What Did Ancient Persians & Egyptians Look Like? Reddit
Aug 9, 2015 3:00:17 GMT
Post by Jack Loomes on Aug 9, 2015 3:00:17 GMT
I answered this question on Reddit about a week ago. It's hardly a peer reviewed paper, or even proofed, but you might find it an interesting read.
Kind Regards,
Bill
www.sword-site.com
[–]AlaeSwords
By the time of the Islamic expansion, which was effectively an Arab dominated migration, Ancient Egypt had already been conquered by Nubia, Nomads from the North, Greeks, Alexandrine Greeks and Romans. Probably though, if you were to look for modern descendants the best place to look would be the Copts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts
I don't know of any rebuilds of Pharonic faces I can link you to off hand but I'm sure they've been done. I have heard that North Africa dried out during early human expansion and so many tribes retreated to the Nile, resulting in a highly varied phenotype profile - the other theory is that Egypt was a race cradle, though I'm not sure how the latter theory has stood up to the human genome now having been mapped.
Persia is an interesting example because we know now that the Indo Europeans - the Aryans, came from near Persia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_migrations In fact as an Iranian pointed out in my linguistics class almost twenty years ago the words are linked Iran / Aryan. Even by the time of classical Greece it had been commented upon that the Persians were lighter in skin colour than Greeks. The big caveat ofcourse is that Persia fell to Alexander, but even prior to that Persia had absorbed many neighbouring states - so there was likely a wide variety of phenotypes in Persia, which like the USA was probably highly mixed in terms of racial origin.
There was an interesting study on the human genome published a couple of years ago that found that Roman DNA was about equally spread throughout Northern and Southern Europe; what was interesting about it was that Roman genotypes were not particularly concentrated in Italy - the Romans effectively interbred through all of Europe, which is similar to what Western Europeans did in the age of colonialisation.
It's interesting and ironic to note that some musicians with the heaviest anti-establisment / anti-anglosaxon agendas are themselves half white - Zach De La Rocha and Bob Marley are two examples that spring to mind:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_de_la_Rocha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marley
And then I remember reading that Michelle Rodriguez, who I'm sure many people would identify as definitely non-white was actually 72.4% European genetically.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rodriguez
What I find idiosyncratic about American concepts of race is the idea that whites are endangered somehow because white skin is a recessive trait, this idea seems to be particularly strong in the US, at least to us outsiders looking in by way of America media. When you look at the numbers however, and genetic mapping, you see that 'White' European DNA has actually been spread all over the globe and almost all other nations have been influenced by it during the age of sail and colonisation.
The Jews are another great example of the race puzzle. While many Jews insist that they are genetically distinct from their host nations, the studies provide conflicting results, and unfortunately are almost exclusively conducted by Jewish people, who by the tone of their findings, it is in my view fair to assume have a particular conclusion in mind prior to the undertaking of their studies - in conflict with basic scientific principles:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_of_Jewish_origins
In fact I'd go as far as to compare Jewish insistence on their own genetic 'uniqueness' being not dissimilar to Nazi race theory - Nazi scientists were adamant that they could identify a Nordic person through a blood sample alone.
My conclusion is that race is a social construct. We know that Caucasoids (Europe, Middle East, North Africa) and Asians intermingled with Neanderthal, and that Australian Aborigines intermingled with several other human variants. Other than that I don't think we can ever assign a particular 'look' to a 'race' with 100% accuracy, as human beings have, and will continue to find it novel and enjoyable to have sex with women and men from outside their own 'racial' group, and so while one person might look like a certain racial type - for instance Bob Marley or Zach de la Rocha - their genes often tell another story.
To truly study race we need to let go of our own tribalism, which historically has proved difficult for most researchers.
Bill Blake
www.sword-site.com
[–]sabzipolomahi
Definetly appreciate the in-depth answer. See because as an iranian descendent we really really appreciate the Persian culture. But I was always wondering in the back of my head "are we truly the descendants of Cyrus the Great, Darius etc.."
yes iran translates to "land of aryans" but I belive from what a read somewhere was that it wasn't referring to aryans race but more like the word aryan meant wise or something in some language.
[–]allhailkodos
In fact I'd go as far as to compare Jewish insistence on their own genetic 'uniqueness' being not dissimilar to Nazi race theory - Nazi scientists were adamant that they could identify a Nordic person through a blood sample alone.
You really want to go there?
[–]AlaeSwords
I do sincerely believe that the concept of the 'Super Race' - that of the Nazis, and 'the chosen people' concept that Judaism has clung to for dear life for millennia have remarkable likeness. It may in fact be the case that Aryanism in preWW2 was derived as a sort of antithesis to Jewish elitism.
For instance imagine a scenario where a young Adolf Hitler, whose mother was employed by a Rothschild was made to feel inferior as he was not himself Jewish, nor was his mother. Add to the mix that the Rothschilds are the descendants of the rich well and truly by the 20th century, and most rich dynasties tend to breed unpleasant selfish people generally regardless of race or creed - with all but few notable exceptions.
Adolf, being of a warlike disposition thinks to himself "You are not better than me! I am the descendant of the same German tribes who destroyed the Romans in the Teutoberg Forest! I am better than you, you lowly invader who rely upon German blood being shed to defend your right as a Jew to hold yourself above all others!" If you've read Mein Kampf then I'm sure you can see how plausible it was that the flames of hatred were unleashed in Hitler and Germany in a way that ran something like this; both man and country already suffering greatly from the random hand of fate and full of rage ready to be unleashed on a suitable target.
In many ways we can see Hitler as the initiator of a showdown that was almost inevitable - Übermensch versus the Chosen People of God.
Frankly I think both groups are highly deluded.
I believe that all races are capable of greatness.
I do not believe in the IQ Test model where we can rank one race above another, I think the whole thing is bullshit. Stable political systems, the abandonment of religion to science and socialism like a good medical system that does not disown the poor - coupled with high levels of personal safety and respect for the individual breed the most powerful countries. This is what the US had in the beginning, and I do not think that any 'race' in America can take credit for the US' success. Rather it was the ability of the individual to get ahead regardless of pedigree which made America great, though sadly this never extended to many of the US's minorities. Meritocracy is the way forward. The Han Chinese Empire is a fantastic, if not extremely bloody example of the power of meritocracy over plutocracy and feudalism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty
My Grandfather was a Lancaster Pilot in WW2, and numerous relatives fought and one died in WW1, so I'm not secretly carrying a torch for Hitler, I actually think he was a very dinted and despicable person, much like Stalin and Mao.
Kind Regards,
Bill
www.sword-site.com
[–]AlaeSwords
By the time of the Islamic expansion, which was effectively an Arab dominated migration, Ancient Egypt had already been conquered by Nubia, Nomads from the North, Greeks, Alexandrine Greeks and Romans. Probably though, if you were to look for modern descendants the best place to look would be the Copts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts
I don't know of any rebuilds of Pharonic faces I can link you to off hand but I'm sure they've been done. I have heard that North Africa dried out during early human expansion and so many tribes retreated to the Nile, resulting in a highly varied phenotype profile - the other theory is that Egypt was a race cradle, though I'm not sure how the latter theory has stood up to the human genome now having been mapped.
Persia is an interesting example because we know now that the Indo Europeans - the Aryans, came from near Persia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_migrations In fact as an Iranian pointed out in my linguistics class almost twenty years ago the words are linked Iran / Aryan. Even by the time of classical Greece it had been commented upon that the Persians were lighter in skin colour than Greeks. The big caveat ofcourse is that Persia fell to Alexander, but even prior to that Persia had absorbed many neighbouring states - so there was likely a wide variety of phenotypes in Persia, which like the USA was probably highly mixed in terms of racial origin.
There was an interesting study on the human genome published a couple of years ago that found that Roman DNA was about equally spread throughout Northern and Southern Europe; what was interesting about it was that Roman genotypes were not particularly concentrated in Italy - the Romans effectively interbred through all of Europe, which is similar to what Western Europeans did in the age of colonialisation.
It's interesting and ironic to note that some musicians with the heaviest anti-establisment / anti-anglosaxon agendas are themselves half white - Zach De La Rocha and Bob Marley are two examples that spring to mind:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_de_la_Rocha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marley
And then I remember reading that Michelle Rodriguez, who I'm sure many people would identify as definitely non-white was actually 72.4% European genetically.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rodriguez
What I find idiosyncratic about American concepts of race is the idea that whites are endangered somehow because white skin is a recessive trait, this idea seems to be particularly strong in the US, at least to us outsiders looking in by way of America media. When you look at the numbers however, and genetic mapping, you see that 'White' European DNA has actually been spread all over the globe and almost all other nations have been influenced by it during the age of sail and colonisation.
