Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

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Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Thanas »

Washington Post
DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies reveals their ancestry

Ancient Egyptians were an archaeologist's dream. They left behind intricate coffins, massive pyramids and gorgeous hieroglyphs, the pictorial writing code cracked in 1799. Egyptians recorded tales of royalty and gods. They jotted down life's miscellanies, too, as humdrum as beer recipes and doctor's notes.

But there was one persistent hole in ancient Egyptian identity: their chromosomes. Cool, dry permafrost can preserve prehistoric DNA like a natural freezer, but Egypt is a gene incinerator. The region is hot. Within the mummies' tombs, where scientists would hope to find genetic samples, humidity wrecked their DNA. What's more, soda ash and other chemicals used by Egyptian embalmers damaged genetic material.

A study led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Tubingen in Germany managed to plug some of those genetic gaps. Researchers wrung genetic material from 151 Egyptian mummies, radiocarbon dated between Egypt's New Kingdom (the oldest at 1388 B.C.) to the Roman Period (the youngest at 426 A.D.), as reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.


Johannes Krause, a University of Tubingen paleogeneticist and an author of the study, said the major finding was that “for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity.” Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians — the list goes on — ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. “The other big surprise,” Krause said, “was we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancestry.”

The remains came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient Nile community in the middle of Egypt. From the mummies the scientists extracted bone, teeth and soft tissue samples. (Although Egyptian embalmers removed the brains of the deceased, the scientists wrote that “in most cases, non-macerated mummy heads still have much of their soft tissue preserved.”)

The hard samples yielded the most DNA, perhaps because the teeth and bones were protected by soft tissue or because the embalming processes left tougher material intact. After preparing the samples in a sterilized room in Germany, the researchers bathed the samples in UV radiation for an hour to minimize contamination.

Ancient Egyptians were closely related to people who lived along the eastern Mediterranean, the analysis showed. They also shared genetic material with residents of the Turkish peninsula at the time and Europe.

Given Egypt's location at the intersection of Africa, Europe and Asia, and the influx of foreign rulers, Krause said he was surprised at how stable the genetics seemed to be over this period. The scientists were particularly interested in the change in ruling class at the turn of the first millennium. First came the Hellenistic dynasty, in the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquests, from 332 B.C. to 30 B.C., and then Roman rule from 30 B.C. to about 400 A.D. And yet the genetics of the Abusir el-Meleq community appeared to be unperturbed by shifting politics.

The scientists compared these ancient genetics with those of 100 modern Egyptians and 125 modern Ethiopians that had been previously analyzed. If you ask Egyptians, they'll say that they have become more European recently, Krause said. “We see exactly the opposite,” he said.

It was not until relatively recently in Egypt's long history that sub-Saharan genetic influences became more pronounced. “In the last 1,500 years, Egypt became more African, if you want,” Krause said.

In their paper, the researchers acknowledged that “all our genetic data were obtained from a single site in Middle Egypt and may not be representative for all of ancient Egypt.” In the south of Egypt, the authors wrote, sub-Saharan influences may have been stronger.

This study left two gaps in the Egyptian timeline that Krause wants to fill, he said. It is not clear when the African gene flow, present in modern Egyptians, occurred. Nor could the study determine the origin of the Egyptians. “The other big question is, 'Where did the ancient Egyptians come from?' ” Krause said. To answer that, scientists will have to find genomes “back further in time, in prehistory.
Full link to the study here.


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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by mr friendly guy »

I heard about this as well. But what is Egyptsearch?
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Patroklos »

They are a group pseudo-history obsessed racists that peddle the sub-Saharan origin theory for ancient Egypt.

Note they are not racists for pushing that origin theory, its the way they go about it that gets them that label. We have had a few posters on here that trafficked in these theories over the years. Most of them banned if I remember correctly.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=141513
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Thanas »

mr friendly guy wrote:I heard about this as well. But what is Egyptsearch?
A group of pseudo-scientist racists who argue - in the face of all available evidence - that Egypt was not a mediterranean, but sub-saharan culture. They do this by claiming that Egyptians "look black" (nevermind that Egyptian art is not descriptive and measuring mummies skull sizes is not exactly scientific), that Egypt was founded by "black people" and that egyptian culture evolved in a unique "black way" where most influences/innovations did not came out of the vast mediterranean cultural exchanges/migrations/empires but out of a unique black sub-saharan culture. Note that the vast majority of them are not Egyptians (who have always tried to empathize their mediterranean heritage and try to be as European as possible in general) but Afro-american supremacists.


In short, they are little better than the creationist version of Aegyptology.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Elheru Aran »

Regrettably they can still nitpick that the DNA only goes as far back as the New Kingdom, and claim that the *original* Old Kingdom Egyptians were still African... also it's possible to speciously claim that the population sampled was not representative of the Egyptian people, but the article doesn't really elaborate other than noting that the mummies all came from a single community.

But yes, this is still helpful in refuting such Afrocentric claptrap.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

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Elheru Aran wrote:Regrettably they can still nitpick that the DNA only goes as far back as the New Kingdom, and claim that the *original* Old Kingdom Egyptians were still African...
Then they have to explain why the DNA mysteriously vanished with little to no traces found, only to reappear in the modern age. In short, it is quite impossible for a population to be composed of the majority of a certain genetic subgroup, to have that subgroup submerge for 1500 years to then reappear after that period.
also it's possible to speciously claim that the population sampled was not representative of the Egyptian people, but the article doesn't really elaborate other than noting that the mummies all came from a single community.
Well, the full study goes in a bit more detail. In any case, if a community near cairo is not representative of Egypt, then what is?
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Lord Revan »

Honestly it wouldn't surprice me at all if those people will simply insist that either this study doesn't exist or that results were faked, because it didn't give the results they wanted to see. After all these people (like all racist to be honest) aren't exactly rational about their arguments.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Imperial Overlord »

It's not like truth matters to guys like these. They'll manufacture whatever excuse they need to ignore the evidence. The value of this discovery is to people who actually give a fuck about truth and knowledge and in refuting bullshit racist claims in the minds of people actually open to evidence.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Pelranius »

I wonder when the bulk of the Sub Saharan ancestry came in? Possibly by 1500 (I'm not very familiar with statistics on the Trans Saharan slave trade and other migrations).
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Tandrax218 »

So basically the

"We wuz kangz" theory and meme is now dead ? :D
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Broomstick »

So...basically the Egyptians are a group that's been somewhat distinct for a long time, with a bit of admixture from neighbors but largely their own thing? You mean, basically what I asserted way back in the days of idiots arguing their sub-Saharan ancestry around here?

The African supremacists are a bunch of racist nutballs - they can't be content with the legitimate contributions of sub-Saharan Africans to history and world culture, they have to go around appropriating other peoples' history, too.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Khaat »

Broomstick wrote:The [insert] supremacists are a bunch of racist nutballs - they can't be content with the legitimate contributions of [insert] to history and world culture, they have to go around appropriating other peoples' history, too.
Now you can copy/paste into every appropriate discussion! :)

To think of how many cultures have "vanished under the sands of time" and try really, really hard to make one of the enduring/memorable/powerful ones you own heritage is part of human nature. Not saying it's right, or legitimate, but it's part of us. Hell's, I've got Mediterranean ancestry, and one of my favorite things to say is that I'm Phoenician (mostly in jest). It's kind of hard to have family from somewhere everyone walked through once or twice and not accept that "purity" is a fringe thing once reserved for aristocracy.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by ray245 »

Broomstick wrote:So...basically the Egyptians are a group that's been somewhat distinct for a long time, with a bit of admixture from neighbors but largely their own thing? You mean, basically what I asserted way back in the days of idiots arguing their sub-Saharan ancestry around here?

The African supremacists are a bunch of racist nutballs - they can't be content with the legitimate contributions of sub-Saharan Africans to history and world culture, they have to go around appropriating other peoples' history, too.
I'm assuming they think sub-Saharan African culture isn't famous enough?
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Broomstick »

Could be.

There are also come African contributions that aren't considered particularly glamorous, but have a world-wide impact. For example: melons. All the melons cultivated in the world ultimately have an African origin. Then there's coffee. The kola nut, providing the "cola" flavor to popular beverages world wide is African. Yams, okra, two varieties of millet, black-eye peas, and oil palms. Maybe food isn't sexy but people around the world eat or drink foods that originated in Africa every day. Isn't that something to celebrate?

But no, they want to appropriate Egypt.

