1st century Nubian mercenary genome from Serbia (Roman Empire)

[Nilotic]

This is what I meant:

Ancient Egyptians vs Levantines in their art:

Lol, Ancient Egyptians painted like a 10 shade difference between them and the Semites, which I highly doubt was realistic. Just their ''othering outsiders'' effect.

Even if we don't use Coptic Egyptians as the closest to Ancient Egyptians (controversial for some), but instead Egyptian Muslims vs Palestinians today, the skin tone difference is extremely minimal, arguably even the same.

Below are pictures of some Luxor locals

They seem to match the mahogany brown colour schemes and conventions used in those tomb paintings; they don't seem to match the complexion of the Palestinians.

Palestinians:

The ancient Egyptians also seem to have distinguished Upper and Lower Egyptians.

 

[Apollo]

Below are pictures of some Luxor locals

View attachment 199371


View attachment 199372


View attachment 199373

They seem to match the mahogany brown colour schemes and conventions used in those tomb paintings; they don't seem to match the complexion of the Palestinians.

Palestinians:

View attachment 199374

The ancient Egyptians also seem to have distinguished Upper and Lower Egyptians.

View attachment 199375

A lot of people between Luxor and Aswan are ethnically Nubian or part Nubian + part 'mainstream' Egyptian. That's not the typical skin tone of most Egyptians. Mind you, most Egyptians live in Cairo and the Delta. A much smaller number live in Upper Egypt.

Crowd in Cairo:

Crowd in the West Bank:

Don't see a big difference in terms of skin tone.

Barely any difference.

 

[Nilotic]

A lot of people between Luxor and Aswan are ethnically Nubian or part Nubian + part 'mainstream' Egyptian. That's not the typical skin tone of most Egyptians. Mind you, most Egyptians live in Cairo and the Delta. A much smaller number live in Upper Egypt.

Crowd in Cairo:

Crowd in the West Bank:

Don't see a big difference in terms of skin tone.

Barely any difference.

Yes, but that mahogany brown skin tone of those Luxor locals was the dominant form in ancient Egyptian artwork.

The Egyptian civilization didn't start in the Delta or in the North in general; Upper Egypt was dominant in every respect until the New Kingdom period. Upper Egypt was larger, more populated, wealthier, more sophisticated and far more significant than Lower Egypt, so the focus should be on Upper Egypt -- especially the predynastic and old kingdom periods.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/early_hydraulic.pdf

There is a chart in the above source; the chart is broken into 3 categories. A standing for cultivable land in square km. B standing for population density per square km. And C standing for hypothetical population in thousands.

Lower Egypt does not eclipse Upper Egypt in the two columns concerning population numbers -- B and C at any period in that chart. The population of Lower Egypt is considerably smaller than Upper Egypt in all the cited periods and only approaches the population of Upper Egypt relatively late - at 150 B.C, when (I assume) advances in technology would have enabled the complete drainage of the marshes in the Delta.

It is nonetheless probable that settlements were far more dispersed than they were in Upper Egypt, that overall population density was significantly lower, and that the northernmost one-third of the Delta was ALMOST UNDERPOPULATED in Old Kingdom times. In effect , a considerable body of information can be marshalled to show that the Delta was UNDERDEVELOPED and that internal colonization continued for some three millennia, until the late Ptolemaic era."

Source:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/early_hydraulic.pdf

 

[Apollo]

The Egyptian civilization didn't start in the Delta or in the North in general; Upper Egypt was dominant in every respect until the New Kingdom period. Upper Egypt was larger, more populated, wealthier, more sophisticated and far more significant than Lower Egypt, so the focus should be on Upper Egypt -- especially the predynastic and old kingdom periods.

You cannot automatically assume that Ancient Upper Egyptians are the same genetically/ethnically as today's Upper Egyptians with substantial Nubian admixture. A lot of Nubians moved further North into Egypt due to Lake Aswan.

A study sampled Copts originally from 18th century Upper Egypt who now live in Khartoum, shockingly they are equally or even more Eurasian than Delta Egyptian Muslims (see K=4 in figure 1).

