Talk:Black Egyptian hypothesis/Archive 3

Pictures in this article. Let the public decide.


I would like to ask the objective public. Is it reasonable to have pictures of:


 * Ahmose Nefertari - A queen of Egypt and progenitor of the heralded 18th dynasty (which includes King Tut and the Thutmosid pharaohs). She's famous.  Her children are famous.  She gave birth (literally and figuratively) to one of Egypt's most glorious periods.


 * Tiye - Great royal wife, matriarch of the Amarna dynasty, and King Tut's grandmother. Much of the recent controversy over the race of the Ancient Egyptians has surrounded King Tut.  Therefore, it stands to reason that the public would be interested in a bust of King Tut's grandmother.

It seems reasonable to me.Rod (talk) 23:39, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, because it spells a return of the picture wars... is it so horrible just to have no pictures, rather than constantly bickering over these pages? --Yalens (talk) 01:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Plus, you added another Nubian picture in addition to these... again. --Yalens (talk) 01:56, 31 December 2012 (UTC)




 * I asked for public input on the pictures on the talk page. You are not allowing time for the public to weigh in.  This is not a dictatorship.


 * There is not a reasonable person on Earth that would argue that Ahmose-Nefertari, Tiye, and Ramesses II are not Egyptians. Those are the pictures that I added.  What Nubian picture?


 * In the text of the article, some editors try really hard to prove that Egyptians are always painted differently from Nubians. Therefore, a very relevant and useful picture is included that shows Egyptians (Ramesses II) and Nubians in the same painting.  This painting clearly debunks the assertion from sloppy scholars that Egyptians are always painted red and Nubians are always painted black.  I can add the testimony of Snowden who points to the Greek and Roman admission that there are "red" negroes.  Also, we can add the testimony of the preeminent Univ. of Chicago scholars, as in their museum they state quite prominently that Nubians are painted from red to black.  Unless you are going to argue that Nubians are not racially black, being painted red does not disqualify a group from the black race.


 * There is no picture war. This is a misdirection tactic aimed at purging Egyptian articles of pictures of Egyptians (provided those Egyptians don't fit the POV of some).  The beauty of the internet and websites like Wikipedia is that people can learn in a multimedia environment.  The popularity of cameras, Instagram, photo sharing sites, etc. indicate that people want pictures (and a lot of them).  We don't want all text articles.  The experience is richer with pictures provided.


 * Finally, does it make sense for editors that are diametrically opposed to the Black hypothesis to write and "guard" the black hypothesis article? It must be hard to adequately represent both sides of an argument when all of the source material is clearly in the anti-black hypothesis camp.Rod (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Of course it makes sense. The alternative would be to only have editors who are sympathetic with it to edit it. As for the pictures, until we can have an objective way of making sure they aren't cherry-picked to present a point of view (anyone's pov), then we shouldn't have them. Dougweller (talk) 13:06, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * This cherry picked argument is ridiculous. There is a very large controversy about King Tut's race and thus a picture has been added of his grandmother.  There is a controversy about the New Kingdom iconography and thus a picture of the progenitor of the New Kingdom dynasty has been added.


 * Answer a direct question. Is it reasonable to have a picture of a Greek in an article about Egypt's race controversy?  If it is reasonable, why not also add pictures of the Roman and Persian rulers of Egypt in the article about Egypt's race controversy?  Reasonable people realize that Greeks are not representative of the Ancient Egyptian's race.


 * I find Nofret's picture to be cherry picked. She's a nobody in Egyptian history, why is she so important to show up in this article?  Why not any of the pharaohs?  Pick one.  Why not a woman that gave birth to a powerful pharaoh?  Pick one (like Tiye or Ahmose Nefertari).  At least we know that the powerful pharaohs got their genetic material from Tiye and Ahmose Nefertari, which speaks to race.Rod (talk) 16:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Nofret's picture isn't even on this page, so why are you talking about it? As for the Nubians, yes you did add another Nubian picture, of Ramesses charging (drumroll) the Nubians. Is it just a coincidence that you only add pictures that represent the small portion of Ancient Egyptian art that can be twisted to support your POV? I think not.
 * Also, I do think all-text articles are bad, but given the nature of this particular topic, I now think it would be prudent to keep out most pictures as their presence risks inviting picture wars... By the way, if we wanted to, we could completely pollute this page with hundreds of pictures of Ancient Egyptian art that don't support your POV, but I'd rather not, for the sake of this page and of wikipedia and a whole.
 * I suppose we could have a separate discussion for the inclusion of each picture... but that could get tedious.--Yalens (talk) 18:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Barring the use of Roman and Greek rulers of their Egyptian province, you will not find pictures of pharaohs that look like Europeans, Libyans, or Asiatics. Good luckRod (talk) 20:58, 1 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I've left this open for debate for a year and no one other than the band of brothers seems to oppose pictures of Ancient Egyptians in an article about Ancient Egypt.Rod (talk) 03:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * A link to the page on Ahmose-Nefertari, which prominently features the same picture. A link to the article on Tiye, which features the same bust of Tiye.  There is nothing controversial here.  These pics of Ancient Egyptians might offend this article's "owners", due to their POV pushing, but they certainly don't offend the public.  They are pics of the rulers of ALL of Ancient Egypt during a non-intermediate and unfragmented period of A.E. history.Rod (talk) 03:27, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

(RI) When your edit summary states that you're adding pictures "per talk," you're implying that some consensus was reached here about adding the pictures. I come here, and see that you added the pictures not "per talk," but despite of it. It's a mighty good time to self-revert and discuss, no? Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 03:35, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Rod, keep the pictures in. You have had more than one year to discuss this and you do not control the article and cannot stall this article forever. Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 05:44, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * There are at least two editors in support of the pictures. It has been on the Talk page for a year and was brought up again in the recent Arbcomm discussion on the Talk page.  There is nothing controversial about these pictures, as they are featured prominently at the very top of the articles on Ahmose-Nefertari and Tiye.  I'm truly sorry that this article's owners have reached the unreasonable conclusion that they can censor the internet and tell the public that articles on Ancient Egyptian race can't have pictures while all other articles on Wikipedia can have pictures.Rod (talk) 15:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

(RI) And there are at least 3 editors that I can count in only this section who disagree. I will revert you. This is an ArbCom article and you need some consensus before going with controversial edits. It's been pointed to you multiple times that these pictures need some thorough discussion first. Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 16:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I read the "when you wonder what to do" section and I believe this content would be found under the same heading in an encyclopedia or in other Wiki articles on Ancient Egyptians. Consensus is not possible in this topic, as can be seen on all of the related Talk pages.  The only way to reach consensus is for you and the brothers of faith to add additional pictures that support your POV pushing.  I don't think you will find any pics to support your POV unless you put pics of Romans and Greeks in the article.Rod (talk) 16:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, we've had thorough discussion for a year and we're in the same place that we were a year ago. The brothers of faith would like to censor this article and prevent it from being treated like every other article on Wikipedia (pics are allowed).  You do not own this article.  Some of us want pictures, like every other article in Wiki.  Our position is reasonable.
 * To preempt any foolishness about Tiye, She is genetically proven to be the grandmother of arguably A.E.'s most famous pharaoh. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=185393Rod (talk) 16:21, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * NVM, I kinda dig this whole gallery thing. This will devolve into an image war as predicted above, but hey, let's have images, right?
 * Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 20:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Come on guys, picture wars suck... I'd thought we agreed to just leave all the cherrypicked pictures out, and that was working. I can't really be the only person here that wants to just live a life outside of negotiating everything over this page, can I? --Yalens (talk) 20:42, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm actually down with having no pictures. I know you're right about what's about to happen/is happening, but I guess I wanted to entertain Daily and Andajara120000 on this one. Had I reverted, there would be an edit war involving this pair and everyone else. What good is that? It's better to bring them to the table by showing them how ridiculous it is to have cherrypicked pictures at all here.
 * Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 20:58, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Talk of "picture wars" here is a red herring and diversionary tactic. There never have been any picture wars and we still don't have any.  My position is that pictures enrich the article and that the public loves pictures (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Photography in general).  The article is much more rich, beautiful, and interesting now that it has a picture gallery.  Aua mentions in one statement that he supports pictures and soon after states that he doesn't support pictures.  This type of behavior is why we can't reach consensus.  For the record, I SUPPORT PICTURES, even of Cleopatra (although her dynasty is known to be of Greek lineage, only spoke Greek, and refused to speak Egyptian, etc.).

