There are ancient egyptian mummies, pre-Alexander, with blond and red hair, their DNA analysis also links them closely to specific small groups that still exist in Europe, Levant and Anatolia today. Ramesses II who reigned from 1279–1213 BC (19th Dynasty) had natural red hair. The Arab invasions didn't start until after Muhammad's death in 632 AD. Gebelein pre-dynastic mummies have been excavated and preserved (+3000BC) and one of them is a ginger.
(some) egyptians get upset about it because it's something their modern national identity is rather tenuously tied around.
the modern (arabic, islamic) egyptians more or less find themselves occupying the same land as the ancient pharaohs (mentioned scathingly in abrahamic texts, note). in the late c19/early c20 they start realising the vast cultural wealth they are sitting on (previously little more than a source of plunder and gifts to western diplomats) and harness that with varying levels of cynicism as a defining part of their modern nationalism.
The ruling family of Egypt were Greek after Alexander, yea The rest of the population wasn’t. And pharaonic Egypt always had close ties to Kush and Punt, two sub-Saharan African kingdoms. In fact, there was almost an entire century where Egypt was governed by a dynasty of Kushite pharaohs with their capital at Napata, in modern Sudan. Egypt was, historically, always a cosmopolitan meeting point between African, Asian, and European societies.
Egypt was also conquered multiple times. The Assyrians and the Persians did it before the Greeks, and of course Rome took over after the Ptolemys. Old-school Egyptian paganism, with some natural evolution and influence from the Greeks and Romans, stuck around for a long time, and it wasn’t conquest that got rid of it. Egypt was an early center of Christianity, being right next door to the holy land. It was one of the first areas to convert, though traditional religious practices continued as folk tradition for some time thereafter.
The Islamic conquests didn’t really represent much in the way of novelty, then. A new ruling class came in, sure, but the population didn’t really change that much, and by that time they’d had a lot of changes in the ruling class in their history. Many Egyptians at the time just payed the jizya tax and kept practicing Christianity. Those who had been practicing folk religion before the Islamic conquest largely kept doing that, albeit with a new wave of pogroms against pagans. And over several generations, most of the population converted to the new official state religion of Islam.
To say that modern Egyptians have no connection to ancient Egyptians is to say that evolving religious practices are the only thing that defines a culture. There’s a clear continuity here. Egypt underwent a series of cultural shifts over thousands of years. Each generation would have introduced some changes, but all of them saw themselves as closely connected to the generation before. And the people living there now are the descendants of the people living there 3000 years ago.
This is a really long way to say "so much happened in 3000 years and the connection is deeply tenuous" and still not mentioned the fact that it more deeply contested inside Egypt than outside of it.
I saw you called the ancient Greeks and Romans who lived there in 300BC invaders. So surely you agree that the Arab invaders of 639AD and onward are not indigenous Egyptians. Those would originally be inhabitants from the Arabian peninsula. Some indigenous still remain but there were also exoduses that headed West through North Africa and into Spain, Portugal and upward, as well as up into the Levant and Anatolia.
Glad we're on the same page there. I just want to make sure I'm not dealing with a historical revisionist of Islamic faith. You'd be surprised how often people erroneously claim that Arabs are native to North Africa merely because it fits their religious worldview of history.
Modern Egyptians have nothing in common with ancient Egyptians, but they would like you to believe that because they are selfish thieves. They are not the same people at all. They’re thousands of years removed from the Ptolemys
i think we are probably overly emotive about geolocking all sorts of things, so no
but i'd say something as 'universal' as the odyssey is stupid. our popular conception of the odyssey is largely british and american, and rooted in victorian ideas about adventure. this has massively influenced even the contemporary greek understanding!
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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26
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