outlawauron said:
Samus Aran said:
I've written my thesis on Roman perception of "black" people. I came to the conclusion that Romans viewed ancient Egyptians as black. Other black groups included the Garamantians (had a wealthy kingdom centered around Fezzan), the Mauri and even the Carthaginians. There's enough literary and artistic evidence to back up my claims.
Roman perceptions were both negative and positive. There were no uniform views about black people in the ancient world.
Succesful black Romans include C. Julius Serenus (a wealthy Roman, as proven by a mosaic in his funerary monument), Lusius Quietus (a succesful Roman general who could've become Emperor had Hadrianus not killed him) and Terentius Afer (one of the greatest Roman playwrighters).
My thesis is in Dutch, otherwise I could've just given you the document. To claim ancient Egyptians were white is racist.
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Wouldn't it just be wrong? Wouldn't they fit in with Mediterrean or Arab more than African? I don't think racism has a part in it.
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No, Romans constantly refer to ancient Egyptians as being a lot darker than the Roman somatic norm. Some Romans (Diodorus Siculus for example) claimed ancient Egyptians were colonists from Ethiopia.
Romans didn't think of themselves as "white" either, but as "palebrown". They detested people with fair skin like the Gauls, Scythians, etc.
There's also enough scientific evidence that Egypt was an African kingdom (language, dna, etc)
