Welcome to Monday Methods!
Long time users of the sub as well as us moderators are fairly familiar with questions like "What race were the ancient Egyptians?" or similar popping up from time to time.
These are always hard to answer and often create kind of stir, mostly because of the concept of "race" involved. This concept has many a different meaning and usage and also political connotation, depending on the cultural/national background of the person asking the question and providing an answer (for example: For me as a German speaker, the German word for race as well as many concepts associated with it culturally give me the creeps since it has a very "Nazi" connotation here but for somebody from the US, this context and connotation is different).
Even within a cultural, political or national context where the concept of race is still in use, it creates all kinds of problems in a discussion because of the multiple uses and functions of the term: There is the use as an essentialist category, meaning a description of assumed cultural and personal traits inherited from the supposed group a person belongs to; there is the social function of the category, where based upon the assumptions contained within the first usage, differences across a society are postulated; and then there is its use as a historical category, as a concept to further study and understand societies of the past.
These usages can not be wholly separated from each other and in terms of the historical study that's among the reasons, why it is so difficult to answer the aforementioned questions about the category in history beyond certain points in the 19th century.
Generally, academic historians will make the point that "race" as an essentialist category is a product of the 19th century, of modernity. In short, the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement that gave birth to bourgeois society changed the way how people thought about the world around them. With God no longer a sufficient explanation of why the world was the way it was, new categories explaining the world – in this case, most importantly, why people were different, had different societies, and looked different – needed to be found.
With the great emphasize the Enlightenment way of thinking placed on rationality, reason, and thereby science, people took it upon themselves to find a scientific way to explain why people were different. Within this context arose the concept of different races of mankind and as explanations are often wont to embrace dichotomies, a normative classification of those supposed races. Meaning, that not only were the differences in life style, social organization and looks of people explained with traits inherited through blood but also a hierarchy constructed.
The concept of race birthed the concept of racism: The idea that social and personal traits are inherited and that there are those who inherit greater and better traits and it makes them the better "race".
Many of the ideas and methods created during this time – phrenology or taxonomic models – have been thoroughly debunked by modern science and advance in genetics. But because of its use in the context like colonialism, slavery, and imperialism, the concept linger as one with influence in our society.
Race is constructed but that doesn't mean it is less real for those who have experienced or still experience the force of the concept within modernity, from association of skin color with crime to the same being associated with good math skills.
The study of this phenomenon and its hold as a social category is studied intently by many historians of the modern era and has spawned its own sub fields of study. One of the main questions though when it comes to the aforementioned topic of the ancient Egyptians or similar, is how to deal with a social concept that didn't exist in the form we are familiar with before the 19th century?
Can we as historians use a social concept unfamiliar to the past societies we study as a tool in said study? The answers vary as e.g. this thread on exactly this subject shows.
What this shows is that while it is certainly possible to gain a better picture and deeper understanding of how societies divided themselves internally and the world externally according to assumed traits and characteristics, concerning race, as /u/deafblindmute, states:
As some others have pointed out, there have been various means of group categorization and separation throughout history. That said, race as a specific means of categorization only dates back to around the mid 1600's. Now, one might say isn't this only a case of "same thing, different name" to which I would reply, not at all because the cultural logic of how people have divided themselves and the active response to that cultural logic are worlds apart. Race isn't the only method of categorization or separation that is tied to social hierarchy and violence, but it is a great example of how a method of categorization can be intrinsically more tied to those things through it's history and nature.
In line with that, it is imperative to realize that applying our cultural logic to societies of the past can be an incredibly difficult if not impossible task for societies as far back as 70 years and becomes near impossible for societies as far back as 3000 years in history.
To return to the titular question: Is it possible to tell what the ancient Egyptians looked like in terms of what color their skin most likely looked like? Yes, many of them most likely looked like modern Middle Easterners when it comes to their complexion, while others looked like people from Sub-Sahara Africa. Is it possible to tell how they divided their society? Yes, based on the evidence we have, we can say that we can discern how they divided their society with good approximation. Can we tell their race? No, not really since that concept in its approach to humanity and the social logic behind it was utterly foreign to them and projecting current social trends ind ideas backwards into history is most likely going to get someone into really hot water really fast.
