THE PREDOMINANT AND ORIGINAL POPULATION OF ANCIENT EGYPT ACCORDING TO EUROPEAN “SCHOLARS” AND “HISTORIANS”

Quote from 1867 by Egyptologist Champollion-Figeac – “The first tribes that inhabited Egypt that is, the Nile Valley between the Syene cataracts and the sea, came from Abyssinia to Sennar. The ancient Egyptians belonged to a race quite similar to the Kennous or Barabras, present inhabitants of Nubia. In the Copts of Egypt we do not find any of the characteristic features of the ancient Egyptian population. The Copts are the result of crossbreeding with all the nations that have successively dominated Egypt . It is wrong to seek in them the principal features of the old race.” From Letters published by Champollion-Figeac (Founding Egyptologist).

Also written by Jean Francois Champollion

“Dr. Larrey investigated this problem in Egypt; he examined a large number of mummies, studied their skulls, recognized the principle characteristics, tried to identify them in the various races living in Egypt, and succeeded in doing so. The Abyssinian seemed to him to combine them all, except for the black race. The Abyssinian has large eyes, an agreeable glance.prominent cheekbones; the cheeks form a regular triangle with prominent angles of the jawbone and mouth; the lips are thick without being everted as in Blacks; the teeth are fine, just slightly protruding ; finally, the complexion is merely copper-colored: such are the Abyssinians observed by Dr. Larrey generally known as Berbers or Barabras, present-day inhabitants of Nubia.” quoted in the African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality published by Lawrence Hill, 1974 by Cheikh Anta Diop.

1886 – “The fundamental character of the Egyptians in respect of physical type, language and tone of thought, is Negritic. The Egyptians were not negroes, but they bore resemblance to the negro which is indisputable.” Found in – Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson and Arthur Gilman, London, 1886, p. 24.

1911 – Anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith – “the physical characteristics of the present day Nubian, Beja, Danakil, Galla, and Somali populations are if we leave out of account the alien negro and Semitic traits…are an obvious token of their undoubted kinship with the proto-Egyptians.” . Found on page 75 in The Ancient Egyptians and the Origin of Civilization (London/New York, Harper & Brothers).

“The Egyptians, though healthy, large and robust were clumsy in their forms and course in their features. Like other African tribes they were woolly haired, flat-nosed and thick lipped, and if not absolutely black were very near it in color.” Found in Specimens of Ancient Sculpture Society of Dilettanti, Vol 1. quoted by J.A. Rogers, Nature Knows No Color Line p. 41, 1952.

1939 – “…the type of certain Pharaohs, like Ramses II, appears related to the Abyssinian type.” Quote found in, The Races of Europe, Macmillan, 1939 p. 96 by anthropologist and racist Carleton S. Coon of the University of Pennsylvania (a supporter of the eugenics movement in America).

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European Historians On the Fellaheen of Egypt and Sinai in Contrast to the Turks and Copts until the 19th Century

Up until the 19th century, and in the centuries previous, European visitors to Egypt commonly contrasted the dark brown, “half-naked” and indigenous Fellaheen agriculturalists with the “fair” or “pale-complexioned” Turkish-originated population of Egypt dressed in robes and furs that had entered the country in large numbers. Today most natives of the United Arab Republic of Eygpt consider themselves (thanks to European colonials) representative of the indigenous people of ancient Egypt . However, it is clear that less than a century ago this was not the case. Most of the agriculturalists in Egypt had absorbed for centuries the incoming Bedouins of the Arabian peninsula who were according to most accounts dark or brown and the same color as the indigenous Egyptians, as well as large numbers of slaves in early days from Asia and later mostly African and Slavic slaves. Descendants of Byzantines made up a significant number of the early “Copts” during the Muslim era. On the other hand Turks in the 18th through 20th centuries made up a rather significant portion of Egypt ’s major cities and their descendants remain representative of the upper class of Egypt as well as other regions of North Africa.

1845 – A traveling lawyer from the mid 19th century Dawson Borrer wrote of, “gaunt brown fellahs half unclad, women wrapped up in scanty unwashed garments… with their faces daubed in curious devices of blue paint… and naked children…” from A Journey from Naples to Jerusalem, by Way of Athens, Egypt and the Peninsula of Sinai…” p. 90 by Dawson Borrer, Esquire translation by M. Linant de Bellefonde.

1860s – Lucie A. Duff Gordon wrote of the appearance of Turkish Mamluk soldiers in Egypt that were fair and blue-eyed who “contrast curiously with the brown Fellaheen.” Gordon In Letters from Egypt 1863-1865 by p. 351-352 published by Elibron Classics in 2001.

1861 – William Henry Bartlett – “The streets swarm with Turks in splendid many-coloured robes, half naked brown skinned Arabs…” The Nile Boat, Or Glimpses of the Land of Egypt by William Henry Bartlett 1861 p. A. Hall, Virtue and Co.

1870 – Samuel Sharpe on city of Alexandria in 1870, “…the poor of the city, as of old are the half naked brown-skinned Fellahs.” in The History of Egypt : From the Earliest Times ‘Til the Conquest of the Arabs Vol. II, p. 386, London : George Bell and Sons 1885.

1878 – On the nile at Farshut “the swarms of brown Fellaheen” are described in A Thousand Miles Up the Nile by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards Vol. I 1878. p. 150 published by

1875 – The Fellaheen are described “chocolate brown” in the text, Contributions to the Ethnology of Egypt in the Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 4, 1875, pp. 223-254

1879 – “If you have no wind you lie in the river and watch the idle flapping of the sail and the crowd of black and brown fellahs howling for baksheesh…” from Around the World with General Grant : A Narrative of the Visit of General U.S. Grant, Ex-President of the United States to Various Countries in Europe , Asia and Africa in 1877, 1878, 1879 published by John Russell Young, Volume I 1879.

1899 – With regard to the city of Cairo with it’s fair-skinned Turks and its native Arab fellaheen – “east of this line 500,000 brown skinned Arabs are living in the quaintest and most delightful, but at the same time dirtiest and most dilapidated streets.. Cairo has a population of some 600,000 inhabitants” p. 74 from The Redemption fo Egypt by William Basil Worsfold published in 1899 by G. Allen.

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Contemporary news article 14 August 2002, Issue No. 598, Cairo , AL -AHRAM –

2002 – The Muslim News Online concerning upper class in Egypt and continued treatment of the dark-skinned or brown Egyptians:

“… racial prejudice is not exclusively directed at those from sub-Saharan Africa. Upper class Egyptians, often fairer than their poorer compatriots, invariably look down on lower class Egyptians who tend to be darker in complexion. There is a subtle correlation between lower income and darker complexion. The Egyptian upper classes and elites tend to be noticeably lighter in complexion than their poorer and working class compatriots. “They labour in the sun,” is sometimes the cynical explanation.” Retrieved two August 27, 2008.

Edited by
Dana Marniche
September 7, 2008