Copts tend to not intermarry with Nubians compared to Muslim Egyptians.

Northeast African genomic variation shaped by the continuity of indigenous groups and Eurasian migrations

Author summary Northeast Africa has geographic and historical links to Eurasia via the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, but the demographic history of the region itself has been more elusive. We investigate genomic diversity of northeast African populations and found a clear bimodal...

journals.plos.org

IMO, the way Ancient Egyptians depicted races is not reliable. Only the Fayum portraits of Ancient Egyptians were drawn in a realistic non-standardized way. Those don't look like dark brown notably SSA-like Aswan people.

They look like modern Egyptians to me..

 

[Tewahedo]

A lot of people between Luxor and Aswan are ethnically Nubian or part Nubian + part 'mainstream' Egyptian. That's not the typical skin tone of most Egyptians. Mind you, most Egyptians live in Cairo and the Delta. A much smaller number live in Upper Egypt.



Crowd in Cairo:



Crowd in the West Bank:



Don't see a big difference in terms of skin tone.

Barely any difference.

Back in ancient times, it was the opposite with upper egypt being the most populated area

 

[Som]

A new ancient genome study. It was focused on Serbia, but a Nubian mercenary was detected. He clusters near modern Nubians and North Sudanese Arabs. He carried haplogroup E-V32 (common in Somalis). Can we please stop this false meme that before Islam Nubians and North Sudan were like Dinkas:

Source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.458211v1.supplementary-material

Where are somalis located on that chart?

 

[Som]

You cannot automatically assume that Ancient Upper Egyptians are the same genetically/ethnically as today's Upper Egyptians with substantial Nubian admixture. A lot of Nubians moved further North into Egypt due to Lake Aswan.

A study sampled Copts originally from 18th century Upper Egypt who now live in Khartoum, shockingly they are equally or even more Eurasian than Delta Egyptian Muslims (see K=4 in figure 1).

Copts tend to not intermarry with Nubians compared to Muslim Egyptians.

Northeast African genomic variation shaped by the continuity of indigenous groups and Eurasian migrations

Author summary Northeast Africa has geographic and historical links to Eurasia via the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, but the demographic history of the region itself has been more elusive. We investigate genomic diversity of northeast African populations and found a clear bimodal...

journals.plos.org

IMO, the way Ancient Egyptians depicted races is not reliable. Only the Fayum portraits of Ancient Egyptians were drawn in a realistic non-standardized way. Those don't look like dark brown notably SSA-like Aswan people.

They look like modern Egyptians to me..

I think it's pretty obvious that Egyptians differed in appearance just like they do today.
The south had a horner/nubian look, the north had a modern Egyptian look.
Fayyum is is northern Egypt and the portraits are from between the first and third century AD so it's relatively recent. Many ancient Egyptians had nubian origins so i would expect a significant number of people in the middle kingdom era to have nubian/horner features like modern sudanese arabs

 

[Som]

@Nilotic

We don't have that many depictions from Romans or Greeks about the Nubians. Only a handful and it could have been inspired by the Egyptian style to depict Nubians. Since those folks lived in Europe and never (or extremely rarely) saw any black people those artists could have been mesmerized by the more SSA looking Nubians and used them as the standard for depictions.

Virtually all Ancient Nubians who have been genetically analyzed so far are more Eurasian than Somalis and are about the same Eurasian level as Northern Habeshas, lol. There is no way they all look like those dudes like the one above. Most likely they just looked like modern Nubians:

If I'm not mistaken we only have a few samples from kulubnarti which showed significant eurasian admixture. Nubian history spreads through many centuries, it would be wrong to apply kulubnarti findings to pre christian nubians like Meroe, Kush and Kerma

 

[Som]

By the way, the way Ancient Egyptians depicted foreigners is kind of misleading. I think this is where the Nubians looked like Dinkas meme comes from.

They exaggerated phenotypic traits of foreigners, like make Berbers/Libyans and Semites look whiter than they actually were and made Nubians be depicted in a more exaggeratedly black way than they actually were. The Ancient Egyptians liked to distance themselves from outsiders in their art.

Historically nilotes did live not far from those areas.
Egyptologist now believe that the so called Nubians or kushites were infact different people's who lived south of Egypt. Some nubians looked mixed, some looked like horners and some others looked full nilotic.
In ancient times nubians were not a monolith distinct population, the term nubian was almost as the term Ethiopian which was used for all subsaharan africans. The Nubians depicted by Egyptians differed in colour, there are some nubians who are depicted the same as Egyptians , some are halfway between egytpians and nilotes and others are shown as jet black pure nilotes.

 

[Apollo]

Where are somalis located on that chart?

No idea, but those Nubians (both ancient and modern) are about the same Eurasian level as Tigrays. Those HOA samples closest to SSAs are likely the Gumuz I think. Rest could be all the others.

I think it's pretty obvious that Egyptians differed in appearance just like they do today.
The south had a horner/nubian look, the north had a modern Egyptian look.
Fayyum is is northern Egypt and the portraits are from between the first and third century AD so it's relatively recent. Many ancient Egyptians had nubian origins so i would expect a significant number of people in the middle kingdom era to have nubian/horner features like modern sudanese arabs

There is no evidence for it. Their skulls are nearly the same as modern Egyptians (no real SSA tendencies). People mistake their appearance by the red ochre painting they standardized to depict themselves. This makes modern people think they must have looked like Horners, but if you look at the Faiyum portraits where they used more detailed methods to paint themselves, they don't look like Horners.

As for Delta vs Upper Egypt.. we have genomes from Upper Egyptian Copts who moved to Sudan. They are as Eurasian as Delta Egyptians. Copts are Ancient Egyptians before Islam arrived to Egypt frozen in time.

Historically nilotes did live not far from those areas.
Egyptologist now believe that the so called Nubians or kushites were infact different people's who lived south of Egypt. Some nubians looked mixed, some looked like horners and some others looked full nilotic.
In ancient times nubians were not a monolith distinct population, the term nubian was almost as the term Ethiopian which was used for all subsaharan africans. The Nubians depicted by Egyptians differed in colour, there are some nubians who are depicted the same as Egyptians , some are halfway between egytpians and nilotes and others are shown as jet black pure nilotes.

So far all the Ancient Egyptians sampled are nearly the same, not much diversity. Including Ancient Egyptian mercenaries found in various Roman archeological sites in Europe.

And the same applies to all the Ancient Nubian samples so far collected. They plot around the same spot.

I think people are wrong on Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Nubians being diverse. They likely were two distinct groups that were hostile/racist to each other and didn't intermix much.

 

[Som]

No idea, but those Nubians (both ancient and modern) are about the same Eurasian level as Tigrays. Those HOA samples closest to SSAs are likely the Gumuz I think. Rest could be all the others.



There is no evidence for it. Their skulls are nearly the same as modern Egyptians (no real SSA tendencies). People only mistake their appearance by the red ochre painting they standardized to depict themselves thinking they looked like Horners, but if you look at the Faiyum portraits where they used photo-like methods to paint themselves, they don't look like Horners.



So far all the Ancient Egyptians sampled are nearly the same, not much diversity. Including Ancient Egyptian mercenaries found in various Roman archeological sites in Europe.

And the same applies to all the Ancient Nubian samples so far collected. They plot around the same spot.

I think people are wrong on Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Nubians being diverse. They likely were two distinct groups that were hostile/racist to each other and didn't intermix much.

Most of the mummies we have are from northern Egypt or areas were there wasn't much Nubian admixture. What I'm saying is that southern Egypt had a significant number of Nubian citizens who looked closer to subsaharan horners. I never claimed that all ancient egyptians looked like horners, in Fayyum and north central Egypt people looked like modern day Egyptian arabs.
Egyptologists agree with this hypothesis, the south had more Nubian influence.
The XXV pharaohs dinasty was Nubian and it was famous because it had more african (non Egyptian) features when it comes to art, sculpture and painting. They are called black pharaohs for a reason.
Anyway correct me if I'm wrong but virtually all Nubian samples we have today are from Christian era mummies, we have nothing from Kush, Meroe or Napata Kingdoms. When I say ancient nubians I'm talking about pre christian Nubians.

