Excellent thread https://twitter.com/somesillywowzer/status/1334574405750558721

This one always interests me cause I went through a phase of being very very interested in Ancient Egypt when I was a kid.

I had a lot of children's books about Ancient Egypt. Most of the illustrations were either photos of things (statues, paintings, hieroglyphs) or drawings in the style of the art. I didn't really think about the colour of any of these people's skin -

(was a white kid in a very white area!). I was more interested in things like: PYRAMIDS! Counting in base 8! Mummification! Worshipping cats! HATSHEPUT! Thinking being centred on the heart not the head!

All of these books, however, had a very useful map, usually at the beginning, showing where Ancient Egypt was, the difference between Upper and Lower Egypt, and often situated explained where it was in relation to modern Egypt

So kid me had NO DOUBTS about where Egypt was. I was shit at a lot of geography, but I'd read SO MANY books on Ancient Egypt and they ALL HAD MAPS. It was in my brain.

So although white privilege meant I didn't really think about what skin colour Ancient Egyptians had, the first time it was suggested to me that they might have been white I had Serious Doubts. It did Not Make Sense.

This was before I'd even come across all the books and stuff talking about how aliens built the pyramids. I couldn't, aged 12, put my finger on why this was weird and wrong (IT WAS RACIST!) but I was Suspicious.

So like, although I no longer read about Ancient Egypt in an obsessive way, I really enjoyed Tonya's thread. It's FUCKING STUPID that this thread has to exist, but also, damn, those are some gorgeous images and beautiful comparison photos and I wish they had had -

- images and photo comparisons like that in all my kids books. Anyway, excellent thread, and thank you for putting it out here!