answer to address any question relating to a civilisation that lasted more than 3000 years is always going to be problematic; and that trying to classify people in the distant past on the basis of modern racial classification is always going to be tricky.


Anyway, what does the NSG mob want me to do here? Would you like your friendly neighbourhood archaeologist (who was indeed working in Cairo until August) to try and address the questions raised by the OP as quickly and succinctly as possible? Because while it's basically well-intentioned, there's a lot of assumptions to unpack there.

What did the Egyptians typically look like? Race is a construct but physical descriptions are real.

Like me. All great civilizations were by people who looked like me. Romans Me. Han Chinese Me. Mali Empire Me. Jesus Me. And so on and so forth.

[UniversalCommons]

They all looked like some version of my relatives, my 15th cousins, my great great great grandparents, somewhere they looked like someone in my family tree in the last 20 generations back. I am sure of it.

[Rusozak]

We have ancient Egyptian DNA from mummies. We have cloning technology. I think I have a solution.

[Greed and Death]

We have ancient Egyptian DNA from mummies. We have cloning technology. I think I have a solution.

No I will not tolerate another Mummy movie franchise.

[Hurdergaryp]

I don't know how people can work up the effort to get angry about this sort of thing. It's entertainment. I'm pretty sure they won't be speaking the correct language for the time, either.

It appears there is a rather simplistic approach in the USA which states that Africa is a purely black continent. North Africa, however, has proven that sentiment wrong since time immemorial. Clearly this is yet another one of those vanity outrages which seem to be a bit of a hobby for way too many people.

[Greed and Death]

I don't know how people can work up the effort to get angry about this sort of thing. It's entertainment. I'm pretty sure they won't be speaking the correct language for the time, either.

It appears there is a rather simplistic approach in the USA which states that Africa is a purely black continent. North Africa, however, has proven that sentiment wrong since time immemorial. Clearly this is yet another one of those vanity outrages which seem to be a bit of a hobby for way too many people.

It appears to mostly be with in a certain subsect of African Americans that make this mistake.

[Suriyanakhon]

We have ancient Egyptian DNA from mummies. We have cloning technology. I think I have a solution.

No I will not tolerate another Mummy movie franchise.

Too late.

[Hurdergaryp]

Your occasional recurring reminder that coming up with a simple answer to address any question relating to a civilisation that lasted more than 3000 years is always going to be problematic; and that trying to classify people in the distant past on the basis of modern racial classification is always going to be tricky.


Anyway, what does the NSG mob want me to do here? Would you like your friendly neighbourhood archaeologist (who was indeed working in Cairo until August) to try and address the questions raised by the OP as quickly and succinctly as possible? Because while it's basically well-intentioned, there's a lot of assumptions to unpack there.

That's pretty much what I was skimming through the thread looking for.

It would indeed be a step up.

[Greed and Death]

No I will not tolerate another Mummy movie franchise.

Too late.

Is your flag Melek Taus by chance ?

[Suriyanakhon]

Too late.

Is your flag Melek Taus by chance ?

Oh, no, it's the royal flag of the Konbaung Dynasty.

[Aureumterra III]

It appears there is a rather simplistic approach in the USA which states that Africa is a purely black continent. North Africa, however, has proven that sentiment wrong since time immemorial. Clearly this is yet another one of those vanity outrages which seem to be a bit of a hobby for way too many people.

It appears to mostly be with in a certain subsect of African Americans that make this mistake.

African Americans think everyone from Africa is black?

[Greed and Death]

It appears to mostly be with in a certain subsect of African Americans that make this mistake.

African Americans think everyone from Africa is black?

A certain subsect. ( HOTEPs).

[USS Monitor]

You know how if you go around New York, you can see people that don't all look the same, because their ancestry is not all from the same place? I imagine you could do that in ancient Egypt too.

If you look at how the Egyptians depicted themselves in their artwork, they did not show everyone having the same skin color, and there is some variation in the facial features on their sculptures. Some Egyptian sculptures have an African look, but then others are more Mediterranean and you can see how they relate to Greek sculpture. And some are a little of both.

I think a lot of people would benefit from taking a nice long dive into art history, and just looking at how the Egyptians represented themselves.

[Hurdergaryp]

You know how if you go around New York, you can see people that don't all look the same, because their ancestry is not all from the same place? I imagine you could do that in ancient Egypt too.

If you look at how the Egyptians depicted themselves in their artwork, they did not show everyone having the same skin color, and there is some variation in the facial features on their sculptures. Some Egyptian sculptures have an African look, but then others are more Mediterranean and you can see how they relate to Greek sculpture. And some are a little of both.

I think a lot of people would benefit from taking a nice long dive into art history, and just looking at how the Egyptians represented themselves.

But that might disturb the fixed view of life, the universe and everything so many people so carefully maintain and nurture!