 

[Apollo]

Most of the mummies we have are from northern Egypt or areas were there wasn't much Nubian admixture. What I'm saying is that southern Egypt had a significant number of Nubian citizens who looked closer to subsaharan horners. I never claimed that all ancient egyptians looked like horners, in Fayyum and north central Egypt people looked like modern day Egyptian arabs.
Egyptologists agree with this hypothesis, the south had more Nubian influence.
The XXV pharaohs dinasty was Nubian and it was famous because it had more african (non Egyptian) features when it comes to art, sculpture and painting. They are called black pharaohs for a reason.
Anyway correct me if I'm wrong but virtually all Nubian samples we have today are from Christian era mummies, we have nothing from Kush, Meroe or Napata Kingdoms. When I say ancient nubians I'm talking about pre christian Nubians.

Geography is a crappy indicator, just look at Somalis. An Issa Somali from Djibouti near Yemeni Arabs and a Darod Somali in Lower Jubba/Kismayo near Swahili Kenyans are almost the same. Likely similar dynamics with the Nile region as well. Or if you consider Darods recent migrants, then look at Garres from Jubbaland (historic natives there), they are close to Issa Somalis as well.

Spaniards who live near the French border and ones who live close to Morocco are also not much different.

 

[Som]

No idea, but those Nubians (both ancient and modern) are about the same Eurasian level as Tigrays. Those HOA samples closest to SSAs are likely the Gumuz I think. Rest could be all the others.



There is no evidence for it. Their skulls are nearly the same as modern Egyptians (no real SSA tendencies). People mistake their appearance by the red ochre painting they standardized to depict themselves. This makes modern people think they must have looked like Horners, but if you look at the Faiyum portraits where they used more detailed methods to paint themselves, they don't look like Horners.

As for Delta vs Upper Egypt.. we have genomes from Upper Egyptian Copts who moved to Sudan. They are as Eurasian as Delta Egyptians. Copts are Ancient Egyptians before Islam arrived to Egypt frozen in time.



So far all the Ancient Egyptians sampled are nearly the same, not much diversity. Including Ancient Egyptian mercenaries found in various Roman archeological sites in Europe.

And the same applies to all the Ancient Nubian samples so far collected. They plot around the same spot.

I think people are wrong on Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Nubians being diverse. They likely were two distinct groups that were hostile/racist to each other and didn't intermix much.

This study is one of the most recent ones that everyone uses to say ancient Egyptians were not subsaharan. The samples show little subsaharan DNA, even less than modern Egyptians but the study also says that all of their samples came from a single site in northern Egypt and they also say the south may have been mixed since there's evidence of mixture between nubians and egyptians.

Quote:

However, we note that all our genetic data were obtained from a single site in Middle Egypt and may not be representative for all of ancient Egypt. It is possible that populations in the south of Egypt were more closely related to those of Nubia and had a higher sub-Saharan genetic component, in which case the argument for an influx of sub-Saharan ancestries after the Roman Period might only be partially valid and have to be nuanced. Throughout Pharaonic history there was intense interaction between Egypt and Nubia, ranging from trade to conquest and colonialism, and there is compelling evidence for ethnic complexity within households with Egyptian men marrying Nubian women and vice versa51,52,53. Clearly, more genetic studies on ancient human remains from southern Egypt and Sudan are needed before apodictic statements can be made.

Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods - Nature Communications

Archaeological and historical records had shown ancient Egypt before and after Ptolemaic and Roman periods to be a hub of human migration and exchange. Here, Schuenemann and colleagues analyse ancient mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to investigate the genetic history of Egypt.

www.nature.com

 

[Som]

Geography is a crappy indicator, just look at Somalis. An Issa Somali from Djibouti near Yemeni Arabs and a Darod Somali in Lower Jubba/Kismayo near Swahili Kenyans are almost the same. Likely similar dynamics with the Nile region as well. Or if you consider Darods recent migrants, then look at Garres from Jubbaland (historic natives there), they are close to Issa Somalis as well.

