Black Egyptian hypothesis

The Black Egyptian hypothesis is the hypothesis that Ancient Egypt was a predominately Black civilization, as the term is currently understood in modern American ethic perception. Mainstream scholars recognize that many indigenous Egyptians (e.g. Nubians), including several Pharaohs, were of ancestry that, in the modern era, would be considered "black." The Black Egyptian hypothesis goes a lot further, claiming that Egypt, from north to south, was a black civilization. It includes a particular focus on identifying links to Sub Saharan cultures and the questioning of the race of specific notable individuals from Dynastic times, including Tutankhamun, the king represented in the Great Sphinx of Giza, and Cleopatra.

Since the second half of the 20th century, typological and hierarchical models of race have increasingly been rejected by scientists, and most (but not all) scholars have held that applying modern notions of race to ancient Egypt is anachronistic.

At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974, the Black hypothesis met with profound disagreement. Nearly all participants concluded that the Ancient Egyptian population was indigenous to the Nile Valley, and was made up of people from north and south of the Sahara who were differentiated by their color.

Some modern scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Chancellor Williams,Cheikh Anta Diop, John G. Jackson, Ivan van Sertima, Martin Bernal and Segun Magbagbeola have supported the theory that the Ancient Egyptian society was mostly Black. The frequently criticized Journal of African Civilizations has continually advocated that Egypt should be viewed as a Black civilization. The debate was popularized throughout the 20th century by the aforementioned scholars, with many of them using the terms "Black," "African," and "Egyptian" interchangeably, despite what Frank Snowden calls "copious ancient evidence to the contrary." In the mid 20th century, the proponents of the Black African theory presented what G. Mokhtar referred to as "extensive" and "painstakingly researched" evidence to support their views, which contrasted sharply with prevailing views on Ancient Egyptian society. Diop and others believed the prevailing views were fueled by scientific racism and based on poor scholarship. Diop used a multi-faceted approach to counteract prevailing views on the Ancient Egyptian's origins and ethnicity.

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