Quote

Which is a form of Egyptianization: in representations within Nubia itself, the 25th Dynasty Kushites portrayed themselves 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.

Actually Egyptianization means that you begin to practice Egyptian culture and part of Egyptian culture was the canon that defined how figures both human and deities were depicted in art. And the representations of the Kushites I am referring to where they portrayed themselves as reddish brown are in Kush. Kush was Egyptianized and they did follow the Egyptian canon for much of their art, even though they also derived their own dieties and other styles that are not like Egyptian art. The art from the Tomb in the oasis in question looks more like the style that came about after the Kushite dynasty, which makes sense as it is a 26th dynasty tomb. This style also has the same golden complexioned (as you call fair complexioned) figures which again are standard symbolic colors from the Egyptian canon of art.

The style of the Kushite period is seen in the Tomb of Tanutamen in Kush:

[www.osirisnet.net]

Quote

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.

I agree that they were diverse but that does not mean that there were more people along the Nile of foreign ancestry than local indigenous African populations of various types. Diversity does not mean that Egypt was overrun by a whole bunch of non African people or features, at least not in the very early period. The diversity of the early period was primarily between the ethnicities and cultures of various African populations along the Nile and in the Sahara and also included some foreign populations from outside the Nile Valley. There is no contradiction, because the current archaeological evidence from Upper Egypt and the Sahara 6,000 years ago states very clearly that these were all predominantly local, indigenous African populations, not migrants from outside Africa. Diverse genetics, features and culture does not mean non African. But of course that has changed a lot over the last 6000 years, which is also proven in the archaeological and historical record. But that does not mean there was no influence or exchange of ideas from without the Nile Valley at an early period, as there is also evidence of that as well. But trade and exchange does not mean population replacement and just as the diversity of the Nile included non African elements, so did the diversity of the Levant and elsewhere include Non Levantine elements as well. In the Nile Valley, the earliest human remains are from the South, including those from Nazlet Khater, Waddi Kubbaniya and Esna, dating to 35Ky, 20ky and 16ky bp respectively.
Therefore the earliest evidence of communities moving towards a more stable form of subsistence and settlement are found in many areas of the Nile and Sahara among diverse groups of African peoples spread over large geographic areas and over various time periods.
As part of this there are the sites at Gilf Kebir, which show that during the lush period of the Sahara, this region was populated much more densely than today, as evidenced in the abundant rock art found there.

[www.fjexpeditions.com]

[www.touregypt.net]

And among the scholars on the various social and cultural assemblages of the ancient Nile Valley, Fred Wendorf is one of the most preeminent references to the patterns of settlement in the Sahara and Sudan leading to Egypt.

[www.smu.edu]

Quote

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.

The goalposts aren't changing. We are discussing how extensive the people we are calling the ancient "Libyans" were to the West of Egypt, particularly focusing on the features and appearance of those Libyans represented in Egyptian art. As one of the reference books pointed out, there were peoples identified as "Libyans" to the west stretching all the way down to the 3rd cataract. I doubt very seriously if all these "Libyans" looked the same, much as many Southern Libyans to this day are darker than their northern brethren.

Quote

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."

Actually the point I was making is that Egyptian art does not give you enough information to tell you the exact features of any and all populations that they depicted in their art. The tomb of Baennetyou proves this. The fact that the Egyptians of this Oasis, or Egyptianized "Libyans", are depicted as brown only goes to show that there is no way to determine to any degree of certainty the exact nature of the diversity of the populations identified as "Libyan" and who looked more like the Libyans represented with very light features versus those that looked more like local Saharan and Nile Valley folk. There is no doubt that both existed and that the local Saharan and Nile Valley types were probably more prevalent towards the Southern regions of Libya in ancient times, just as they are today. In fact, many of these Oases communities in modern times are very diverse, showing that there is no one feature that is distinct to the population of the Western regions identified as Libyan by the ancient Egyptians. As I said earlier, many references state that there were various Libyans and some populations of Libyans are identified as far South as the 3rd cataract. And likewise, the diversity of Libyan populations exists to this day in the modern country of Libya.











Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2007 06:54AM by Doug M.