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Many people have recently started to make bizarre claims in regards to ancient Egyptians, and claiming they were either white or black when in reality the closest group to ancient Egyptians is modern Egyptians. Here are some commonly brought up points which are easily debunked:
1.Ramses II, and several other mummies have red hair, this must mean that they were white!
Ramses II died in his late 80s or early 90s. His hair appears red because of the mummification process where his hair would have been dyed. Only four mummies have been found to have naturally blonde hair and all of them date to the Greco-Roman period.
2- Several ancient Egyptian artifacts depict people with blue eyes, that must mean ancient Egyptians were white!
Blue, green and hazel eyes are still seen within the Levant and the Nile delta. They are not as uncommon as people think. The artifacts, art and so on depicting people with coloured eyes is EXTREMELY rare, which tells us it was not common at all.
3- Egypt was in Africa, therefor the ancient Egyptians must have been black Africans until the Romans, Greeks, Arabs and other peoples arrived to Egypt.
Modern Egyptians, who are the closest group genetically to the ancient Egyptians have very little European or sub-Saharan ancestry. The Arabs conquered Egypt with an army of 4,000 men, while Egypt had a population of millions. Roman-Egypt was also very segregated.
Further more, the Fayum portraits that pre-date the Arab invasion by over 600 years show that the natives looked exactly like modern Egyptians, furthermore it is easy to distinguish between Greeks, Romans and Egyptians in the Fayum portraits.
4-The REAL ancient Egyptians were the Nubians.
No, It does Nubians a great disservice and is greatly insulting to their amazing history when you claim they were the real ancient Egyptians while you ignore their actual history. Nubians and The Egyptians fought, and Nubians are depicted very differently.
5- iGenea, has claimed that King Tut’s haplogroup was R1b1a2, which means he has to be white!
It has been alleged that the Y-DNA haplogroup of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun (twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn) was R1b, and since R1b is the most common haplogroup in western Europe, this proves that he was genetically European.
This argument has several issues. The first is that it's actually a very blatant lie. Here's why:
The source for Tut having R1b is from the commerical genetics company iGENEA - who have never actually tested the Pharaoh's mummy. So how did they 'discover' his haplogroup was R1b?
Well according to their official website, they did it with "the help of a recording of the Discovery Channel". ( https://www.igenea.com/en/tutankhamun ). Yes, they only hypothesise that his haplogroup was R1b - with their methodology having never been released and without actually testing for it
It's difficult to speculate intent but it appears that they chose R1b to sell the idea to their western customers that they were related to Tut especially when the same page on their site claims the person with the the same (fictitious) haplogroup as Tut wins a prize.
But moreover, even if we assume his Y-DNA haplogroup was R1b, what would this mean in reality? Does R1b mean white and European?
No, for many reasons. Haplogroups are a poor determiner of genetic composition and total ancestry. It tells you very little about a person's total genetic composition. R1b may be the most common in western Europe, but it's also found in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Having this haplogroup this does not change their genetic or racial characteristics, a black African with R1b looks like a black African and is genetically Sub-Saharan African. So even if King Tut was R1b, this would have no bearing on his total genetic makeup or his appearance.
So, ignoring a surface level understanding based on haplogroups, how does the total genetic composition of modern near-easterners compare with their ancient ancestors?
As is continuously shown by comparing modern Egyptian genetic tests with genetic tests on ancient mummies - there is a very clear genetic continuity with very little difference. This is not to say that the populations of the region have been static;
there has been a increase in Sub-Saharan and Anatolian admixture - but this is to a tiny degree and ignores the remarkable genetic continuity between the ancient and modern. Even if an ancient Egyptian had the haplogroup R1b,
the vast majority of his genetics would match up with a modern Egyptian ,not a European (nor any other group with R1b). This is also clearly evidenced by the continuity in phenotype that is the general features that distinguishes one group from another.
All ancient portraits of Egyptians - namely the Fayum portraits from two millennia ago, show that they looked no different from modern Egyptians. They do not have blonde hair or blue eyes, or black skin. They all have olive oil skin, and dark hair and dark eyes.
Further more, most AE mummies that were tested had J and E1B haplogroups, the two most common haplogroups in Egypt to this day. So there is no doubt which modern group is closest to the ancient Egyptians (modern Egyptians).
6- African-Americans/West Africans descend from ancient Egyptians.
African Americans are descendants of west African Bantu peoples that are not only geographically, but also genetically extremely far away from Egypt/Egyptians. Egyptians are west Eurasians, that cluster with other near eastern peoples.
Egyptians and Middle Easterners cluster far closer to European peoples, than any sub-Saharan African. Modern Egyptians also once more, cluster the closest to ancient Egyptians along with people with high levels of Natufian ancestry.
To conclude; modern and ancient Egyptians are the same people. It is extremely racist and disrespectful to claim otherwise as every genetic study has proven this.