I confess I don't quite get it. I mean, sure, I'm curious about my own ethnic origins and how they relate to history but I don't get a special tingling because of what my ancestors did or didn't do.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by cadbrowser »

Broomstick wrote:I confess I don't quite get it. I mean, sure, I'm curious about my own ethnic origins and how they relate to history but I don't get a special tingling because of what my ancestors did or didn't do.
I'm going to assume that your ancestors didn't suffer 300 years of slavery?

I think that is what it mostly is though. They want something grandiose to offset "that" aspect of their heritage. It's as if they act like they are expected to be handed something on a silver platter. At least that's what I take from all of the "Egyptians are BLACK" thing that invested this board some time ago.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by cadbrowser »

Bah...ghetto edit:

invested should've been infested
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Zixinus »


I confess I don't quite get it. I mean, sure, I'm curious about my own ethnic origins and how they relate to history but I don't get a special tingling because of what my ancestors did or didn't do.
That is because you have enough independent identity (and achievements) that you don't need to grab for your ancestry for support for ego. When you are lacking independent archivement, something that young people are prone to, they reach into their ancestry. And when their actual ancestry is ungloriously common, such as having common people with common jobs or not having detailed ancestral history, it goes into more vague ancestry.

It isn't exclusive to racists, it is something you can easily find in nationalism on its own. There is an overlap. This is pretty common in Hungary, where we try to foster the myth of superior Hungarian genes by such things as disproportionate Nobel prize winners. That falls on its face when you find out that there was only one winner who did the actual award-winning work in Hungary, the rest were either emigrates or more commonly merely had Hungarian ancestry (that the actual individuals more often than not did speak the language or even identify themselves as Hungarian).

The other great mistake here is of course mistaking history as a list of achievements and failures, as scoreboards rather than simply an attempt at documentation of the past as it happened and existed as best as we can figure out.

I'm going to assume that your ancestors didn't suffer 300 years of slavery?

I think that is what it mostly is though.
That creates a strong impetus for the problem I outlined above. But to be fair, Victorian history was blatantly racist up to the point that when an explorer found a tremendous ruined city, he flat-out refused to believe that it was created and conceived by the descendants of the locals. Without a good understanding of history, it makes you wonder what other archivements were attributed and forgotten due to racism. Egyptsearch is an example where this approach was taken with disregard to both deeper understanding of history and how race actually works.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Broomstick »

cadbrowser wrote:
Broomstick wrote:I confess I don't quite get it. I mean, sure, I'm curious about my own ethnic origins and how they relate to history but I don't get a special tingling because of what my ancestors did or didn't do.
I'm going to assume that your ancestors didn't suffer 300 years of slavery?
No. I mean my father's family were slaughtered like cattle, the women's hair used to make felt, the gold fillings dug out of their teeth to fund the slaughter, and their bodies burned and their ashes dumped like garbage. But that's nothing compared to slavery I suppose. Except for the whole "work them as hard as you can on a starvation diet before sending them off to the "showers"" thing.
I think that is what it mostly is though. They want something grandiose to offset "that" aspect of their heritage. It's as if they act like they are expected to be handed something on a silver platter. At least that's what I take from all of the "Egyptians are BLACK" thing that invested this board some time ago.
Yeah, I think that's a lot of it.

From my viewpoint - just because your grandfather (add as many greats as you want in front of that) was a slave doesn't in any way diminish you. Your life is about what you do. And yeah, I get that there's a knock-on effect from the slavery, poverty, and oppression but demanding a handout is not a way to correct that.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Broomstick »

Zixinus wrote:
I confess I don't quite get it. I mean, sure, I'm curious about my own ethnic origins and how they relate to history but I don't get a special tingling because of what my ancestors did or didn't do.
That is because you have enough independent identity (and achievements) that you don't need to grab for your ancestry for support for ego. When you are lacking independent archivement, something that young people are prone to, they reach into their ancestry. And when their actual ancestry is ungloriously common, such as having common people with common jobs or not having detailed ancestral history, it goes into more vague ancestry.
I get that. My ancestors were peasants and serfs all the way back, no nobility, no one of note. When you're young (and even not so young) you do want to associate with something seen as successful or respectable.

But it's not just the need for something to grab onto, it's something of a certain sort, and desire for power over others. Like I said, there are notable African contributions we use every damn day, why not celebrate them?

