Anthropology has proven that ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians are the same people despite all of the past invasions in the past few thousand years.
Some of the mummies like Ramses have red hair but modern Egyptians can also have red hair. Also, archaeological hair sometimes turns red:
"The common misconception that all hair turns red over archaeological timescales has found its way into archaeological folklore.
Whilst certain environments such as those producing bog bodies are known to yield hair of a red-brown color, in part because of the breakdown of organic matter and presence of humic acids which impart a brown color to recovered remains, it has commonly been assumed that this happens to all archaeological hair. This concept has been perpetuated by popular nicknames such as "Ginger"--affectionately given to the Predynastic burial with red hair on display in the mummy rooms at the British Museum.
Potential change to hair color can be explained more scientifically by examining the chemistry of melanin which is responsible for hair color in life. All hair contains a mixture in varying concentration of both black-brown eumelanin and red-yellow phaeomelanin pigments, which are susceptible to differential chemical change under certain extreme burial conditions (for example wet reducing conditions, or dry oxidising conditions). Importantly, phaeomelanin is much more stable to environmental conditions than eumelanin, hence the reactions occurring in the burial environment favor the preservation of phaeomelanin, revealing and enhancing the red/ yellow color of hairs containing this pigment.
Color changes occur slowly under dry oxidising conditions, such as in the burials in sand at Hierakonpolis. Whether the conditions within the wood and plaster coffin contributed to accelerated color change, or whether this individual naturally had more phaeomelanin pigmentation in his hair is hard to say without further analysis."
http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/field/hair.htmlHere is the proof that modern Egyptians and ancient Egyptians are the same people:
From the the
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt:
"In spite of evidence against scientific race, both Egyptologists and Afrocentric scholars often continue attempts to define the Egyptians as a member of an essentialist racial category, usually attempting to link them either to a supposed "Caucasoid" or "Negroid/Africoid" phenotype. Such models imply that the founders of pharaonic Egypt came from Sub-Saharan Africa, western Asia, or Europe/Transcaucasus. While there was some immigration from all these areas,
physical anthropology has demonstrated the fundamental continuity of ancient and modern Egyptian populations."
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From the
Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation:
On page 53 the dendrogram of ancient skulls shows that ancient Egyptians were most related to modern Egyptians:
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According to John Shea whose
eductation/credentials are:
Ph.D (Anthropology) Harvard University, 1991.
BA (Archaeology) Boston University, 1982.
What race were the Ancient Egyptians and are modern day Egyptians the same people as the Ancient Egyptians?
"If by "race" you mean the categories Anglo-American culture uses, then "black" or "African", though as I am sure you know, there is a lot of variation in both so-called races. When the ancient Egyptians painted themselves, they usually colored themselves a kind of reddish orange (men) or white/yellow (women). They painted their neighbors to the south (Nubians) very dark brown/black and Libyans yellow, so they clearly differentiated themselves from other Africans on the basis of skin color.
Same people as in ancient times. Any biological differences are negligible, though you'd probably be able to get a precise estimate by comparing DNA. Bottom line, would Tutankamun have had trouble getting served at a whites-only lunch counter in 1950s Alabama? Definitely.
Cheers,
John Shea"
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Anthropology-2291/2009/8/Race-Ancient-Egyptians-2.htm
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Topic: Modern-day Egyptians are practically the same as ancient-Egyptians genetically (Read 7441 times)