Khazar-khum Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >> importance of investigating ancient
> Egyptians'views on stem cell research, quantum physics,
> or aerospace engineering? Just asking the
> question presupposes they thought the topic
> significant enough to have an opinion on it. Same thing
> for "race". Just bringing it up as a cultural
> factor suggests THEY saw it as a cultural factor.
> As I said, we can find her lineage or parentage to
> be of significance, but unless we know THEY saw
> "race" as an important factor, then we should
> not blinker ourselves with that view of who
> Cleopatra was.<<
>
> They certainly thought of themselves as different
> from other peoples, both African (Libyans,
> Nubians) and others (Syrians, 'Asiatics',
> Hittites).
But that had more to do with Egyptian
xenophobia rather than Egyptian issues with the "race" of foreigners.
Once "foreigners" came into Egypt and adopted Egyptian culture and customs, their previously "foreign" representations disappeared and they were consistently shown as "Egyptian" - hence the term used in Egyptology of the "Egyptianisation" of certain ethnic groups or countries' inhabitants. I seem to recall a very high official in the New Kingdom who was shown as "foreign" in one area of his tomb, but thoroughly Egyptian in other parts of his tomb (perhaps Huy, the Viceroy of Kush during the reign of Tutankhamun? I may be wrong here). If I can locate the imagery, I'll post what I can, but it would exemplify what all of authors below are talking about.
Much of this has to do with the fact that "foreigners" were part of the concept of
chaos, while
order was always viewed as "Egyptian." I've covered this issue before on this discussion list, as have the following authors:
Baines, J. 1996. Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity. In J. S. Cooper and G. M. Schwartz, ed.,
The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century. The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference:339-384. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Belova, G. 1998. The Egyptians' Idea of Hostile Encirclement. In C. J. Eyre, Ed., Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists. Cambridge, 3-9 September 1995: 143-148. Orientalia Louvaniensia Analecta 82. Leuven: Peeters.
Booth, C. 2005. The Role of Foreigners in Ancient Egypt: A study of non-stereotypical artistic representations. BAR International Series 1426. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Bresciani, E. 1997. Foreigners. In S. Donadoni, Ed., The Egyptians: 221-253. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Galán, J. M. 1995. Victory and Border: Terminology related to Egyptian Imperialism in the XVIIIth Dynasty. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 40. A. Eggebrecht and B. Schmitz. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag.
Harrari, I. 1989. Foreigners in Egypt. In The Archaeology, Geography and History of the Delta Proceedings of Colloquium "The Archaeology, Geography and History of the Egyptian Delta in Pharaonic Times". Wadham College, Oxford, 29-31 August, 1988: 161-172. Discussions in Egyptology Special Number 1. Oxford: DE Publications.
Helck, W. 1964. Die Ägypter und die Fremden. Saeculum. Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte (München) 15: 103-114.
Leahy, A. Ethnic Diversity in Ancient Egypt. In J. M. Sasson, Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, I: 225-234. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons/Macmillan Library Reference.
Loprieno, A. 1988. Topos and Mimesis: Zum Ausländer in der ägyptischen Literatur. Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 48. W. Helck. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Lorton, D. 1973. The So-called "Vile" Enemies of the King of Egypt (in the Middle Kingdom and Dyn. XVIII). JARCE 10: 65-70.
Poo, M.-C. 1998. Encountering the Strangers: A Comparative Study of Cultural Consciousness in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China. In C. J. Eyre, Ed., Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists. Cambridge, 3-9 September 1995: 885-892. Orientalia Louvaniensia Analecta 82. Leuven: Peeters.
Rizkana, I. 1989. Foreigners in Egypt. In The Archaeology, Geography and History of the Delta Proceedings of Colloquium "The Archaeology, Geography and History of the Egyptian Delta in Pharaonic Times". Wadham College, Oxford, 29-31 August, 1988: 227-232. Discussions in Egyptology Special Number 1. Oxford: DE Publications.
Saretta, P. 1997. Egyptian Perceptions of West Semites in Art and Literature during the Middle Kingdom (An Archaeological, Art Historical and Textual Survey). Ph.D. Dissertation (Unpublished). Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. New York: New York University.
Valbelle, D. 1990. Les Neuf Arcs: L'Égyptien et les Étrangers de la Prehistoire à la Conquête d'Alexandre. Paris: Armand Colin.
Helck (1964) noted that since foreigners represented "chaos," representing them in all their "foreigness" in art gave the Egyptian the ability to "control" the image (and thus the person/groups), and gave Egyptians also the opportunity to view foreigners as ridiculous objects. As these foreigner adopted/adapted to Egyptian ways, their imagery became more "normalised" to the Egyptian standard.
HTH.
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom