I wanted to know everyones' opinions regarding the controversy that surrounds the racial makeup of Ancient Egypt. I wil present my theory and evidence and I invite everyone else to do the same.

MY THEORY:
Racially speaking, the inhabitants of Egypt at this period in time were divided into three groups. Skeletal evidence from grave sites show that the original White Mediterraneans and Proto-Nordics were in a majority in the area - a well preserved body found in a sand grave in Egypt dating from approximately 3000 BC, on display in the British Museum in London, has even been nicknamed "Ginger" because of his red hair - a racial trait only found in persons of Nordic ancestry.

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A well preserved body from the pre-dynastic period in Egypt, circa 3,300 BC. Buried in a sand grave, the natural dryness of the surroundings kept the body preserved. His red hair (and thus Nordic features) have been so well preserved that he has been given the nickname "Ginger" at the British Museum where he is kept on public display.

However, diggings also reveal a significant minority of Semitic (Arabic) peoples were living in the Nile Delta valley alongside the Whites, and in the very far south (in what later became southern Egypt and the Sudan) lived a large number of Blacks. These were the Nubians who were to feature in Egypt's history - and against whom the Egyptians waged war and enslaved for nearly 2,000 years.

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Above: A Nordic Egyptian Female Pharaoh: Queen Hatshepsut, wife of Pharaoh Thutmosis II. She ruled Egypt after Thutmosis' death in 1520 BC. Her long blonde hair and Nordic facial structure has been well preserved by the embalming process of the time.

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Above: An original wooden statue of the Egyptian King Hor (circa 1783 - 1633 BC) is inlaid with striking blue eyes. (On display at the Cairo Museum, Cairo, Egypt).

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Tutankhamen's famous wooden chest, which was found in the ante-chamber of his tomb, contains yet another striking scene. On its sides, it shows the Egyptian King riding a chariot and trampling the "Nine Bows" or enemies of Egypt: Blacks and Semites.

(cont.)

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Above: Another lifelike statue from the 5th Dynasty, that of Ka-aaper, found at Saqara, alabaster inlay eyes.

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Above: A detail from the inside of the golden chariot of Tutankhamun, showing a bound Black, or Nubian, prisoner. One of many overtly racial images found amongst the boy king's possessions.

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Above: A detail from Tutankhamun's famous wooden box, showing Egyptian dogs biting Black Nubians.

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Above: Another detail from the same box, showing Tutankahmun as a sphinx, trampling a Black and a Semite.

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Above-Top: The White racial features of the vizier Hemiunu, who was the architect for the Great Pyramids of Giza, entrusted with that task by Pharaoh Cheops himself, dates from circa 2650 BC.His White racial features contrast strongly with, Above-Bottom, a 26th Nubian dynasty (circa 600 BC) statue of the goddess Isis, who is shown with distinctly ******* features. These two statues reflect the changed nature of the population of Egypt - with the 600 BC statue reflecting the fact that by that time period, the majority of Egypt's population was of mixed race, as contrasted with the situation some 2000 years earlier when the statue of Hemiunu was made. The Ancient Egyptian civilization collapsed utterly after the 26th dynasty, the second Nubian era, and Egypt then descended into Third World anarchy from which it has never recovered.

I have heard several places that Egyptians of the Old Kingdom were more of a Mediterranian type, that is they resembled peoples of central or southern europe. In later years, Egypt was criss crossed by Semetic peoples from Canaan and Mesopotania, as well as Hebrew peoples. They were also conquered by darker people from Kush and Nubia. The modern people of Egypt are a result of these racial mixture.

One other note: I remember that one of the original terrorists who was convicted in the terrorist attack on the world trade center in the 1990's (not the recent one) was an Egyptian with red hair. That is why he was called "the red"

One think I definately believe, I dont think that Moses looked at all like Charleston Heston.

Originally posted by Criminal
I have heard several places that Egyptians of the Old Kingdom were more of a Mediterranian type, that is they resembled peoples of central or southern europe. In later years, Egypt was criss crossed by Semetic peoples from Canaan and Mesopotania, as well as Hebrew peoples. They were also conquered by darker people from Kush and Nubia. The modern people of Egypt are a result of these racial mixture.

One other note: I remember that one of the original terrorists who was convicted in the terrorist attack on the world trade center in the 1990's (not the recent one) was an Egyptian with red hair. That is why he was called "the red"

One think I definately believe, I dont think that Moses looked at all like Charleston Heston.
BTW did anyone see the movie, "The Egyptian". I have always loved historical epics and this was one of the best, though most overlooked movies of this genre. It stared Charleston Heston as the Pharo's personal physician. I dont recall what pharo but it was the one who stared the new cult of the sun god (Amon Ra, I believe). Maybe if someone has more info on this they can let me know about it.