The Jews are another great example of the race puzzle. While many Jews insist that they are genetically distinct from their host nations, the studies provide conflicting results, and unfortunately are almost exclusively conducted by Jewish people, who by the tone of their findings, it is in my view fair to assume have a particular conclusion in mind prior to the undertaking of their studies - in conflict with basic scientific principles:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_of_Jewish_origins
In fact I'd go as far as to compare Jewish insistence on their own genetic 'uniqueness' being not dissimilar to Nazi race theory - Nazi scientists were adamant that they could identify a Nordic person through a blood sample alone.
My conclusion is that race is a social construct. We know that Caucasoids (Europe, Middle East, North Africa) and Asians intermingled with Neanderthal, and that Australian Aborigines intermingled with several other human variants. Other than that I don't think we can ever assign a particular 'look' to a 'race' with 100% accuracy, as human beings have, and will continue to find it novel and enjoyable to have sex with women and men from outside their own 'racial' group, and so while one person might look like a certain racial type - for instance Bob Marley or Zach de la Rocha - their genes often tell another story.
To truly study race we need to let go of our own tribalism, which historically has proved difficult for most researchers.
Bill Blake
www.sword-site.com
[–]sabzipolomahi
Definetly appreciate the in-depth answer. See because as an iranian descendent we really really appreciate the Persian culture. But I was always wondering in the back of my head "are we truly the descendants of Cyrus the Great, Darius etc.."
yes iran translates to "land of aryans" but I belive from what a read somewhere was that it wasn't referring to aryans race but more like the word aryan meant wise or something in some language.
[–]allhailkodos
In fact I'd go as far as to compare Jewish insistence on their own genetic 'uniqueness' being not dissimilar to Nazi race theory - Nazi scientists were adamant that they could identify a Nordic person through a blood sample alone.
You really want to go there?
[–]AlaeSwords
I do sincerely believe that the concept of the 'Super Race' - that of the Nazis, and 'the chosen people' concept that Judaism has clung to for dear life for millennia have remarkable likeness. It may in fact be the case that Aryanism in preWW2 was derived as a sort of antithesis to Jewish elitism.
For instance imagine a scenario where a young Adolf Hitler, whose mother was employed by a Rothschild was made to feel inferior as he was not himself Jewish, nor was his mother. Add to the mix that the Rothschilds are the descendants of the rich well and truly by the 20th century, and most rich dynasties tend to breed unpleasant selfish people generally regardless of race or creed - with all but few notable exceptions.
Adolf, being of a warlike disposition thinks to himself "You are not better than me! I am the descendant of the same German tribes who destroyed the Romans in the Teutoberg Forest! I am better than you, you lowly invader who rely upon German blood being shed to defend your right as a Jew to hold yourself above all others!" If you've read Mein Kampf then I'm sure you can see how plausible it was that the flames of hatred were unleashed in Hitler and Germany in a way that ran something like this; both man and country already suffering greatly from the random hand of fate and full of rage ready to be unleashed on a suitable target.
In many ways we can see Hitler as the initiator of a showdown that was almost inevitable - Übermensch versus the Chosen People of God.
Frankly I think both groups are highly deluded.
I believe that all races are capable of greatness.
I do not believe in the IQ Test model where we can rank one race above another, I think the whole thing is bullshit. Stable political systems, the abandonment of religion to science and socialism like a good medical system that does not disown the poor - coupled with high levels of personal safety and respect for the individual breed the most powerful countries. This is what the US had in the beginning, and I do not think that any 'race' in America can take credit for the US' success. Rather it was the ability of the individual to get ahead regardless of pedigree which made America great, though sadly this never extended to many of the US's minorities. Meritocracy is the way forward. The Han Chinese Empire is a fantastic, if not extremely bloody example of the power of meritocracy over plutocracy and feudalism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty
My Grandfather was a Lancaster Pilot in WW2, and numerous relatives fought and one died in WW1, so I'm not secretly carrying a torch for Hitler, I actually think he was a very dinted and despicable person, much like Stalin and Mao.
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