I flatly reject any assertion that the pictures are cherry picked. Here was my methodology for adding pics to the gallery. Go to the main Ancient Egypt article. Follow the links to the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. Then take a few pics of FAMOUS Egyptians, like Tut, Akhenaton, Ramesses the Great, etc. Copy/Paste the pics from the non-controversial A.E. articles into this article. Immediately, the pics become "cherry picked" and controversial, although these EXACT SAME PICTURES are included in the main and featured articles on Ancient Egypt. I didn't change any captions or try to make any points. I copy/pasted them, as is, from the non-controversial articles. Ask yourselves, why is this a problem or controversial???Rod (talk) 21:55, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Cleopatra
Cleopatra is mentioned in the lead, but when I "CTRL-F" the article, I cannot find a single mention of Cleopatra in the article's body. The lead should summarize the body. It gives undue weight to Cleopatra to mention her in the lead, but never mention her again in the body. Feel free to add a section in the body on Cleopatra, as in the nearly identical Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy article. Then you can reintroduce her to the lead.

From the other article:

The question was the subject of a heated exchange between Mary Lefkowitz, who has referred in her articles to a debate she had with one of her students about the question of whether Cleopatra was black, and Molefi Kete Asante, Professor of African American Studies at Temple University. In response to Not Out of Africa by Lefkowitz, Asante wrote an article entitled Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa, in which he emphasized that he "can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black." Rod (talk) 02:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If she is not in the body of the article, or should I say "no longer is", then that is a problem that must be fixed as she has been a part of the debate, whether Asante likes it or not. --Yalens (talk) 02:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Just copy/paste her section from the Ancient Egyptian Race controversy article. These articles are carbon copies of each other anyway.  Problem solvedRod (talk) 03:29, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Gallery
I have been against such a use of images at the Ancient Egyptian race controversy and my position hasn't changed. How can such a gallery be kept NPOV? It doesn't belong here. Dougweller (talk) 22:12, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I, too, think it doesn't belong here for numerous reasons, some of which were highlighted in the relevant section above. Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 22:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I disagree and my position is that pictures enrich the article. Pictures don't have a POV.  They are just pictures.  These pictures are included in the main A.E. articles without any discussion or controversy.  Why should there be a different set of rules for this article?  See the commentary at the top of the page.  Andajara agrees to keep the pics.  Aua agrees (sometimes) to keep the pics.  I agree to keep the pics.  This topic was left open for discussion for a year and it was raised for discussion again by Andajara recently.
 * Is anyone arguing that these images are not Ancient Egyptians?
 * Is any editor adding editorial content to the captions and trying to make a point via pictures?
 * Why are these pictures non-controversial in the main A.E. articles and suddenly controversial in this article?
 * A picture war does not exist. This is a diversionary tactic.  I support the Cleopatra pic.  Where is the "war?"Rod (talk) 22:29, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Rod, this response is utterly disingenuous, really. Pictures don't have a POV? Give me a break. That's like saying words don't have a POV. In themselves they don't, but it's how you use them and combine them that creates the POV. An arbitrary selection of image with no context serves no purpose. When that apparently arbitrary selection is clearly intended to convey a message - or rather competing messages - then it should be properly debated. Pretending that there is no POV involved is just not credible. Paul B (talk)


 * I'm sorry you feel that way. These pics are randomly selected from various non-controversial articles on Ancient Egypt.  I did not change a single caption.  I copied/pasted the pics verbatim from their source articles on Wiki.  I will not apologize because it is so easy to find the pics that I selected in non-controversial articles on A.E.  As opposed to getting upset at my non-controversial addition, why not just add more pics?  It's a gallery.  I don't mind.
 * Another editor changed the caption for the 25th dynasty pic. Please review the article's edit history and you will see what I mean.Rod (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I think there should be images, but they should be there for a purpose. A gallery as such serves no purpose. Why is Cleopatra in the gallery? If it were illustrating the claim that she was "black" it might serve a purpose. Likewise if it was illustrating the conventions of Hellenistic portraiture in order to make a point about the problems of using such images as clear evidence it would also be useful. But a raw gallery like this just encourages editors to add "black" looking image and "white" looking images in a kind of of pictorial arms-race war (pun on race intended). It might be useful to set up images in a way that made a point - say contrasting "white" looking images of Tut with mid-brown and black-as-pitch ones, just to show the variation. Likewise such images could be used to show how the very materials used to make the image create a racial bias (marble obviously makes people look white, yew heart-wood, as in the Tiye head, makes people look black). These points would have to be cited, of course, but visual illustration is certainly desirable. Paul B (talk) 22:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Paul, another editor added the Cleopatra pic because Cleopatra is mentioned in the lead and there is a tabloid style controversy over her race. This controversy never comes up in books by serious scholars.  She was a pharaoh, so I don't have a problem with her pic in the article.Rod (talk) 23:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * (I originally was responding to Dailey, but we edited at the same time apparently) Oh, there was clearly a war before. Of course the pictures are not inherently bad in themselves, except for the fact that from the repository of all the vast wealth of Egyptian art, you choose only to pick ones that are done with black stone/paint (a fact that isn't actually notable because even statues of modern day Europeans are sometimes made with black stone or black paint...), even though anyone with any familiarity with Ancient Egyptian can assert that this isn't representative. And then there was the mislabeling of statues of ethnic Nubians as Egyptians (everyone knows who Cleopatra is and that she came from a Greco-Persian dynasty, not everyone knows this about randomly fetched Nubian statues). Perhaps we should add pictures from the Fayyum collection too. But then, at some point, more space would be taken up by pictures than words, and we'd have to do a painstaking discussion about whether to keep every.single.one. That would take so much time that its better just to have none at all and agree to that. And I thought we had. --Yalens (talk) 22:39, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * We now have four editors in favor of pictures (dailey78, andajara, Aua (sometimes), and PaulB). We need pictures because we are discussing a topic that is thousands of years old.  The type of person that would come to Wiki to read up on this subject likely is not near expert level at Egyptian history.  They very well may have never seen a picture or statue of many of the Egyptians depicted in the gallery.  In my opinion, the gallery brings the text to life and therefore enriches the article.  For example, British Africanist Basil Davidson stated "Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south : while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew."[77]  This statement is meaningful to me because I have read volumes on A.E. and Nubia and I know exactly which Queens he was talking about when he said "they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south."  However, I would venture to say that most of the world has never seen a picture of Ahmose-Nefertari.  This encyclopedia provides us with the opportunity to spread knowledge of A.E. in a multimedia environment.Rod (talk) 22:48, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What? No no no. I'm not in favor. I changed my mind about reverting your addition since I wasn't in the mood to edit war and was going to show you how quickly it can escalate. Some pics are helpful, but we need to discuss them here first. Cherry picking a couple of negroid-looking busts/paintings and slapping them on there doesn't help. Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 23:01, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Again, we've discussed this for a year (see the top of the page). Aua can't decide in the same day if he supports or opposes pics.  Aua said above, "NVM, I kinda dig this whole gallery thing."  Now he doesn't "dig it" because the brothers of faith don't want pics.  How could we possibly reach a consensus when editors are not behaving in good faith?  Also, clearly there is no "edit or pic war."  If so, this is the best war in the history of humanity.  This "war" consists of us adding pics of Ancient Egyptians into an article on Ancient Egypt.  If you want to see different or additional Egyptians in an article about Ancient Egypt, just add more pics and stop censoring the internet.  These exact same pics can be found in all of the non-controversial A.E. articles.  Why make such a big deal out of these pics in this one particular article?Rod (talk) 23:07, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Com'on buddy. Get the whole quote: "NVM, I kinda dig this whole gallery thing. This will devolve into an image war as predicted above, but hey, let's have images, right?"
 * No images, please. War awaits otherwise. Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 23:12, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The "cherry picked" statement is a diversionary tactic. It is your opinion that these pics from non-controversial A.E. articles are cherry picked.  I FLATLY REJECT AND DISAGREE WITH YOUR OPINION.  It's quite amusing that in your attempts to obstruct, you are arguing against your own position.  It is Aua that indicates that these Ancient Egyptian busts/paintings look negroid.  I just added pics, because I think that 21st century encyclopedias should be multimedia in their presentation and not 100% text articles.  It seems that the Wiki community agrees, as nearly every Wiki article is allowed to have pics, except articles that are owned by the brothers of faith.
 * Add to the pics and enrich the article, if you please. Spread knowledge and stop obstructing and censoring the internet.Rod (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I think we should get back to basics "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Image Galleries:

"Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject. Images in a gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance both to the article subject and to the theme of the gallery, and the gallery should be appropriately titled (unless the theme of the gallery is clear from the context of the article). Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted. See 1750–75 in Western fashion for an example of a good use of galleries."

Can we limit our arguments to discussing how the gallery meets the above? Also relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Content "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#" I have yet to see some arguments relating to the above, and although I am a new editor, this seems to be the most relevant guidelines for what photos to include in the gallery. Let us not reinvent the wheel here. Correct me if I am wrong.

The possibility of an "edit war" does not seem to figure in this equation. Each photo in the gallery must be challenged on its own individual grounds as it seems indisputable that: images "can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images" and "The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject." and "They should be relevant and increase readers' understanding of the subject matter. In general, images should depict the concepts described in the text of the article." Seems undisputed here. '''Let us not avoid the hard work of meeting these standards and shortchange our readers. Wikipedia is a forum that encourages increasing accuracy and relevance of articles, even if the process to get there might be time-consuming for editors involved. Let us work hard and work right to meet these standards.''' Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 23:10, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The pics add to the reader's understanding as follows:


 * Much mention is made of black skinned egyptians in the article, so Ahmose-Nefertari is shown as an example of a black skinned egyptian.
 * The article mentions Queens from the South. Tiye is shown as an example of a queen from the south.
 * There is a specific controversy over Tut, so Tut, his parents, and grandparents are shown. (Akhenaton, Tiye)
 * At the UNESCO conference several scholars mentioned that they saw black people (in Egyptian art) in all kingdoms (Old, Middle, and New). Therefore, representative pics of Egyptians from all kingdoms were added (Khufu, Khafre, Mentuhotep, Hatshepsut, Ramesses the Great, etc.)
 * There is a tabloid style controversy over Cleopatra, so another editor added her pic.
 * The 25th dynasty ruled all of Egypt, and like Cleopatra, were from a different "kingdom/empire."Rod (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Rod, remember that you agreed to "wait for consensus before making any more edits about Black Egyptians" which is the only reason you weren't blocked for edit warring. And "I just added pics, because I think that 21st century encyclopedias should be multimedia in their presentation and not 100% text articles." simply doesn't hold water for this article. If it was an article about Egyptian art, Egyptian notable people, etc it would, but images here are obviously meant to be relevant to the article. Andajara says "The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject." and "They should be relevant and increase readers' understanding of the subject matter. In general, images should depict the concepts described in the text of the article." That's actually disagreeing with you, right? And the image of Tiye is an unpainted wooden bust. Why would we use that in an article about alleged Black Egyptians? I can only think of one reason - that it is here to suggest that she was the same colour as the material of the bust. A great example of why we shouldn't have a gallery. Then of course there's what looks like a hairstyle which people might see as African, but is the remains of a headdress that was covered in blue tiles which have fallen off.
 * I've deleted the gallery. I've explained my objections but as it was added by an editor who is under a voluntary restriction not to do this sort of thing I'm restoring the status quo per images. Also we have WP:BRD - bold edit, revert, discuss. Please do not restore this about consensus. There's also NPOVN for the editors who think this doesn't violate NPOV. Dougweller (talk) 07:20, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Dougweller, consensus can never be reached in such a controversial article, so essentially you are saying don't edit the article. However, this same approach doesn't seem to apply to editors on the flip side of this argument.  As I see it, the way all editors have been dealing with this article is to add material and then other editors add more material to achieve balance.  That has worked well.  It is only possible to reach consensus when editors act in good faith.  Often, that does not happen in this article.  I have never once added commentary about the appearance of these pics or tried to draw conclusions from them.  Other editors are stating the obvious and then putting words into my mouth.
 * To answer some of your direct questions. Tiye is Tut's grandmother and the article discusses the Tut specific controversy.  To avoid repeating myself yet again, please read my section just above your post for other explanations to why these pics are helpful and beneficial to the article.Rod (talk) 16:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Some may ask, why pictures of Tiye and Ahmose-Nefertari. They flesh out the text by Davidson:  The British Africanist Basil Davidson stated "Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south : while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew."[75].
 * Most people have likely never seen a picture of a queen from the south and likely never will due to censorship historically and even today on Wikipedia.Rod (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Images in the article
Removing the gallery does not mean that I think the article should have no images. If there are images that are clearly and specifically part of the controversy and have been discussed by both mainstream and BEH supporters, then they can probably be included - but I strongly suggest that this be done by consensus. I've reminded Rod that he is under a restriction to edit by consensus so hopefully that will help keep this article as a collaborative effort abiding by NPOV - which isn't easy. Dougweller (talk) 08:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Title of article - should be 'hypothesis'
I've been linking this as per Pole shift hypothesis and hadn't recalled it has an upper case 'H' - which is an error. Anyone object to my moving this to Black Egyptian hypothesis and leaving a redirect? Dougweller (talk) 13:35, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That works. Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 13:49, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Fine by me. Wdford (talk) 13:53, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

As thats a move that would be indicated by WP:TITLEFORMAT I went ahead per WP:BOLD and did it. Wee Curry Monster talk


 * Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:26, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Content Fork?
WP:POVFORK After spending the afternoon reading the talk page I have come to the conclusion that this article has resulted from a POV fork and as such may be inconsistent with WP policies. I'm minded to nominate it for deletion as such, noting that there is Ancient Egyptian race controversy, creating this spin off creates the misleading impression this is a main stream theory. It seems clear to me after reading the supporting material that it is not. Seeking further comment before I nominate for deletion. Wee Curry Monster talk


 * Oppose - Undoubtedly it is not a main stream theory. This article is a WP:CONTENTFORK which was spun off from Ancient Egyptian race controversy for size reasons (currently 84k at AErc and 55k here). It was also causing an WP:UNDUE problem at AErc, as other equally-discarded race theories already had their own dedicated articles and had been reduced to summaries only, so this theory was disproportionately large. As you can see a few of us spend a lot of time and energy maintaining neutrality and balance, and get labeled as conspirators for our trouble.


