Doug M Wrote:
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> Kush is below the 2nd and 3rd cataract and Kush is
> the empire that came and took control of Egypt in
> the 25th dynasty, stating that they were
> "restoring" the ancient culture and using their
> worship of Amun and the ancient connections
> between Amun in Egypt and Gebel Barkal in Sudan as
> a sign of legitimacy for their rule.
Actually I refer to that above. Kush had of course been colonized
and Egyptianized long since, so there was some substance to their
claims. However the culture they were 'restoring' came originally
from Egypt itself not further south.
> Khazar-khum everything you said reflects an
> overall ignorance of Egyptian history and culture.
> It is this city of Napata, founded in the 18th
> dynasty of Egypt, that became the empire of Kush
> in later years.
Gotcha.
> Again, the dynastic Egyptians had
> a strong southern orientation and this is but one
> example of it.
Near as I can tell even in your version the initial influence ran
North to South rather than South to North
> The culture of Egypt was African because it
> originated in Africa.
Granted but it also bordered on 'the Great Green' and so was in contact with
the Levant, Meditteranean islands and mainland Greece, not to mention Asia
Minor - (see Hittites). The AEs also built an empire in the Levant and so came
into conflict with Mesopotamian and Asian empires. Obviously there was involvement
in both areas.
> No it wasn't. Hitler was shockingly racist.
> European colonists were shockingly racist.
> Africans identifying their queen as the mother of
> the king and as a woman from the south is not
> racist.
Maybe not. But Queen mothers weren't always Southern. Heck, they weren't
even always Great Wives.
The Queen mother of any society is
> supposed to be the epitome of the people and
> culture she rules over.
Not 'any'. In Europe the 'Queen Mother' was usually a foreign princess married
as part of an alliance. In Turkey she was a slave girl, (also foreign) In Heian
Japan she was a tool through which her family controlled the Emperor. In China
she was regarded as a usurper more often then not by the Confucian elite.
The only society I can recall of the top of my head where this claim was possibly
true is the Ashanti on the West Coast of Africa.
Does the fact that the
> Queen of England totally identifies with Germanic
> people make her racist or reflect the Germanic
> heritage of the British crown?
Elizabeth II is not a Queen mother but a Queen Regnant. There is a
rather large difference. And as I understand it she identifies herself
as much with the Celtic Scots and Welsh as the Saxon descended 'English'.
The culture of
> Egypt had a strong southern orientation and the
> politics and culture reflected this orientation,
> including things like God's Wife of Amun, which is
> another form of the Great Royal Wife, who also was
> traditionally a Southern woman.
When the office originated in the 18th dynasty she was 'traditionally' a
descendent or other heir of Ahmose Nefertari the first holder of the office,
(whose family seems to have originated in the Theban area and were at odds
with the Nubian chiefs who their descendants conquered later in the Dynasty)
There don't seem to have been any holders after Merytre Hatshepsut.
The office was revived in a new form by the Kushite Dynasty, (I think). A
virgin daughter of the Pharaoh was set up as 'Great Wife' and viceroy in the
South while her father and later brother ruled in the North. Eventually she
would be suceeded by a niece.
> The wives of the Kings of the 12th and 13th
> dynasties were often depicted as jet black, like
> princes Kemsit of Mentuhotep I, which is again
> showing how Egypt was 'renewed' from the South.
Actually the black is symbolic of ressurection, no doubt why we
find such statues in a mortuary context.
> This 'renewal' was reinforced in the religious
> iconography, where black was a sign of renewal a
> sign of the Nile silt and a sign of Southern
> ancestry.
All true, except for the 'southern ancestry' bit.
