Doug Wrote:
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> Look the artwork from ancient Egypt and you will
> see what I mean. It isn't called Egyptianization,
> it is called the canon of Egyptian art, which
> defined how various figures should be represented.
> That is what I am talking about. Egyptian art
> was generalized, which means that any given image
> did not have to be 100% accurate for the
> individual being portrayed. Therefore, individual
> Egyptians did not have to be the same complexion
> in life as they were depicted in art. I don't
> disagree with that one bit. But that cuts both
> ways, because all populations vary in appearance
> and the ancient population of the Nile Valley was
> no different. Some were much darker than the
> portraits and some were lighter and most certainly
> many of the features were more idealized versions
> of what the person looked like in life. A good
> example of this is the fact that many 25th dynasty
> Kushite kings also portrayed themselves in the
> same reddish brown of the earlier dynasties.

Which is a form of Egyptianisation: in representations within Nubia itself, the 25th Dynasty Kushites portrayed thsemselves as darker skinned. It's sort of "when in Egypt, portray yourself as the Egyptians do.." mentality. But when at home, portray yourself as the locals.

> But
> none of that justifies trying to pretend that
> brown skinned Africans, including very dark brown
> Africans, were not the primary indigenous
> population along the Nile 5,000 years ago.

But there's ample evidence that the population makeup of ancient Egypt in the very early periods was varied and diverse: That has nothing to with Egyptian art: that is archaeological evidence, as Bernard and I have shown.

IOW, don't use a strawman to work out your contradictions, Doug.

> Therefore, as I said earlier, Egyptian art does
> not give you a definitive view of all features in
> a given group to any degree of certainty. Just
> like some Egyptians varied in appearance from the
> way they were depicted in art, so too did some of
> the foreigners vary in appearance from the way
> they were depicted. The depictions of Libyans in
> Egyptian art only tells you generally that
> somewhere to the West of Egypt such populations
> existed. It does not say that all populations to
> the West of Egypt looked like this.

You know, I've been talking about Libyans all this time - and now YOU move the goalpost. Show me where I said that "all populations to the West of Egypt looked like this."

Again, don't use a strawman to work out your contradictions, Doug.

<cut rest of Doug's strawman argument>

I don't disagree that the Libyans existed
> to the west in the way they appeared in Egyptian
> art. My disagreement is against taking that fact
> and then extrapolating it to cover all populations
> to the West of Egypt in such a way to say that
> those depicted in any of the tombs from the Oases
> to the west of Egypt were actually the same as the
> Libyans in features and appearance and did not
> have their own separate identities and features
> separate from Libyans regardless of whether they
> are portrayed according to the rules of the
> Egyptian stylistic canon. More evidence in terms
> of archaeological and anthropological data is
> needed to determine this.

Until you get this, I suggest you understand that IF a Libyan in the Oasis of Bahariya maintains he's Libyan in his textual descriptions of himself and his family, and he chooses to represent himself partially, for social/political reasons, in the style of the Egyptian ("egyptianising features"), this has no bearing upon how he actually looked. Period.

I can't make this any clearer. So the Baennetyou Tomb doesn't support your contention that "some Libyans" were dark-skinned peoples because of the "egyptianising features" of the art exist in the tomb, which is an attested phenomena in Egyptian art.

Now, to throw yet another iron into your argument: IF representation of your "dark Libyans" at Bahariya Oasis showed yet other representations of themselves with fair hair and/or fair eyes, how would YOU explain that?

Well, see here, as well as Images 3, 4, 5, 6 (all showing the deceased as light-haired), 13 & 14 (fair-haired genii celebrating the sun-god's travel); 17 (fair-haired Geb), 21 (fair haired mourner, contrasted against her black-haired counterpart); 29 (a blonde haired Baennetyou precedes dark-haired Egyptian gods), 30 (ibid; also shows the eye colour is lighter than his Egyptian deities),31 (more detail of same scene), 33 (yet another view of the same scene), all from your own cited website (Baennetyou).

All the more reason not to jump to the conclusion that what is shown in a darker skin means that all Bahariya inhabitants MUST be darker. Here, you have the egyptianised red skin of the male for Baennetyou, but as Goyon and Aufrere noted, Libyans of this period also maintained representing themselves traditionally as well. So, in addition to Baennetyou's Libyan blue kilt worn over his white Egyptian kilt, he also takes the time to show himself with fair eyes and fair hair - to the point of blonde. He extends the same representations to mourners of his funeral, and even to gods (mainly Geb and various afterlife genii).

This representation would fall outside the "normal" Egyptian canon as to these features, but it does support Goyon's and Aufrere's observation that the tomb "reveals a particularly successful fusion of culture."

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom