Salsassin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some of the claims I have been thrown recently to
> show that Black had it going on and White man has
> always been trying to opress him. LOL

If you are interested in answering some of these---

>
> At Ta-Seti (Nubia) Africans carved what is now
> known as hieroglyphics on an Incense burner 3300
> BCE, hundreds of years before the first Egyptian
> dynasty (Dr Bruce Williams.)
Others in this group are better qualified than I. It was dealt with extensively by Troy Sagr



> Che Ante Diop did a melanin dosage test on the
> royal mummies which proved beyond any doubt that
> they were of African ethnicity; thus highlighting
> the fact that from foundation to its pinnacle
> Egypt was an African culture

If the hall of maat archives were up ;-( here is the original posted earlier:

I think that this would be a good time to put into Maat the rebuttal of the claim that Diop “proved that the Egyptian mummies were of black people.” This claim is made over and over but when you trace the source it comes from just one paper in which no evidence is presented only assertions.. ..

Diop, C. A. 1973. “Pigmentation des anciens Egyptiens. Test par la Mélanine,” Bulletin de l’IFAN, XXXV, B: 515-531. Cited over and over by Afrocentrists and by Diop himself in Civilization and Barbarism [BOM translation]

General considerations
The following analysis aims to show:
1. that the amount of melanin is a fundamental racial characteristic;
2. that this amount can easily be measured in practice by various laboratory methods for all races and for living or dead mankind.

“We then applied the method to several Egyptian mummies preserved in the Anthropology Laboratory of the Musee de l’Homme in Paris. Thanks to the kindness of Mrs. Chamla, Head of the Department and of her aides. We used the technique of thin slices observed by ultraviolet or natural light; the preparations were graciously mounted by Mrs. J.Guillen, technician at the Physiology Laboratory of the Faculte de Science de Dakar and Mr.Mamadou Cissé, Head of the Department of Vertebrates of the IFAN. The results speak for themselves; one can ascertain that, contrary to every widespread opinion, (1), the mummification processes do not destroy the epidermis to the point that the method would be inapplicable in most cases. In particular, it would certainly permit the analysis of the skin of all of the royal mummies of the Museum of Cairo which are in a perfect state of conservation; Thutmoses III founder of the 18th Dynasty the conqueror of all of Western Asia, Seti I the founder of the 19th dynasty, his son the famous Ramses II, etc. The result is worth the effort and this is the reason why I tried to obtain samples to analyze. The curator of the Cairo Museum, Dr. Ryad, had promised to send some to me, but I have been waiting for over a year.

It is surprising that such an analysis has not long ago been attempted and carried out by other researchers. We can affirm that such an examination reveals, with no doubt possible, an amount of melanin which is unknown among the “leucoderm” [white] races and which indubitably places the ancient Egyptians among the Africans of Black Africa.”

This is the sum total of the evidence. No detailed experimental results or illustrations of the slides. This is NOT the usual way in which melanin concentrations are measured (usually a spectrocope is used) Alain Froment (physical anthropologist) has published a number of papers on Diop and his methodology. Here are the relevant comments:

Alain Froment, 1991. “Origine et evolution de l’Homme dans la Pensée de Cheikh Anta Diop: une Analyse Critique,” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines. XXXI-1-2: 29 64.

p. 44-45. Autopsies of mummies
In mummies, despite the desiccation, the characteristics of the face are partially preserved which offers a tremendous advantage over a bare skeleton.
Their scientific examination and histologic study goes back to the beginning of the century but people became interested has again because of new investigatory techniques (Cockburn & Cockburn 1980). The exceptionally dry climate of Egypt allows, besides embalmed bodies, the recovery of buried cadavers whose skin is intact going back five thousand years. Thus there is in the Nile Valley an exceptionally long continuity of specimens available for extensive biological investigations.

This is why a histological examination of skin to measure the amount of melanin is necessary. Unfortunately Diop’s (1973) article sheds no light on this. In fact in twelve pages of text and sixty references only three lines deal with the results: “We can affirm that such an examination reveals, with no doubt possible, an amount of melanin which is unknown among the “leucoderm” [white] races and which indubitably places the ancient Egyptians among the Africans of Black Africa.” This is followed by long digressions on prehistory as well as biochemistry in a scientific jargon which is highly documented but fails to mask the absence of results. No histological illustrations, a sketch of quantification, comparative examinations of skin with different stages of tanning, or reference to other studies of mummies (European, Peruvian, etc.) are provided. Cheikh Anta had photographs about his work circulated at the Cairo Colloquium (UNESCO 1980, p. 799); unfortunately no trace of these remains in any publication and it should all be repeated more rigorously. The Rabino-Massa team (1972, 1981) went much further, but skin of the mummies, unlike the internal tissues, is often altered by baths of the preserving liquids. Moreover, as Szabo (1975) points out, “light microscopic sections from a dark Mediterranean skin can be very similar to those from a Negroid skin,” thus more refined techniques such as electronic microscopy should be employed.


Alain Froment.1992. “Origines du Peuplement de l”Egypte Ancienne: l’Apport de l”Anthropobiologie,” Archéo-Nil no. 2 (October): 79-98.

p. 84 2) the skin
One can sometimes distinguish in places the natural color of the skin, for example white in the case of Ramses II and an anonymous princely mummy, according to Fouquet (1886) who opened their sarcophagi. However, most mummies have a black carbonized appearance; this color is either the result of a process of slow organic combustion or of a bituminous substance which substantially hinders examinations by the naked eye and which probably came form Mesopotamia and Palestine (Connan 1991) in the same way as the embalming resins reserved for the wealthiest came from Lebanon(Leca 1976). The blackening effect of the “oil of the mineral” is mentioned in a papyrus of the Roman Era (no, AE/N5158 of the Louvre) cited by Connan. This is why it is necessary to examine histological slices of skin to measure the melanin, if one wishes to know the true pigmentation of the bodies. Diop (1973a) following Sandison (1967) observed grains of melanin but his article does not contribute anything useful; he had photographs about his work circulated at the Cairo Colloquium (UNESCO 1980, p. 799); unfortunately no trace of this remains in any publication. The Rabino-Massa team (1972, 1981) also detected melanin without quantifying it but skin of the mummies is unlike the internal tissues often altered by baths of the preserving liquids. Moreover, as Szabo (1975) points out, “light microscopic sections from a dark Mediterranean skin can be very similar to those from a Negroid skin.” Thus requiring us to use more refined techniques such as electronic microscopy as well as the mucosal membranes of the mouth.
Diop’s whole approach is problematic because the techniques used in mummification (including the pouring of resins and in later years of bitumen) make the mummies darker. Even without these additional factors mummification would make Diop’s claims false. Bob Brier replicated the process of mummification using Egyptian natron.

M.R. Zimmerman, B. Brier, and R.s. Wade. 1998. "Brief Communication: Twentieth Century Replication of an Egyptian Mummy: Implications for Paleopathology" American Journal of Physical Anthropology107: 417-420.

B. Brier and R.S. Wade. 1997. "The Use of natron in Human Mummification: A Modern Experiment" ZAZ 124: 89-100.

The papers stated that the process “turned his body "quite brown, almost black", but they did not indicate what the mummified body had been. I wrote Brier and was informed that the body had been a Caucasian.

Bernard




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