 * If this article is deleted then all this so-called "evidence" will find its way back into the AErc article, and will cause more problems in what has been until the recent outbreak a relatively stable article. I don't think that will be an improvement. We can easily correct the impression that its a mainstream theory with a further comment to that effect in the lead section. Perhaps we can use the lead of Indo-Aryan migration or Dynastic Race Theory as a guide? Wdford (talk) 21:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: I find myself agreeing with both of you. Giving the theory its own article certainly lends it more legitimacy than it deserves, but practical considerations brought forward by Wdford are very convincing as well. I can see how a corresponding section in the AErc article will balloon up and quickly dwarf other theories because of all the "evidence-" especially the nonsense spewed by Diop that mainstream science has rejected yet he is quoted everywhere here. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't miss this article if it were gone, but just thinking of how AErc will be even more tortured as a consequence certainly frightens me.
 * Cheers, &Lambda; u α  (Operibus anteire) 21:36, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * And what of the nonsense in the hamitic, dynastic, and caucasian theory sections? Should we believe that Egyptians came from Europe or Asia when scientists agree that they were indigenous to Africa?Rod (talk) 04:22, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * "Hamitic" and "Caucasian" are ways of modelling race and ethnicity. They have nothing to do with claim that Egyptians as a whole "came from Europe or Asia". If you look at the racial theorists of this era, such as "Hamitic" proponent Giuseppe Sergi, you will see they often say the opposite. The so-called Dynastic race theory is about the origins of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. It was not centrally about the race of the Egyptian population at all, though Petrie certainly made claims about skeletal evidence. It was one, perfectly defensible, model of the time extrapolated from the archaeological data then known. Paul B (talk) 15:42, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Gallery of Photos
Included gallery of photos under WP:Images guidelines. I will add some more later and others can add some too and we can discuss any questions below as needed. Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 11:14, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * No, NPOV overrules any guidelines and those guidelines don't require galleries. I've explained this above. I've taken this to WP:NPOVN. Dougweller (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Brought here by the NPOVN discussion, I see no reason for that gallery:
 * There is no reference to the gallery in the text
 * It adds nothing to the article itself, it appears to have been added as the originator feels it is evidence for their hypothesis. Such "evidence" is clearly WP:OR and WP:SYN.  Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia not a forum for developing an academic hypothesis.
 * There is no attempt to use images to aid understanding of the topic, where understanding of the topic would be a reflection of significant viewpoints in the literature supported by reliable sources.
 * In summary, I have removed it for these reasons. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:18, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It's truly sad that the public's appreciation and knowledge of the A.E. society will be diminished due to these thinly veiled attempts to push a POV and suppress any other content. You ask, how are the pics relevant:


 * In the early 20th century, Flinders Petrie continued the discussion of Black Egyptians. Petrie, Professor of Egyptology at the Univ. of London, spoke of the "black queen" that was the divine ancestress of the XVIIIth dynasty. Petrie indicated that "southern people reanimated Egypt, like the Sudani IIIrd dynasty and the Galla XIIth dynasty." [20]


 * The British Africanist Basil Davidson stated "Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south : while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew."[75]


 * The aforementioned quotes only come to life with the aid of pictures, because if you see Ancient Egyptians on tv or at theme parks, they never look like Ahmose-Nefertari or Tiye or Mentuhotep, etc. The public cannot understand this theory without the aid of pictures.  This is why EVERY BOOK on this theory features these same kind of pictures very prominently throughout the book.  This is why the pictures are encyclopedic.
 * '''Please answer this simple question, why are these pics non-controversial in other A.E. articles and suddenly controversial in this article?
 * Why not just add more pics to achieve the balance that you seek?'''Rod (talk) 16:12, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * If you don't understand why they are controversial here and not in non-contentious articles on the AE and consider this censorship, perhaps you shouldn't be editing here. This is not an article on Ancient Egyptians, it is an article on what is basically a fringe or non-mainstream view. Dougweller (talk) 16:29, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:TPG, I am going to politely request that the editor who has refactored my comments above to interleave his own, A) undoes that and b) comments separately. If you do not, you may take this comment as notice that I intend to seek admin intervention against such disruption and I would remind you that in my experience this almost always results in a block. I also ask that they withdraw the series of personal attacks in his comments. I came here as an uninterested and uninvolved editor to provide comment following a request at WP:NPOVN. You might also care to peruse WP:OWB as in almost all cases any editor complaining loudly and accusing others of "censoring" wikipedia is not here with the interest of improving the encyclopedia at all. Wee Curry Monster talk 16:43, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Originally, I added just two or three pics to the article and the pics were added within the article. This led to discussion on the Talk page.  In an effort to reach consensus, I had the idea to add a gallery so that people could add many pics without it making the article difficult to read (due to numerous pics within the text).  I am trying to contribute to the article and further understanding.
 * The Wiki online encyclopedia uses these same pics to enrich the understanding of nearly every other A.E. article. The hypothesis has been written by W.E.B. DuBois,[9] Chancellor Williams,[10] Cheikh Anta Diop,[11][12][13] John G. Jackson,[14] Ivan van Sertima,[15] Martin Bernal[16] and Segun Magbagbeola[17].  There is no need for me to add anything to it.  It's my job to use peer reviewed secondary sources to relay the aforementioned scholar's hypothesis to the public as most people don't have time to read 100 books on A.E. and Nubia, as I have.  People come to Wiki to avoid reading the 100 books and just get a summary of the aforementioned scholar's hypothesis that was transferred to Wiki by me and other editors of good faith.


 * See below. Without these pics, the general public will likely never see a pic of Ahmose-Nefertari or a bust of Tiye, because pics of these type are never featured in commercial works regarding A.E.  See my other points on the Talk page.Rod (talk) 17:00, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * As in my Jan. 5th edit at 19:20 I will add a pic of Ahmose-Nefertari, so that the public has an image to associate with the constant references to black egyptians and black queens in the article. The quotes referring to black egyptians and black queens are all by peer reviewed secondary sources and ultimately all of these quotes are attributable to white guys, which should avoid any NPOV claims.  The discussion continues.Rod (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Please review the discussion of pictures in the article at the top of the Talk Page and then collapse that section, as needed.Rod (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Nope, the guideline for selecting images should be to identify images mentioned in RS that represent mainstream views of the debate. There are some good comments at WP:NPOVN but for example selecting a bust carved in a dark wood to imply race is not a good idea for an article of this nature. Why not for example choose an ancient image which avoids the problem altogether see for examples. Wee Curry Monster talk 19:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It's quite simple really. The picture that you referenced is not already in the Tiye article.  The bust is the best image of her from her Wiki article.  I chose the best picture from her article, Tiye.  To use the picture that you referenced, I would need to find it in a museum and take a picture of it with my camera to avoid copyright issues.  Every picture that I select is from an existing and non-controversial article on Ancient Egypt.Rod (talk) 21:08, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * That's not simple at all. It's disingenuous again. There is no reference whatever to Tiye in this article, so why add a photo of the Tiye sculpture? Why not add one of the many many images that depict red-brown Egyptians, which is the standard pigment used? Or marble statues? Also, why pick the Ahmose-Nefertiti image, which Egyptologists generally accept depicts her as black for symbolic reasons? Her son, standing next to her in the same painting is a kind of cream-yellow colour. Do we conclude that he suffered from jaundice? Of course not. The picture was painted, by the way, in the reign of Rameses IV, over 300 years after she died. It's not a "portrait" in any sense. Paul B (talk) 14:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I am not sure if something is being lost in translation. I will try to make the point again.  We select images guided by Reliable Sources which are referred to in the context of the mainstream views of the debate.  Paul B gives a possible example above.  For example, Expert A may claim the Ahmose-Nefertiti image clearly demonstrates race but Expert B says the Ahmose-Nefertiti image does not as it was painted 300 years after her death and points out the image is black for symbolic reasons rather than as a portrait.  In this case we would select the Ahmose-Nefertiti image as it is referred to by RS in the debate and it would be selected to illustrate the debate.  The way images were selected for the gallery was was clearly WP:OR and WP:SYN because the images were selected out of context to make an inference on race.  This is why I removed it.  Wee Curry Monster talk 20:24, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It is your point of view that the picture of Ahmose-Nefertari is black for symbolic reasons. Greats of Egyptology, like Petrie, would disagree with you and say that it's black because she was black.  Common sense would agree with that logic, as the Egyptians somehow managed to accurately paint southern nile valley inhabitants as black.  Whenever the black paint is associated with a nubian in a leopard print, it represents their skin color.  Whenever the black paint is shown on King Tut's grandmother, it suddenly becomes symbolic.  Ridiculous.Rod (talk) 04:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not my point of view. It's the point of view of scholars. Petrie was writing c100 years ago, and had no special expertise in art. Many of his idea  are now considered to be very fringy. The reason why specialists consider the depictions of Nubians to one (relatively) naturalistic, is because that is the function of the image; to visually identify ethnicity. The function of the Ahmose-Nefertari image is completely different, and, as I have said, it dates from 300 years after her death. There are, of course, images of her with pale skin. Do you think she regularly changed colour? Also, there is no black paint on King Tut's grandmother, as you have been told already, repeatedly. How can someone who is so persistently  continue to claim competence to edit this article? Paul B (talk) 10:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've restored the earlier caption, which is specifically about this painting. Your caption was a of comments about images intended to have ethnic identifiers, with a reference to something called "Petrie's black queen of the XVIIIth dynasty", which is not a source. (The actual source is Petrie's The Making of Egypt, 1939, p.155). Needless to say, books of this era are no longer considered reliable sources on issues relating to race. Paul B (talk) 10:53, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Paul Barrow your language represents a personal attack and I will seek redress. I don't agree with anything you said and many scholars wouldn't either.  Petrie is one of the greatest scholars to ever work in Egyptology.  He wrote 100 years ago about a subject that is 5000 years old. So what?  There is nothing fringy about Petrie, he was a mainstream scholar from England.  That is your POV, which does not impress me.