I realize it's not relevant to the actual point of this post, but usually when race come up in the context of ancient Egyptians it's because someone is referencing the Afrocentrist idea that they were dark skinned. In which case "they most likely looked like modern Middle Easterners when it comes to their complexion" wholly answers the question without having to delve into non-history related discussions of what race is or is not.
Even what we think of as "race" today isn't necessarily how our grandparents or great-grandparents thought about "race" - and those interpretations have influenced a good bit of historical, archaeological, and anthropological narratives. A decent (albeit older) article on one example of that is The Hamitic Hypothesis; its origin and functions in time perspective [PDF] by Edith R. Sanders (1969).
Adding to this: From an archaeologist's perspective, it's always a little strange to me how the Egyptians are referred to as this entity completely separated from the cultural processes in the rest of northeast Africa. Just throwing it out there, civilizations such as Kerma in Sudan were key players during a long stretch of Egypt's history and cultural entanglement makes identity/race that much harder to define in discrete terms. Historical sources might mark Nubians as a totally separate entity but the archaeological evidence of integrated communities begs to differ.
Definitely an interesting concept. How it was applied to interactions with Native Americans, obviously, had detrimental effects. The results in our day are definitely something to examine, though.
Native American tribes in the United States did not see the development of a cohesive racial identity until well after colonization. They grouped together and were structured in their own ways, just like any other group of people throughout the world, but a Nez Perce (my tribe) would not see himself as related through a common "race" to a Shawnee or a Cherokee.
What is interesting to note is that, as the trope goes, many Indigenous tribes had names for themselves that either translate into what we consider "people" or "human(s)." Even many words for other groups were based on personality characteristics. Some were based on physical characteristics. But there seems to be a general mentality among pre-colonization of the Americas that people were - and are - people.
Even well into the 19th Century, notable Native Americans could notice distinctions in people, but recognized an inherent likeness in everyone. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce has been quoted as saying "All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief." Sitting Bull of the Lakota has been quoted as saying "I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in his sight. It is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows."
As pointed out in several areas in the thread, tribalism certainly existed. But the idea that vastly different groups, such as the Nez Perce and Lakota, were linked together genetically and existed on a hierarchical structure of biological traits wasn't something that existed in Indigenous thought, even if they could see said traits. However, a connection can be noted in some aspects. In Decolonization Theory and Indigenous Thought, land-based concepts are often at the core of theories and teachings. Thus, a connection between tribes can be established based on their relationship to lands they inhabited. The vitality of land and the necessary role it has for culture is an important axiom of many Indigenous lifestyles. The thought that those who were "red" inhabited the Americas could serve as that link. This notion is clearly different from one based upon genetics and biology, two fields that form a basis for the concept of race.
Once the idea of race was introduced to tribes (more like they were exposed to it) and racism began to breed, much contention developed between the red and the white. In terms of American relations with American Indians, Vine Deloria, Jr. reasoned that American society largely saw Indians as "wild animals," ones to be tamed, civilized, and assimilated so as to be lifted up from their position into a more civilized society. This was at odds with how American society often viewed blacks, for example, who were seen as a draft animal, one that could never be fully integrated into white society and needed to be excluded. While both groups were racialized by this concept through colonization in different ways, it also connected them. Vine Deloria identifies this in Custer Died For Your Sins when he says:
"Recently, blacks and some Indians have defined racial problems as having one focal point--the White Man. This concept is a vast oversimplification of the real problem, as it centers on a racial theme rather than on specific facts. And it is simply the reversal of the old prejudicial attitude of the white who continues to define minority groups as problems of his--that is, Indian problem, Negro problem, and so on."
We can see how this is true in the history of U.S.-Indian interactions (AKA "Race Relations"). From the boarding schools to the proselytizing to the forced relocations, many attempts have been and are still being made to assimilate American Indians. Much of the general public are so pinned on the notion of race that they constantly misunderstand conflicts that arise between tribes and the federal government, such as with treaty rights. Rather than seeing how tribes are sovereign nations, Americans often see the tribes as receiving some kind of "special treatment" because they're of a different race. This leads them to the conclusion that through blood and race, a person can receive or be deprived of benefits, thus some kind of superiority. In a case where the issue is based upon citizenship and mostly, if not entirely, excludes the connection to "race," many in the general public are not able to decipher the situation in terms outside of what they're used to: physical distinctions.
