Talk:Tutankhamun/Controversy surrounding racial characteristics

The controversy about Tutankhamun

The controversy about race in ancient history is apparent from the debate about the reconstruction of the face of Tutankhamun that was done in 2005. Three teams of scientists (Egyptian, French and American), in partnership with the National Geographic Society, developed a forensic facial reconstruction of Tutankhamun from 1,700 three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) scans of the pharaoh's skull. The French and American teams worked plastic molds created from these – but the Americans were never told whom they were reconstructing. All three teams created silicone busts of their interpretation of what the young monarch looked like. In the end, Zahi Hawass, head of Cairo's Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced that the skull as "that of a male, 18 to 20 years old, with Caucasoid features."

The researchers said, the three likenesses closely resembled one another and largely validated the scientific processes used in their construction.

The French team's reconstruction specifically however, has sparked considerable controversy. In 2005 when a King Tut exhibition was shown in Los Angeles, it was met by black activist demonstrators who protested the exhibition on the grounds that the statues shown portrayed Tutankhamun as "white" and demanded that they be removed. Afrocentrists criticize the French team's claim that they selected the skin tone by taking a color from the middle of the range of skin tones found in the population of Egypt today. They claim that these features do not reflect the prevalent eye or skin color of either ancient dynastic Egypt or present-day Egyptians. They further argue that many representations of Tutankhamun portray him with red-brown to dark-brown skin and dark eyes, and that the teams should have used these as references in assigning eye and skin color. In comparison to the 2005 reconstruction, some have commented that the earlier 2002 Discovery Channel reconstruction showed a darker skin tone, among other differences.

Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for mission programs, said, in response to criticism of the Tutankhamun reconstructions that "The big variable is skin tone." and "North Africans, we know today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front, 'This is midrange.'"Nevertheless, this complexion is quite different from the images of King Tutankhamun and other royals and non royals from the late 18th dynasty, such as Horemheb, Aye, Akhenaten and Amenhotep III.

Some forensic anthropologists assert that attempts to apply criteria from craniofacial anthropometry sometimes can yield seemingly counterintuitive results, depending upon the weight given to each feature. For example, some contend that their application can result in finding some East and South Indians to have "Negroid" cranial/facial features and others to have "Caucasoid" cranial/facial features. While many East Africans for instance, have "Caucasoid" skulls, and many of the Khoisan who inhabit southwestern Africa have cranial/facial traits that are distinct from many other sub-Saharan Africans and resemble "Mongoloid" characteristics. A recent study of ancient Nubian crania was critical of assigning the traditional racial labels to skeletal remains. The study concluded that the assignment of racial origins to skeletons can sometimes misrepresent fundamental patterns in human biological diversity.

Zahi Hawass statement

Mergeto|Zahi Hawass|date=August 2008

Zahi Hawass has stated that: "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilisation as black has no element of truth to it". Hawass made this statement in light of calls from U.S. black activists demanding egyptologists to recognize that Tutankhamun was black. Hawass also stated that "Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa,". Hawass was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia where protesters demanded a bust of Tutankhamun be removed because it portrayed him as white. Hawass, in a 2007 publication of "Ancient Egypt Magazine", also asserted that none of the facial reconstructions resemble Tutankhamun, claiming for example that the French reconstruction ended up with a person that looked French, whose features do not resemble any known Egyptians. He asserts that in his opinion, the most accurate representation of the boy king is the mask from his tomb.

According to the LA Times, the archaeological inspector for the Supreme Council of antiquities, Ahmed Saleh, disagrees with some of Hawass' statements, stating that the procedures used in the facial re-creation made Tutankhamun look Caucasian, "disrespecting the nation's African roots".