 * Before the edits to the picture's caption to push a POV, the caption simply had her name. Some editors want to push a POV that this pic is controversial or symbolic, but none of this language is found on ahmose-nefertari's page where the same picture is featured prominently and beautifully at the top of the article. Why has a non-controversial picture become controversial when it moves to this page?  POV pushing is the answer.


 * Here's the sourced material to back up the facts that I added to balance POV pushing: Professors Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant stated that “Egyptian iconography, from the 18th Dynasty onward, showed characteristic representations of black people who had not previously been depicted; these representations meant, therefore, that at least from that dynasty onward the Egyptians had been in contact with peoples who were considered ethnically distinct from them.”[108] (from this same article).
 * "“Egyptian iconography, from the 18th Dynasty onward, showed characteristic representations of black people''' who had not previously been depicted" - there are plenty of counter examples of Black pharaohs, showing that this was not 'some kind or recent contact'. Example: Djoser, 3rd Dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djoser Another example, this is the head of female sphinx from 1876-1842, the 12th Dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Head_from_a_Female_Sphinx,_ca._1876-1842_B.C.E.,56.85.jpgMrSativa (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * (From Davidson, see the citation info in the article, hence the #77 at the end of the sentence) Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south : while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew."[77]Rod (talk) 16:12, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Also, I don't want to get into another discussion about Tiye and her ethnicity, as this is not a forum. It probably confused some that I threw a discussion of Tiye into a paragraph on Nefertari.Rod (talk) 16:14, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Finally, as it relates to Petrie's scholarly work. In "The Making of Egypt" starting on page 155, Petrie discusses the Nubian mixture of the 18th dynasty.  The chapter is actually called "the nubian mixture."  Here is the quote from Petrie that some editors would like to call a lie, "an invasion from the south threw them (the Hyksos) back northward and established a black queen as the divine ancestress of the XVIIIth dynasty."  Thus, we have the father of Egyptology stating rather authoritatively that Nefertari was black.  Therefore, it is no stretch to find her painted with black paint in her own article and also in this article.  I own the book.  This is irrefutable.  It's a secondary source.  I'm sorry it does not agree with your POVRod (talk) 16:25, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * You may "seek redress" with whomever you wish, but frankly, I consider your threats to be empty bluster. Of course Petrie was a great scholar in his day. So were Aristotle and Galen, but we don't quote them as current sources in articles on biology. We wouldn't quote Darwin on biology either, except for historical issues, as knowledge has developed in leaps and bounds since even his day. It's a bit rich that you quote Petrie's Making of Egypt at me, since I was the one who gave you the page number of the book, which you showed no signs of even having heard of before, though you now apparently "own the book"! You appear not to have even read what I wrote: "Needless to say, books of this era [i.e. Petrie] are no longer considered reliable sources on issues relating to race." You seem to think that repeating the mantra "this is not a forum" allows you to magically suppress discussion of your own errors. It doesn't. Also your supposed quotations from "Professors Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant" is actually from the UNESCO book Ancient Civilizations of Africa, which is a summary of a debate between these scholars and Diop. You wholly misrepresent what they are reported as saying in order to support your POV. The second quotation, btw, is from Basil Davidson, and has nothing to do with Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant. You are just cutting and pasting stuff. This has happened so often and so persistently that it is no longer possible to assume good faith. This is why I feel it is no longer possible to pretend for the sake of politeness that your use of sources is honest. Paul B (talk) 18:01, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Petrie was the scholar who invented the Dynastic Race theory, citing strong evidence of links between early Egyptians and Mesopotamians. It's interesting that when Petrie says that some queen was black Rod pounces on it as the proclamation of a reliable mainstream source about whom there was "nothing fringy", but Petrie's work on the Dynastic Race theory is "nonsense" and needs to be removed. That is blatant cherry-picking. There is no dispute that some Egyptian kings married (black) Nubian women, but this again merely emphasizes the position that Egyptians themselves were not black. When you see tomb paintings of Egyptian girls attending black queens, the difference in physical appearance is obvious and clearly intentional. Professors Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant at the UNESCO conference were actually making the point that the Egyptians prior to the 18th Dynasty were not familiar with black people, but again Rod only sees the part that he thinks supports his POV. Is there any actual scientific evidence that the Hyksos were expelled by black "invaders", or were they expelled by the locals who rose up against an army of occupation? And though there certainly were a few black queens/concubines in the system over time - does that make all Egyptians black? Dynastic kings had multiple wives, and its not necessarily the case that the successive rulers were the offspring of the black wife to begin with, since the succession rules favored the offspring of the wives who were the king's blood sisters. Wdford (talk) 18:06, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Paul, I own the book, "The Making of Egypt." I quoted from it.  Get over it.  I've quoted from it several times over the last year or so.  You are wrong AGAIN.  I also own the UNESCO book and much of what you read in these articles from the UNESCO account, I wrote over the last two years.  It clearly states in the UNESCO book that Professors Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant stated that “Egyptian iconography, from the 18th Dynasty onward, showed characteristic representations of black people  Read the chapter again, as I have done many times.  Some people should learn the difference between a quote and a paraphrase supported by a citation.  Do you not see the two different citation numbers in the text that I pasted on the Talk page?  The same text can be found in the article.  Because of the two different citation numbers, one should be able to deduce that the sentences are from two different sources.  This is not rocket science.
 * I argue to balance competing theories. When we can't seem to balance controversial topics, we should remove both sides.  I don't need to prove the Hyksos were expelled (off topic and irrelevant).  I only need to quote a peer reviewed secondary source.  Now you would need to find secondary sources that disagree with the Petrie quote.  To answer your final statement, peer reviewed secondary sources have posited that a preponderance of evidence indicates that the Ancient Egyptians would be classified as black in today's discredited racial classification system.  There are secondary sources that disagree.  Hence, the controversy.  It's not important what I think about it.  It's only important what the competing scholars WROTE about the subject.  I think it's clear which side of this argument is pushing a POV.  In the original research of some editors, a painter can not be trusted to accurately depict a person's skin color if the painting is done 300 years after the life of the individual in question.  I disagree with this original research and I think it's possible to accurately depict the skin color of Roman emperors 2000 years after they lived.  They were white. Everyone knows that.  Similarly, a painting of Nefertari can accurately depict her skin color even if the painting is done 300 years after her death.  Finally, there is no consensus in the academic community that Nefertari's skin color was symbolic.  Please do not put it forward as a fact with neutral POV, as I will need to balance it with the NUMEROUS scholars that wrote her skin color was actually black (based on evidence in Egyptian art).Rod (talk) 19:42, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

