This article is about the history of the controversy about the race of the ancient Egyptians. For discussion of the scientific evidence relating to the race of the ancient Egyptians, see Population history of Egypt and Genetic history of Egypt.
The Ancient Egyptian classification of ancient peoples (from left to right): a Libyan, a Nubian, an Asiatic, and an Egyptian. Drawing by an unknown artist after a mural of the tomb of Seti I; Copy by Heinrich Menu von Minutoli (1820). In terms of skin colour, the Libyan has the lightest complexion, followed by the Asiatic who is yellowish in appearance. The Egyptian is reddish-brown, while the Nubian is black.[1] Each group is also marked with their own distinctive hairstyles and clothing.[2] The representation of ethnic groups in Egyptian iconography has been a source of dispute among scholars.[3][4]
The question of the race of ancient Egyptians was raised historically as a product of the early racial concepts of the 18th and 19th centuries, and was linked to models of racial hierarchy primarily based on craniometry and anthropometry. A variety of views circulated about the racial identity of the Egyptians and the source of their culture.[5]
Mainstream scholars reject the notion that Egypt was a white or black civilization; they maintain that applying modern notions of black or white races to ancient Egypt is anachronistic.[6][7][8] In addition, scholars reject the notion, implicit in the notion of a black or white Egypt hypothesis, that Ancient Egypt was racially homogeneous; instead, skin color varied between the peoples of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Nubia, who in various eras rose to power in Ancient Egypt. Within Egyptian history, despite multiple foreign invasions, the demographics were not shifted substantially by large migrations.[9][10][11]
^Sabbahy, Lisa (2019). All things ancient Egypt : an encyclopedia of the ancient Egyptian world. Santa Barbara, California. pp. 158–160. ISBN978-1440855122.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)