Spaniards who live near the French border and ones who live close to Morocco are also not much different.

I'm not just talking about geography.
We know that modern day sudan was inhabited by Nubians who had at least 50% SSA origin. Historically Nubia included parts of modern day southern Egypt.
We also know that Egypt conquered Nubia, the Nubians became culturally egyptianised , there's evidence that admixture occurred between the two populations in southern Egypt. There are many historical examples of egytpians pharaohs who are had partial or fill Nubian ancestry.

 

[Som]

Geography is a crappy indicator, just look at Somalis. An Issa Somali from Djibouti near Yemeni Arabs and a Darod Somali in Lower Jubba/Kismayo near Swahili Kenyans are almost the same. Likely similar dynamics with the Nile region as well. Or if you consider Darods recent migrants, then look at Garres from Jubbaland (historic natives there), they are close to Issa Somalis as well.

Spaniards who live near the French border and ones who live close to Morocco are also not much different.

To clarify my position I think that Ancient Egypt was almost exactly like todays modern Egypt.
The Majority looked like north africans (non black) so you could have white looking Egyptians, brown egyptians (majority) etc.
A significant minority looked "black" and had the stereotypical westeurasian+SSA look of modern nubians and horners.

 

[Apollo]

^ See my response in reference to Copts from Upper Egypt who moved from Upper Egypt in the 1800s to North Sudan (similar to Rashaida Saudis in Sudan, an ethnic minority community in North Sudan). Excluding the 1 outlier in that dataset who is half North Sudanese, all the other ones are similar to other Copts (vast majority).

There is a bigger cultural/social barrier between those Copts and other Sudanese people due to religion, while Rashaidas in North Sudan mixed more with locals due to lack of religious barriers.

Those Copts also did not settle Upper Egypt recently. They are the descendants of Roman period Ancient Upper Egyptians who converted to Christianity.

 

[Som]

^ See my response in reference to Copts from Upper Egypt who moved from Upper Egypt in the 1800s to North Sudan (similar to Rashaida Saudis in Sudan, an ethnic minority community in North Sudan). Excluding the 1 outlier in that dataset who is half North Sudanese, all the other ones are similar to other Copts. There is a bigger barrier between those Copts and other Sudanese people due to religion, while Rashaidas in North Sudan mixed more with locals due to lack of religious barriers.

Those Copts also did not settle Upper Egypt recently. They are the descendants of Roman period Upper Egyptians who converted to Christianity.

The copts not mixing with sudanese arabs has nothing to do with nubian-egyptian relations. The fact that copts have little SSA dna doesn't add anything to our conversation
There's historical evidence of mixing between Nubians and Egyptians in pre roman times, we are talking about at least 1000-1500 years before Romans came to Egypt. There was not much of a religious barrier between Nubians and Egyptians since Nubians had a pagan religion which adopted most Egyptian goods. When it comes to racism Egyptians were pretty xenophobic but we could say Egyptianised Nubians were far more accepted than other outsiders so I don't think they would have had much problems with mixing especially when it comes to the normal middle class populations. As I said there's evidence of Egyptian pharaohs with Nubian origin and an entire dinasty which was full nubian

 

[Apollo]

@Som

Here is a video of those Upper Egyptian Copts who live in Sudan. If you want to know what Ancient Upper Egyptians looked like, especially in the Roman period, this is it:

 

[Moholin01]

@Som

Here is a video of those Upper Egyptian Copts who live in Sudan. If you want to know what Ancient Upper Egyptians looked like, especially in the Roman period, this is it:

They look like Hispanics like Venezuelan and Colombians. I would have thought they would look more middle-eastern.

 

[Apollo]

They look like Hispanics like Venezuelan and Colombians. I would have thought they would look more middle-eastern.

They look like Egyptians. Would never mistake that crowd for Latinos, only perhaps some individuals, but not the entire group.