Didn't see the movie. The Discovery station just had a documentary on the Pyramids in Egypt and others around the globe.

The Pyramids and Sphynx date back to at least 10,500 BC.

Originally posted by Snouter
Didn't see the movie. The Discovery station just had a documentary on the Pyramids in Egypt and others around the globe.

The Pyramids and Sphynx date back to at least 10,500 BC.
Are you sure they are that old? I had read somewhere that the oldest known city was Jerico which existed in 8000 BC. If the pyrmids are that old it must have been an amazing feat for any people of that time to have built them.

Originally posted by Criminal

Are you sure they are that old? I had read somewhere that the oldest known city was Jerico which existed in 8000 BC. If the pyrmids are that old it must have been an amazing feat for any people of that time to have built them.

Most egyptologists do not think they are that old. There is some evidence that they are, but there is more evidence that they are more recent. The opinions could change, but as of now, they are more like 5000 years old.

Originally posted by Thutmose


Most egyptologists do not think they are that old. There is some evidence that they are, but there is more evidence that they are more recent. The opinions could change, but as of now, they are more like 5000 years old. I once had an archictectural history course in college. What we learned that the Pyramids were the worlds first public works project. At the time the pyrmids were built, the Nile had flooded and left many people homeless and presumably jobless. To put the various people to work, the Pharos decided to build these elaborate memorials. The workers were fed a diet of onions.

One of the shafts within the Great Pyramid give clues as to its age, or a very significant date. The earth wobbles every 27,000 years. This creates procession in which the nigh sky changes 1 degree every 72 years. By using math, someone interpolated back to when the third belt star of Orion is aligned one of the Pyramid's 200 foot hollow shafts (the only star the ever passes across the plane of the shaft). This corresponds to a hundred year range about 10,500 BC which was end of last ice age.

The severe weathering on the Sphynx (it was recarved and originally a lion head) indicates construction possible before the last ice age ended (which could be a few thousand years before 10,500).

200 ton cubes were extracted by whomever built the Sphynx in a very efficient manner.

But, it is true that the Ankor Watt temples dated at 1000 AD in the jungle Cambodia has a similar setup that corresponds to Draco constellation at 10,000 BC.

I did some looking around, and the only thing I find is that the pyramids line up to Orion's belt in about 2500 BC. The engineer who did this analysis of Orion's belt in the 1980's, Robert Bauval, does not claim that the year of alignment is nowhere near 10500 BC. This 10,500 year is not what is commonly found in sources on the "Orion Mystery"

Good point. Graham Hancock theorized that the pyramids were constructed based on an unusual alignment of stars 10,500 BC, but the builders may have had the technology to calculate what the sky looked like back in time.

Robert Bauval comments on Graham Hancock's site:

This astronomical conjunction, which only occurs in c. 10,500 BC, does not, of course, mean that the monuments themselves were constructed in that remote epoch. What it does is suggest that the ancient pyramid builders of Giza wanted to define the 'beginning' and the cosmic order of the world in a grandiose architectural symbolic plan. It also adds more cogency to the argument that the ancient Egyptians not only observed and recorded the stars over vast periods of time, but that they were well-aware of the effects of Precession.

http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BauvalR2-p1.htm

Graham Hancock indicating he is open to the 2500 BC constuction theory....

A Position Statement From Graham Hancock On The Antiquity And Meaning Of The Giza Monuments
22 July 1998

I am the author of "Fingerprints of the Gods" and the co-author (with Robert Bauval) of "Keeper of Genesis" (entitled "The Message of the Sphinx" in the United States).

Before continuing I advise all who are interested in this position statement to read first the critique of my work posted by Martin Stower on his website (http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~martins/Pyramid/kogenesis.html). Please also refer to John Anthony West's open letter to Martin Stower posted on Egyptnews.

Re the 'quarry mark' hieroglyphs in the relieving chambers above the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid, I have rightly been taken to task for uncritically supporting Zecharia Sitchin's forgery theory. I reported this theory in Fingerprints (published 1995) and in Keeper/Message (published 1996).

As an author and researcher I hope that my work will always be 'in progress' and never finished or set in stone. When I come across new evidence that casts doubt on theories that I previously endorsed I am ready to change my views and admit to past mistakes.

As John West kindly reported in his open letter to Stower I have changed my views on the validity of the forgery theory. The relieving chambers are strictly off limits to the public and are extremely difficult to gain access to. I had been unable to obtain permission to visit them prior to the publication of
Keeper/Message in 1996. However, in December 1997, Dr Zahi Hawass allowed me to spend an entire day exploring these chambers. There were no restrictions on where I looked and I had ample time to examine the hieroglyphs closely, under powerful lights. Cracks in some of the joints reveal hieroglyphs set far back into the masonry. No 'forger' could possibly have reached in there after the blocks had been set in place - blocks, I should add, that weigh tens of tons each and that are immovably interlinked with one another. The only reasonable conclusion is the one which orthodox Egyptologists have already long held - namely that the hieroglyphs are genuine Old Kingdom graffiti and that they were daubed on the blocks before construction began.

I have stated my view on this matter several times in public lectures during and indeed before 1998. In my September 1998 book "Heaven's Mirror" (with photographer Santha Faiia), and in the accompanying television series "Quest for the Lost Civilization", I likewise make absolutely clear my full acceptance that the Great Pyramid (or at any rate most of it) was built during the Fourth Dynasty.

This is not a sudden conversion. Although I was still open to the erroneous forgery theory while Keeper/Message was being written, I was also very much open to the orthodox theory that the Giza pyramids were Fourth Dynasty work - irrespective of the provenance of the quarry marks. The central thesis of Keeper/Message -- that the Giza monuments were built to commemorate the sky of 10,500 BC -- does not require us to conclude that all the monuments were necessarily built in that epoch. On the contrary I wrote in Keeper/Message that "the Great Pyramid must have some extremely strong connection with the epoch of 2500 BC - the approximate date at which all orthodox Egyptologists and archaeologists in fact believe it to have been built." Earlier, in Fingerprints of the Gods, I suggested that the ground-plan of the Giza monuments might have been devised in 10,500 BC but that the monuments themselves could have been built over an 8000-year period (from 10,500 BC down to 2500 BC). I pointed out that the Great Pyramid's famous star shafts unequivocally link the monument to the epoch of 2500 BC and that the construction levels through which the shafts run might be explained as "the later work of the same long-lived cult that laid out the Giza ground-plan in 10,450 BC.'

Robert Bauval and I have jointly evolved a tentative 'theory of Giza' over the past five years of our work together. Briefly this theory -- which we offer as a serious alternative to the orthodox 'tombs and tombs only' hypothesis -- is that the three great pyramids of Giza, and the Great Sphinx, form a symbolic architectural model of some of the principal stars of the Duat sky-region (through which the Pharaohs believed that their souls would travel after death) as that sky-region appeared at dawn on the spring equinox in the epoch of 10,500 BC. Citing the geological findings of John Anthony West and Robert Schoch, we have argued, and continue to maintain, that the Great Sphinx and its associated megalithic structures may actually have been built in that distant epoch. We have also argued, and continue to maintain, that the three great pyramids in general are likely to be much younger than the Sphinx and that they should probably be assigned to the Fourth Dynasty (rather than to any other period) because of the alignments of the star shafts.

Ultimately, however, our hypothesis does not stand or fall on the precise dates at which individual monuments were built. A symbolic architectural model of the Duat sky region as it last appeared in 10,500 BC could theoretically have been designed in any epoch (I repeat, in any epoch) by any culture possessing a knowledge of the astronomical cycle of precession and of how it alters stellar positions over long periods of time.

In short, we are more interested in why such a model was built than when it was built.

For the record I believe that Khufu did build the Great Pyramid - or anyway most of it (perhaps the subterranean chamber and some other rock-hewn parts of the structure may be earlier).
For the record I do not believe that Khufu built the Pyramid as his tomb. The very fact that his name only appears within the monument in the form of quarry marks accidentally left behind in inaccessible chambers goes to prove that he was not such an ego-maniac. I think that he built it for another purpose altogether - a far loftier and much more mysterious purpose. Further details are provided in my forthcoming book "Heaven's Mirror" (UK and US publication, late September 1998) and in the accompanying TV series 'Quest For The Lost Civilization' (The Learning Chanel, US, August, 1998; Channel 4, UK, September/October 1998).

Graham Hancock
Devon, England, 22 July 1998

Everyone loves reading about the pyramids and all of the Egyptology stuff. Its so interesting. But yeah, I do actually have something to say. I think that the pyramids were not just tombs built to honor dead pharaohs. I would agree with the assumption that the pyramids were planned out 10,500 years ago. One of the most interesting facts that I heard about the pyramids was that if you overlay a picture of Orion's Belt over an aerial picture of the pyramids, they correlate almost perfectly, even to the point that the fainter star in the constellation is represented by the smaller of the 3 pyramids. OK, I don't know if I sound really stupid because everyone already knew this, or I'm adding something. But yeah, that's my opinion. Planned long ago and in the process of building over a very long period of time. Like thousands of years.