However, analyzing Deloria's words above raises another point: Indians today have largely adopted the concept of race. For example, enrollment into a federally recognized tribe often comes down to the "blood quantum" of an individual - how much Indian blood they have. The U.S. government primarily works on this theory - one that amounts to paper genocide - and tribes are either forced to play by their rules or have taken on the reasoning of the colonizer and now propagate non-Indigenous policies that harm them. So even though traditionally many tribes would reject such notions of "race," many current tribal citizens believe blood quantum based on race is a correct method.
The stratification of race truly reaches many levels. Today, many American Indians would identify as a race. That can be because of bonding through shared experiences, because they are forced to operate within that system, or because they genuinely believe it to be the correct standard to use. Among those in Indian Country, there really isn't too much of a distinction that is drawn between groups in terms of race. Members of my tribe would see members of another tribe and see them as Indians, racially speaking. They would see First Nations Natives as Indians. They would see those from the Amazon and Indians. But concepts of race are still muddied. Some Native would have a hard time seeing Mexicans as racially Indian, even if they are significantly "Indian" based on blood/race, which then involves the cultural boundaries.
Edit: Affects = Effects.
It is very interesting that this post seems to be attracting a certain vitriol against a specific group of people. And that the people arguing against a certain viewpoint are using their opponents same sense of logic (which is to say, none at all).
While race as a concept is very much a modern thing, NO Egyptologist would simply make a statement that Egyptians were "middle eastern" and then walk away. I am new to this sub-reddit, but their seem to be a lot of strong opinions thrown around in this thread with no source. Not even a flaired user associated with Ancient Egypt.
One user even asserted that they were entirely all middle eastern and that to say they were "dark skinned" is for the benefit of deluded afro-centrists.
One of my favorite authorities on the subject of Egypto-Nubian relations is Prof David O'Connor. He has excavated in Nubia and Southern Egypt since 1967. I would recommend reading his book "Ancient Nubia:Egypt's Rival in Africa" for more of an understanding on how the relations between the 2 peoples might've been. Also, Barry Kemp's book "Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization" delves into the subject of "race" in Ancient Egypt. Many in this thread are not pointing out the fact that Egyptians made distinctions between themselves, Nubians, Libyans, AND those from asia. They tended to represent other peoples by different skin tones as well as style of dress. However, as Kemp notes, many nobles of "asiatic", Nubian, and Libyan origin tended to represent themselves and their family as "Egyptianized".
And when it comes to actually studying the skulls of Egyptians, we have a sampling bias. The skulls that tend to survive are those in the dry deserts of the south, as opposed to damp soil in the north. This means that the people are easier to compare with Nubians and Sudanese than with the peoples of Palestine and the Near East.
What does this mean? Well it means that people would tend to favor those around them. Kemp states: "There is no single ancient Egyptian population to study, but a diversity of local populations."
The basic underpinnings of being Egyptian seem to be more of a cultural appropriation as opposed to literally looking the same as everyone else in the country. Perhaps a different social understanding of race than found in the USA, UK, etc.
If anyone is interested in exactly how we arrived at the modern notions of race and especially 'whiteness', I highly recommend the eminently readable "The History of White People" by Nell Painter. She does an excellent and thorough job breaking down various myths about race and race essentialism.
Are there any pieces someone could link me to about the history of the construction of race as an idea? Where/when did it originate, and was it linked to imperialism or exploitative economic relations?
Would a better question be "What ethnic groups existed in ancient egypt and what were their relationships with each other in a societal context (IE, were certain ethnicity limited to certain roles)"?
Very interesting. As a reader of this subreddit for a few years, I've found a lot of the 'politically correct' responses about race in the ancient world a bit dissatisfying. Some seem to suggest that because race is a modern concept, (some) ancient peoples (e.g. Rome) were incredibly tolerant or (Germanic tribes) made up of lots of different ethnicities. But group thinking, with consequences from casual discrimination to genocide, has surely been a fact since before humans became anatomically modern.