"Paul, I own the book, "The Making of Egypt." I quoted from it. Get over it. I've quoted from it several times over the last year or so." You have never mentioned the book on all the talk pages of this article or the Race of Ancient Egyptians article. Never. Type the title into the talk page archive box to check for yourself. The first time you mentioned it was after I did, when I pointed out to you that you had attributed a quotation to a non-existent source called "Petrie's black queen of the XVIIIth dynasty". I told you which book it actually came from. If you really had known the actual source, you would have cited it. You didn't. The "quotation" about "characteristic representations" is a part of a summary of a debate. It was not written by "Professors Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant". It summarises their argument with Diop. They are saying that when the Egyptians wanted to produce images identifying ethnicity, they could and did. That's the whole point of the passage - as part of their argument that Egyptians were not "black" in Diop's sense. Paul B (talk) 13:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Paul, please stop ranting on the talk page. I quoted "the Making of Egypt" for the first time on Sept. 17, 2011 in the Ancient Egypt article.  Please check the history of Ancient Egypt article, on Sept. 17, 2011 and you will see that I edited (added some info about the Anu)and cited "the Making of Egypt."  I don't wish to entertain your fantasies about which books I own.  Are you asking any other editors to prove that they own the books that they cite?  Is this fair, balanced, and appropriate wiki behavior?  I have a library of books on this subject.  Stop wasting everyone's time and ranting on the Talk page.Rod (talk) 15:50, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * On the other topic (Professors Vercoutter, Ghallab and Leclant passage), I wrote the paraphrase in the article and just copy/pasted it to the Talk page, so you don't have to educate me on a passage that I originally added to this article in the first place.Rod (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * "In the original research of some editors, a painter can not be trusted to accurately depict a person's skin color if the painting is done 300 years after the life of the individual in question. I disagree with this original research and I think it's possible to accurately depict the skin color of Roman emperors 2000 years after they lived.  They were white. Everyone knows that." The sheer absurdity of this passage boggles the mind. Egyptians didn't have records of people's skin colour. They didn't have photographs, or archives of statuary accurately depicting  people from their ancient past. That's not how their art worked, quite different from Roman culture in which the "veristic portrait", as it is known, was central. Nor were they remotely interested in accurately representing what they would consider to a completely trivial issue - the precise shade of some historical queen's skin. They depicted people in various colours for symbolic reasons. There are some images that are about ethnic types, which are quite clearly identified as such in which skin and other signifiers of race is given relatively naturalistically. In the case of Amhose-Nefertari she is black in that image because she has been dead for three hundred years and has acquired power in the land of the dead. Blackness (associated with both soil and old mummies) signifies that. That's what real experts on Egyptian art say in the literature. There are no "NUMEROUS scholars" who write that her skin color was actually black, not since the age of racial ideology in the 1890s-1930s when writers were obsessed by such things and had little insight into the symbolic conventions of Egyptian art. In any case, as I've said repeatedly, the same person was depicted during her lifetime with non-black skin. So why do you somehow "forget" that fact in favour of one picture from 300 years after her death when no one could possibly have remembered the shade of her skin? It defies any logic and is supported only by the egregious misuse of sources. Paul B (talk) 16:24, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Now that the kerfluffle is over for another while, back to the article. Paul mentioned above re Nefetari that the same person was depicted during her lifetime with non-black skin. This image recurs on these pages as claimed "evidence", so if we could find another image of the same person portraying her differently it would help greatly to put the ranting to rest. Please could somebody point me to that contradictory image? Thanks. Wdford (talk) 17:38, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * There are quite a few images of her from her lifetime, or from very shortly after her death. There are many many more depicting her in her deified form, dating from the late 18th dynasty, in which she is often black-skinned. Unfortunately I'm having some difficulty tracking down online versions of images of her from her lifetime. The best I can come up with at the moment is: various her coffin. These are not very helpful, I realise. Paul B (talk) 20:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

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Objectivity
First if all, the title is passive-aggressive. The Black Egypt Hypothesis already sounds like the writer is skeptical. Then, there is the massive quoting of from anti-afrocentric sources, and absences of quotes from the so-called Afrocentrists, like Cheikh Anta Diop, Theophile Obenga, or Martin Bernal. In fact no quotes from Bernal's Black Athena, but from Black Athena Revisited, a book he was not allowed to comment in, even though it was about his work and was very much alive when it was published. Then, it should be held in mind that Mary Lefkowitz, who started the whole anti-afrocentrism movement, was working for the National Association of Scholars, a Koch brothers outfit. Other Koch employees at the AEI for instance: Charles F. Murray (The Bell Curve), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (The Innocence of Muslims), Christina Hoff Sommers (Freedom Feminism) - you get the picture. 83.84.100.133 (talk) 08:56, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No, hypothesis is not "passive aggressive" (see also: "theory of evolution") and no, Mary Lefkowitz has nothing to do with Murray or Ali just because she once was part of an (enormous) organization that also included them, no she did not start the "anti-afrocentrism movement" (which doesn't exist). You're grasping at straws-- and I'm a lefty who isn't a Koch fan. Bernal and Diop tend to not be treated as RS not because of any bias against them, but because their theories are poorly formulated and clash with very basic things we know in linguistics, archaeology, population genetics and so on (example, the view that Ancient Egyptian was somehow connected to Wolof which is demonstrably false as they are part of two entirely different language families with no known connections at all). --Calthinus (talk) 17:20, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Lead section
Hello, everyone.

I took a quick peek at the lead section and found it somewhat unfitting. Looking through the history of the article, it's clear that months of Afrocentrist, Eurocentrist, and any other biased editing has had an effect on the article and the head especially. I have rewritten it so as to remove slightly unprofessional wording, incorrect wording, etc., as I saw it. Any criticism is appreciated seeing as this is a divisive topic with no real way to rewrite the section that would satisfy 100 per cent of editors.

The Black Egyptian hypothesis is the hypothesis that ancient Egypt was a predominately black civilization, according to modern racial and ethnic perception. This definition of race has been criticised by many anthropologists, archaelogists and biologists, who deem the popular ideas of race often used to characterise Egyptian civilisation as incorrect and/or ahistorical. Those who believe that ancient Egypt was a majority-sub-Saharan African civilisation are referred to as Afrocentrists. Modern scholarship recognises that some indigenous Egyptians, such as Nubians, would likely be considered "black" by the average observer, including the pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty; the Afrocentrist hypothesis believes that Egypt was majority sub-Saharan African, often citing and questioning the race of many notable ancient Egyptians, including Tutankhamun, the king represented in the Great Sphinx of Giza, and Cleopatra.

Since the second half of the 20th century, typological and hierarchical models of race have increasingly been rejected by scientists, and most (but not all) scholars have held that applying modern notions of race to ancient Egypt is anachronistic.

At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic script" in Cairo in 1974, the Black hypothesis was met with profound disagreement. Nearly all participants concluded that the ancient Egyptian population was indigenous to the Nile Valley, and was made up of people from north and south of the Sahara who were differentiated by their color.

Granted, it needs a few more citations for some sentences, but I believe the current header is unacceptable and does not accurately consider nor describe the sheer complexity of the debate, to some extent. 옥타비아누스 / Octavian 04:11, 24 December 2017 (UTC)


 * So please clarify specifically a) which lines would you like to add/change, and b) why do you wish to change them? Wdford (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Modern Egyptian perceptions.
Most modern-day Egyptians find the whole debate pretty offensive. Many see it as a predominantly African-American led attempt at appropriating their culture. This is irrespective of the debate set around whatever skin color Ancient Egyptians were - African-American supremacists often cry foul when they see proud brown skinned Egyptians taking pride in their ancient culture, be it from ethnic Egyptians landing roles in films set in ancient Egypt, to the wearing of traditional Egyptian hairstyles and clothing.--2A00:23C4:3E0F:4400:65BC:6F9C:A76A:88A7 (talk) 13:15, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Two problems with the lede
First, The "national geographic study" is not a study. But a blog post on national geographic's website based on findings from commercial DNA test. It does not belong in the lede and probably not in the article. It also contradicts the actual DNA tests cited in the lede.

Second, only three mummnies in the Abisur study were tested for black admixture, and all of them had such ancestry: between 6-15%. The current version of the lede misleadingly implies that only 3 of the 83 mummies had such admixture. GergisBaki (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 May 2019
Egyptian was most certainly Black....its not a hypothesis this is straight European propaganda 199.119.152.101 (talk) 00:18, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Article talk pages are not forums and your statement is not an edit request. Doug Weller talk 10:33, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Ahmose-Nefertari pic
Mainstream scholarship maintains that Ahmose-Nefertari is a queen of Egypt. The attempts to add paragraphs to her picture caption strikes me as POV pushing. She doesn't require an explanation. She's fairly famous. Also, it's original research to assert that she's not Egyptian and a Nubian. Let's remove all text from the caption, other than her name.

From her Wiki article, "she's from Thebes." Thebes is Egypt and not Nubia. Ahmose-Nefertari of Ancient Egypt was the first queen of the 18th Dynasty. She was a daughter of Seqenenre Tao and Ahhotep I, and royal sister and the great royal wife of Ahmose I. She was the mother of king Amenhotep I and may have served as his regent when he was young. Ahmose-Nefertari was deified after her death. Ahmose-Nefertari was a daughter of Seqenenre Tao and Ahhotep I and the granddaughter of Senakhtenre and queen Tetisheri. Ahmose-Nefertari was born in Thebes, likely during the reign of Senakhtenre Ahmose (not Tao—as this king's nomen has now been discovered to be 'Ahmose' like that of his grandson Ahmose I). She grew up with quite a few brothers and sisters, including the princes Ahmose, Ahmose-Sipair and Binpu, and the princesses Ahmose-Henutemipet, Ahmose-Tumerisy, Ahmose-Nebetta, Ahmose-Meritamon, as well as her half-sisters Ahmose-Henuttamehu, Ahmose and Ahmose-Sitkamose.

Ahmose-Nefertari may have married Pharaoh Kamose but, if so, there is no record of such a marriage. She did become the great royal wife of Ahmose I. With Ahmose she had at least three sons. She is depicted on a stela from Karnak with a son named Ahmose-ankh and a son named Siamun was reburied in the royal cache DB320. But it was her son Amenhotep I who would eventually succeed his father to the throne. She was the mother of queen Ahmose-Meritamun and Ahmose-Sitamun. She may also have been the mother of Mutnofret, the wife of Thutmose I. A prince named Ramose included among the Lords of the West and known from a statue now in Liverpool, may be another son of Ahmose-Nefertari.EditorfromMars (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2020 (UTC)


 * It was you who parachuted in this picture, in a manner that can mislead readers. That needs to be corrected, to achieve NPOV.
 * I have seen sources stating that this woman was Nubian, but they are not ready to hand. I will need to review a lot of works to find it, which will take time.
 * This pic is in the wrong section - there is an entire section dedicated to art, and the symbolic vs realism debate. Let's move this whole thing down to the correct section, and go from there.
 * A lot of the info in the caption can then be relocated into the text of the section itself, which will be more informative and more neutral.
 * Wdford (talk) 12:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm never happy with images unless they are, according to sources, a key part of the hypothesis and even then they have to be handled verey carefully. In these articles it's all to easy to use images to push a pov. Doug Weller  talk 12:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of dispute among sources about the reason for the particular appearance of this person in this picture. To include the picture without the full context is not NPOV. Wdford (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That individual's pictures were cherrypicked for POV pushing when I first found this page, and it seems some things never change. At best they are off-topic, because the topic of this page is pseudoscientific debate over which pseudoscientific "racial" category Egyptians belonged to, not what 19th century Western-defined "race" they actually "were". --Calthinus (talk) 20:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Odd.
"Mainstream scholars reject the notion that Egypt was a black (or white) civilization" - the argument here not about whether ancient Egyptians were white or black. The former I have only ever seen mentioned by white supremacists, and then not all that very much. I think this should be changed to "mainstream scholars reject the notion that Egypt was an exclusively black population. Egypt, regardless of the skin colour of people from ancient times, has never been a "white" nation. --86.159.214.212 (talk) 23:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, regardless of what "skin color" "Egyptians" had, they could not have been a "white", "black", "brown", "purple with pink polka dots" or whatever civilization, because (a) civilizations do not have "racial identities" and (b) the entire discussion is anachronistic. --Calthinus (talk) 00:11, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 August 2020
Guy12354 (talk) 18:57, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Cleopatra was in fact a black person in color. She had a dark-skinned complexion and due to racism, the British colonisation changed the fact that she was black skinned and started drawing her as a white skinned person. But Cleopatra was Black.
 * We follow WP:RS – Thjarkur (talk) 19:46, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Cleopatra was part Greek (Macedonian) and part Persian. Most people would not consider either of those two groups black.--Calthinus (talk) 16:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The article does a great job of explaining the controversy around Cleopatra and the fact that she was Greek (she was NOT black). It may be useful for you to review the timeline of invasions of Ancient Egypt and you will realize that Cleopatra ruled at a time when Egypt had long been colonized by foreign powers.EditorfromMars (talk) 12:49, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You consider the Ptolemaic Kingdom to be a colony? Of which power? Dimadick (talk) 20:07, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Coherence of hypothesis explanation before critiques
This article is supposed to explain the black egyptian hypothesis to someone that's unfamiliar with the hypothesis, or wants to learn more about it. In editor's zeal to post every available critique of the hypothesis, they are making the article incoherent and hard to follow. Paragraph structure of topic, coherent supporting sentences, and concluding sentence is abandoned for point, counterpoint, point, counterpoint. It's almost unintelligible, which may be the point of these edits.

I am editing to group similar topics together into coherent paragraphs. This means grouping statements supporting the hypothesis together (where possible) and grouping statements against the hypothesis together (where possible). Please allow time for editors and the public to review these edits, which prevent the actual hypothesis from being butchered by critiques before even clearly and coherently stating what the hypothesis actual is.EditorfromMars (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It's the opposite, actually. The section was chaotic before the edits, with long incoherent paragraphs. Just look at the section after your edit. the first paragraph of the subsection is repeated in the second one!  Mohamed  Talk 16:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Please post an example from the text. I can't follow your commentEditorfromMars (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * See this edit, the following was repeated twice:
 * In responding to Mauny's criticism of Diop's use of the word black (as opposed to brown skin), Diop said "Herodotus applied melanchroes to both Ethiopians and Egyptians...and melanchroes is the strongest term in Greek to denote blackness." Conversely, Alan B Lloyd wrote that "there is no linguistic justification for relating this description to negroes. Melanchroes could denote any colour from bronzed to black and negroes are not the only physical type to show curly hair. These characteristics would certainly be found in many Egs [Egyptians], ancient and modern, but they are at variance with what we should expect amongst the inhabitants of the Caucasus area.  Mohamed  Talk 16:35, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Also the part about the "drak-skinned" translation was removed without giving an explanation.  Mohamed  Talk 16:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Check the current version of the article. As mentioned above, I'm grouping statements for and against a position together.  I have created a topic sentence about the "dark skinned" critique to open a paragraph of supporting sentences about the dark skinned critique.  This improves upon the prior format where the actual hypothesis is interrupted mid-thought/statement with the opinions of critics.  In chapter 1, page 1 of Diop's African Origin of Civilization, he opens the book with the statements from Herodotus and other Greeks about 'black Egyptians.'  Of course, the book states "black skin and woolly hair", as that's the most common translation.  The primary source, Herodotus the Histories, is also cited.  It corroborates Diop's translation, as the Penguin publisher, English language version of the Histories also translates as "black skin with woolly hair."  Both books mention in notes, or appendices that there is a controversy over the translation, but both books have "black skin" as the translation in the actual text of the book.  Therefore, the black hypothesis is "black skin with woolly hair = black in modern racial constructs and thus the Egyptians were black."  The hypothesis is not "there's a controversy over the translation of a greek word into english."  That's not the hypothesis.  That's a critique of the hypothesis. You do not have to agree with the hypothesis to recognize that it exists and can be defined, like an other theory/idea/hypothesisEditorfromMars (talk) 17:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * That translation isn't agreed on, as the article clearly indicates, so any claim of a "common translation", or any quote from a primary source, must be attributed to the secondary source analyzing it (According to diop - diop said - claimed)  Mohamed  Talk 17:08, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The translation is in fact attributed to a secondary source, Diop. Diop's work forms the crux of the Black Egyptian hypothesis, which is the entire subject of this article.  Both are cited.  Please read the articleEditorfromMars (talk) 17:28, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * That's why I have no problem with the current version of that section, I don't really get what you're arguing for here.  Mohamed  Talk 17:33, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Glad that we could reach consensusEditorfromMars (talk) 17:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Black and red African / negroes
The article mentions black, red, and copper colored African/negroes/nubians in various locations (see below). I'm boldly editing to add the following pic, as it "looks to the text" and illustrates the numerous examples of black, red, copper negroes/afrians/nubians in the text of the article. Here are examples from the text:
 * Snowden mentions that Greeks and Romans knew of "negroes of a red, copper-colored complexion...among African tribes",[64]
 * proponents of the Black theory believed that the Black racial grouping was comprehensive enough to absorb the red and black skinned images in ancient Egyptian iconography.[64]
 * University of Chicago scholars state that the skin pigment used in Egyptian paintings to refer to Nubians can range "from dark red to brown to black".[119][120]
 * There is an extraordinary abundance of Egyptian works of art which clearly depicted sharply contrasted reddish-brown Egyptians and black Nubians."[124]
 * [Ancient Egyptians] ...The skin color that painters usually used for men is a reddish brown.
 * Thutmose III’s “sole companions”, who was Nubian or Cushite. In his funerary scroll, he is shown with dark brown skin instead of the conventional reddish brown used for Egyptians[49]

