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Jacob Fargo
Writing & Rhetoric
28 October 2014
Annotated Bibliography
Working Title: The Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy: Origins of an Empire
Research Question: Based on scientific evidence and depictions of the Ancient Egyptians, to which race
did the Ancient Egyptian civilization belong, and what implications does this have on the suppression of
cultures?

"Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy." Cyclopedia.I nfo. N.p., 2013. Web. 28 October 2014.
Cyclopedia.Info is an online encyclopedia that gathers information from the inter-webs on a large
variety of topics. Because it is not a published source, I do not intend to utilize statements from
their article, but rather I intend to use some of their information regarding the history of scientific
racism and the origins of the controversy. Cyclopedia.net informs the reader that the controversy
arose out of scientific racism in the 19
th
and 20
th
century and in retaliation to it, Afro-centrists
developed their own theory. This article will help my reader to see some of the background
behind the argument. Setting up the argument is crucial, and I Cyclopedia introduces the
distinction between black African and Caucasian very well.

Bard, Kathryn A. "Ancient Egyptians and the Issue of Race." Bostonia Magazine1996. Web. 28
October 2014.
This is a Primary magazine article from historical analyst and writer Kathryn A. Bard,
professor of Archaeology. Director of Undergraduate Studies, at Boston University.
Kathryn argues that the Great Sphinx of Giza, which was originally thought to be a
depiction of Khafre, who is thought to be Arabic, bears little resemblance to the former
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pharaoh. Bard did a facial reconstruction project on the Sphinx and contends that the
undoubtedly Negroid features of the Sphinx, along with other artistic depictions of
Egyptians in other cultures artworks, is proof of the sub-Saharan origins of the Ancient
Egyptians. I could utilize this information by showing a scholarly viewpoint on a
depiction of Egyptian art. A useable passage reads: More recently, in 1992, the New
York Times published an article reporting the findings of Frank Domingo, a
senior forensics artist with the New York City Police Department who had traveled to
Egypt to take exact measurements of the Sphinx's head. Domingo, credited with
convening the first national gathering of forensic artists almost ten years earlier,
generated a model of the head of the Sphinx both by hand and utilizing computer
graphics, and determined that the Sphinx represented a person other than Khafra.
According to Robert M. Schoch of Boston University, "forensic expert Frank Domingo
of the New York Police Department has definitively proven that the face of the Sphinx
face of the Sphinx and the face seen on signed statues of Khafre are not of the same
person." Schoch further wrote that the "Sphinx has a distinctive 'African,' 'Nubian,' or
'Negroid' aspect which is lacking in the face of Khafre.

Champollion, Jean-Franois. Egypt Ancienne(1839). Web. 11 28 October.
Champollion was a 19
th
century Egyptologist and decipherer of Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
Unlike others scholars from his time, Champollion believed that the Ancient Egyptians
were cross-bred blacks. He compared this group to the (at that time) modern day Copts of
northern Egypt, a mixed ethnic group. Champollion stated that in Egyptian tombs, there
was no distinction between Nubians (blacks) and Egyptians. Champollion states,
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"The Copts are the proper representatives of the Ancient Egyptians" due to their
"jaundiced and fumed skin, which is neither Greek, Negro nor Arab, their full faces, their
puffy eyes, their crushed noses, and their thick lips...the ancient Egyptians were true
negroes of the same type as all native born Africans." I can use this journal to provide an
alternative viewpoint when scientific racism was at its peak.

Dain, Bruce R. A Hideous Monster of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Web. 28 October 2014.
Professor of History at the University of Utah, Bruce Dain explains biological and scientific
racism from the 1800s to the present day. Dain does this primarily by giving examples in the
American slavery times as well as in modern accounts of Ancient Egypt. Bruce gives accounts of
scholars defacing and hiding artifacts and tombs in Egyptian ruins. I can utilize Dains work to
show the harms of scientific racism and explain how it is used to suppress cultures. I plan to
move onto the bigger idea concerning the consequences of not recognizing races that contributed
to Ancient Egyptian society, and since scientific racism is a cause of this suppression, Dains
book should be implemented well.

Morton, Samuel G. "Negroes of Egypt." 1854. Web. 28 October 2014.
1850s professor of science and anatomy, Samuel G. Morton, displays a classic sense of
scientific racism. Typical of Caucasian scholars at the time, Morton upheld the ideal that
a race hierarchy had developed in Ancient Egypt. Morton is credited with ending the
debate over the issue, until the 20
th
century. In his lecture, Negroes of Egypt, Morton
states, Negroes were numerous in Egypt, but their social position in ancient times was
the same that it now is [in the United States], that of servants and slaves." I can use
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Mortons work as an example of scientific racism, and the other extreme in juxtaposition
to the Black Egyptian Theory.

Redford, Donald B. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2001. Web. 28 October 2014.
Donald Redford is a Canadian Egyptologist and a Professor of classics at Pennsylvania
State University. Redford argues that applying race to the Ancient Egyptians is can only be
done by present day cultural boundaries, as in the Ancient times, they all comprised of one
culture. Redford also discounts scientific evidence due to this. Redford argues, "Any
characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depends on modern cultural definitions,
not on scientific study. I can apply Redfords evidence to take the focus off the subject of
scientific studies.




Snowden, Frank. Blacks in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Belkap, 1970. Web. 28 October
2014.

Frank Snowden was an American Professor at Howard University, best known for this
book, concerning Negroid races in antiquity. Frank Snowden rejects theories of societal
hierarchy in Egypt based on race, and thus, rejects scientific racisms viewpoints. He
maintains, "Egyptians, Greeks and Romans attached no special stigma to the colour of the
skin and developed no hierarchical notions of race whereby highest and lowest positions in
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the social pyramid were based on colour." I can utilize Snowden by citing him and arguing
the theories that one race controlled the others. Snowdens statements can also be used to
exhibit the superficiality of the suppression of races.

Yurco, Frank. "Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White?" BAR MagazineSept. 1989.
Web. 28 October.
The late Frank Yurco is a world renowned Egyptologist known for his work on dissecting
the culture of the Ancient Egyptians as well as exploring their ruins in the 1980s. In this
article, Yurco argues that the Ancient Egyptians were neither black nor white. He argues
that as Egypt was a trading post, the originally multi-hued African races intermingled
with the Arabic and European Races. Frank affirms that the Ancient Egyptians were
comparable in ethnic proportionality to modern day Americans, due to how blended their
cultures were. Yurco states, Was Nefertiti "black" or "white"? The ancient Egyptians did
not think in these terms. The whole matter of black or white Egyptians is a chimera,
cultural baggage from our own society that can only be imposed artificially on ancient
Egyptian society. The ancient Egyptians, like their modem descendants, were of varying
complexions of color, from the light Mediterranean type (like Nefertiti), to the light
brown of Middle Egypt, to the darker brown of Upper Egypt, to the darkest shade around
Aswan and the First Cataract region, where even today, the population shifts to Nubian.
Ancient and modern Egyptian hair ranges from straight to wavy to woolly; in color, it
varies from reddish brown to dark brown to black. Lips range thin to full. Many
Egyptians possess a protrusive jaw. Noses vary from high-bridgedstraight to arched or
even hookedto flat-bridged, with bulbous to broad nostrils. In short, ancient Egypt, like
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modern Egypt, consisted of a very heterogeneous population. This passage can be used
to explain how much Egyptian physical characteristics vary.

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