Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

egions: the Nile Valley and the vast, then green Sahara.
Starting from the late Paleolithic age the entire Nile Valley, from southern Sudan to northern Egypt, was populated
by a Negroid people. Similarly, the northwest region of Africa that is today the Sahara was also populated by these same
Negroid people. Diop rejected the claim by some anthropologists that ancient human skulls from Nagada in Lower Egypt
and Abydos and El Amra in Upper Egypt exhibit not only Negroid but also Germanic features. He pointed out that
similar skulls from well-known Black people such as the Ethiopians and Dravidians also exhibit the same characteristics
but are clearly not Germanic. Diop also pointed out that finding non-Negroid features in skulls does not necessarily mean
that living individuals were white. In Egypt some 1,787 skulls, dating from the predynastic period to the present day,
were examined and found to be 36 percent Negroid, 33 percent Mediterranean, 11 percent Cro-Magnon, and the rest
uncertain but most probably also Negroid. This shows, says Diop, that the original and pure Black Negroid race that first
inhabited Egypt eventually merged with a Mediterranean race to create the Egyptians that we know today.
Diop also rejected Flinders Petrie’s method of using symbolic images from ancient palettes to classify predynastic
and protodynastic Egyptians into six racial types: an aquiline type, which he equated to white-skinned Libyans; a plaitedbeard
type, which he equated to originating on the Red Sea; a sharp-nosed type, which he equated to coming from central
Arabia; a tilted-nose type, which he equated to coming from Middle Egypt; and a jutting-beard type, which he equated to
coming from Lower Egypt. Diop points out that even if we accept such simplistic classifications, current Egyptology
textbooks at best ignore the issue of racial origins or, at worst, flatly assert that the ancient Egyptians were white, leaving
the lay reader with the false impression that such assertions are based on solid research—which, of course, they are not.
Thus generations of readers have been misled to the false belief that the ancient Egyptian civilization owes little or
nothing to Africa. Diop accuses Egyptologists of going “around the difficulty today by speaking of red-skinned and
black-skinned whites without their sense of common logic being in the least upset.” 19 He argues that in ancient times, the
Greeks referred to all of Africa as Libya, which was a misnomer ab initio, because Africa contains many other peoples
besides the so-called Libyans, who belong among the whites of the northern or Mediterranean periphery. Diop was
justifiably repulsed by a textbook intended for middle and secondary school that explained that “a Black is distinguished
less by the color of his skin than by his features: thick lips, flattened nose . . .” 20 Diop points out that many of the reliefs
and murals from predynastic and early dynastic times in Egypt show
. . . the native-born blacks subjugating the foreign intruders into the valley . . . wherever the autochthonous racial
type is represented with any degree of clearness, it is evidently Negroid. Nowhere are the Indo-European and Semitic
elements shown even as ordinary freemen serving a local chief, but invariably as conquered foreigners. The rare
portrayals found are always shown with the distinctive marks of captivity, hands tied behind the back or strained
over the shoulders. A protodynastic figurine represents an Indo-European prisoner with a long plait on his knees,
with his hands bound tight to his body. The characteristics of the object itself show that it was intended as the foot of
a piece of furniture and represented a conquered race. 21
Diop argues that the two variants of the Black race—the straight-haired Dravidians in Asia and the Nubians and
Tebu, and the kinky-haired humans from the Equatorial regions—are found in the modern Egyptian population. Diop’s
silver bullet, however, was the proven scientific method that can determine skin-color by the analysis of the melanin
content in mummies from ancient Egyptians—and he insists that, contrary to the words of Egyptologists, it was entirely
possible to determine the melanin content of ancient mummies by microscopic analysis in the laboratory. Melanin, or,
more precisely, eumelanin, is a naturally produced polymer responsible for skin pigmentation. It is insoluble and can be
preserved for millions of years, such as in the skins of fossilized creatures. Diop claimed that it can be measured in the
skin of Egyptian mummies. Even though Egyptologists lament that the skin of mummies is tainted by embalming
material and thus is no longer susceptible to such analysis, Diop rejected this by showing that although the outer
epidermis is where the melanin is usually found, melanocytes are particles deeper in the skin where they are not destroyed
by the mummification process. From samples of common Egyptian mummies from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris,
Diop was able to show high melanin levels that are not found in white-skinned people. Diop wanted to apply the same
analysis to royal mummies kept in Egypt, but the Egyptian authorities refused to give him any samples—not even the few
millimeters of skin tissue that are required for such analysis.
Another criterion, which had proved successful in the past in determining racial origins, is the so-called Lepsius
Canon. This entails examining the bones of mummies’ bodies rather than their skulls. According to Diop, this method
shows that the “bodily proportions of the ideal Egyptian was short-armed and of Negroid or Negrito physical type.” 22 In