EditorfromMars (talk) 17:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Again, that's not what looks to the text means, the pic isn't mentioned in the controversy or related to it, unlike the book of gates pic for example, and is only designed to misguide the readers into thinking they are of Egyptians, while absloutely no context is given  Mohamed  Talk 17:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "There is an extraordinary abundance of Egyptian works of art which clearly depicted sharply contrasted reddish-brown Egyptians and black Nubians."[124] This is in fact an Egyptian work of art.  There are in fact Egyptians in the painting.  Regarding the Nubians in the painting, the following is in the article "Snowden mentions that Greeks and Romans knew of "negroes of a red, copper-colored complexion...among African tribes",[64]." and "University of Chicago scholars state that the skin pigment used in Egyptian paintings to refer to Nubians can range "from dark red to brown to black".[119][120]"  So the article is in fact comparing Egyptian painting's depiction of Egyptians and Nubians and that is discussed by proponents and detractors of the hypothesis (as shown in the article).EditorfromMars (talk) 17:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * It would be very selective to choose one pic and ignore many others. Also, what would the caption be? There are many quotes and differing views on the subject and to use one and ignore the rest would be pov pushing. who does the pic depict and what were they doing?  Mohamed  Talk 17:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The pic has descriptions on it, but the caption would be "Nubians bringing tribute to 18th dynasty imperial Egypt, near Thebes."EditorfromMars (talk) 18:00, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * No problem with that caption, but it's much better if it was connected to the controversy by a reliable source.  Mohamed  Talk 18:08, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Recent edit
Your last edit has multiple mistakes, repeats some statements and removes others with no explanation. There's no need for a subsection. The section is connected and the part about Herodotus or Melanchroes can't be separated.  Mohamed  Talk 16:17, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Let's leave time for others to comment. I only added a subheading for the melanchroes debate. The content and sentences were already there.  Since there's actually as much or more text about the melanchroes controversy than the actual hypothesis (as it relates to Greek and Roman historians), the melanchroes debate deserves a subheading.EditorfromMars (talk) 16:29, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Please post examples of the 'mistakes' on the Talk pageEditorfromMars (talk) 16:37, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * see the section above  Mohamed  Talk 16:40, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Please don't add irrelevant pic with no direct relation to the controversy, and without even a context or an explanation of which people it depicts.  Mohamed  Talk 17:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * See a new section on the Talk pageEditorfromMars (talk) 17:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The whole added section is completely irrelevant to the topic, the article is about the view that ancient Egyptians were black as understood in racial definitions today. the section is a mix of culture, genetics, etc that rarely talks about ancient Egypt itself  Mohamed  Talk 18:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * see below in a new section the talk page — Preceding unsigned comment added by EditorfromMars (talk • contribs) 18:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Purpose of the Black Egyptian hypothesis article
@memelord0 states the black egyptian hypothesis is about the Ancient Egyptian race controversy. My understanding is this spin off article serves the purpose of explaining what the black egyptian hypothesis is and presenting arguments for and against the hypothesis. Unlike the AE race controversy article, all content in this article does not need to highlight a controversy, but instead needs to be a documented position of this hypothesis or documented critique of this hypothesis. PLease provide input to prevent further reverts, as there are fundamental positions of this hypothesis that have yet to be included in the article. If any new positions are included, critiques will be provided for balance.EditorfromMars (talk) 18:16, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that.. the article is about the specific part of Ancient Egyptian race controversy, which is black Egyptian hypothesis. It's not about whether Egyptians are Africans or not, because African doesn't = black. the newly added section only talks about Egypt being more African than european or Indian and says virtually nothing directly related to the main topic. The data of the section belongs in the population history article, along with other anthropological studies and arguments, not here. A 3rd opinion may be needed, in the meantime, please don't add controversial content without agreement  Mohamed  Talk 18:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The new section is about a major position taken by adherents of the black egyptian hypothesis. It doesn't matter if it's controversial, as long as it is actually a major position of the hypothesis, it should be included in an article about the hypothesis.  Egypt and Ancient Egypt is mentioned several times in the new "Physical Variation" section.  The dark red race is about Ancient Egyptians.  Diop compares Egyptians to other Africans.  Keita explicitly mentions Ancient Egyptians in his statements.  Then, they mention Badarians, proto Ancient Egyptians.  The critics statement also explicitly mentions Ancient Egyptians. See below.


 * ''Diop always maintained that Somalians, Nubians, Ethiopians and Egyptians were all part of a related range of African peoples in the Nilotic zone that also included peoples of the Sudan and parts of the Sahara. He said that their cultural, genetic and material links could not be defined away or separated into a regrouped set of racial clusters.[89] According to Diop, "as far as the dark red race is concerned, we shall see that it is simply a subgroup of the black race as presented on the monuments...In reality, there is no dark red race; only three well defined races exist: the white, the black, and the yellow."[53]:43 It is held by Keita et al. that when the data are looked at in toto, without the clustering manipulation and selective exclusions above, then a more accurate and realistic picture emerges of African diversity. For example, Ancient Egyptian matches with Indians and Europeans are generic in nature (due to the broad categories used for matching purposes with these populations) and are not due to gene flow. Ancient Egyptians such as the Badarians show greater statistical affinities to tropical African types and are not identical to Europeans.[90] As regards the key Badarian group, a 2005 study by anthropologist S. O. Y. Keita of Badarian crania in predynastic upper Egypt found that the predynastic Badarian series clusters much closer with the tropical African series than European samples.[91]


 * Critics of Diop cite a 1993 study that found the ancient Egyptians to be more related to North African, Somali, European, Nubian and, more remotely, Indian populations, than to Sub-Saharan Africans.[92] Critics of this study in turn hold that it achieves its results by manipulation of data clusters and analysis categories, casting a wide net to achieve generic, general statistical similarities with populations such as Europeans and Indians.''EditorfromMars (talk) 19:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)