I know black Americans who celebrate that their families are composed of survivors, who look at a place like Monticello or Mt. Vernon or a lot of Washington DC and say "my ancestors built that!" They point to jazz and blues and hip-hop and say "if it weren't for us that wouldn't exist". The names of their ancestors have been lost but they still take pride in what they left. They aren't trying to steal someone else's stuff.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Formless »

Broomstick wrote:The kola nut, providing the "cola" flavor to popular beverages world wide is African.
Actually... there are recipes for cola out there, and most of them contain zero cola nut. The real primary flavor is orange juice, one other citrus fruit (lemon, lime, or both), and spices like coriander, nutmeg, vanilla, and importantly cinnamon. I have yet to see a recipe without cinnamon and coriander in it, but the majority don't have kola nut because the stuff is hard to come by and isn't a necessary flavor at all. It was mostly important for providing the caffeine content of early colas, as well as color. Nowadays, however, soft drink makers can just inject caffeine from other sources directly into the syrup, as well as food dye, so only a few colas remain that use the things (mostly specialty drinks made by Pepsi).

That said, its possible that Coca-Cola contains it. No one knows what the hell is in Coke.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Aleister Crowley »

Formless wrote:
Broomstick wrote:The kola nut, providing the "cola" flavor to popular beverages world wide is African.
Actually... there are recipes for cola out there, and most of them contain zero cola nut. The real primary flavor is orange juice, one other citrus fruit (lemon, lime, or both), and spices like coriander, nutmeg, vanilla, and importantly cinnamon. I have yet to see a recipe without cinnamon and coriander in it, but the majority don't have kola nut because the stuff is hard to come by and isn't a necessary flavor at all. It was mostly important for providing the caffeine content of early colas, as well as color. Nowadays, however, soft drink makers can just inject caffeine from other sources directly into the syrup, as well as food dye, so only a few colas remain that use the things (mostly specialty drinks made by Pepsi).

That said, its possible that Coca-Cola contains it. No one knows what the hell is in Coke.
Well depending on the source...you sometimes can know.

Oh you mean the drink. Made after they had the little issue with the high caffeine content of early Coca Cola - a whooping 80mgs. Yeah, it's not known what is in Coke. It's got high fructose corn syrup if you get the kind in the regular bottles. Mexican Coke has sugar cane in it. Both have caffeine, but not nearly the 80mgs of it's original formula. The FDA had to approve the new formula, so some stuff was changed. Once upon a time, I'm sure it had both coca leaf extract and cola in it. Too bad we can't get "true cola" that easily. The last one I had was the Pepsi 1893. Of course, it has 93 in it so yeah I love it.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by madd0ct0r »

I've been trying to read up on west African history recently and even now it seems really really hard to easily find stories that arent full of holes or centuries of qwuestion marks.

Like the idea of empires and major kingdoms and trade fleets only started to be explored in the 1980s or something, and what has been found hasnt trickled down to pop sci yet. Even the idea there may have been a tetse fly epidemic with European explorers finding a post apocalyptic wilderness that followed is recent and bloody hard to evidence.
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by madd0ct0r »

This was related to the "Why some afrocentrists want to own egypt" discussion about inglorious histories
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by Elheru Aran »

madd0ct0r wrote:I've been trying to read up on west African history recently and even now it seems really really hard to easily find stories that arent full of holes or centuries of qwuestion marks.

Like the idea of empires and major kingdoms and trade fleets only started to be explored in the 1980s or something, and what has been found hasnt trickled down to pop sci yet. Even the idea there may have been a tetse fly epidemic with European explorers finding a post apocalyptic wilderness that followed is recent and bloody hard to evidence.
Lack of written history outside of the Islamic empires can be a real bitch to deal with. And even those, usually the histories are either gone by neglect/loss/destruction, or they've never been translated, so you have to find someone who can transcribe a medieval African dialect of Arabic...
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Re: Egytian mummies DNA study concluded [aka Egyptsearch goes bust]

Post by cadbrowser »

Broomstick wrote:No. I mean my father's family were slaughtered like cattle, the women's hair used to make felt, the gold fillings dug out of their teeth to fund the slaughter, and their bodies burned and their ashes dumped like garbage. But that's nothing compared to slavery I suppose. Except for the whole "work them as hard as you can on a starvation diet before sending them off to the "showers"" thing.


:shock:

I honestly don't know what to say to that. :oops:
Broomstick wrote:Yeah, I think that's a lot of it.

From my viewpoint - just because your grandfather (add as many greats as you want in front of that) was a slave doesn't in any way diminish you. Your life is about what you do. And yeah, I get that there's a knock-on effect from the slavery, poverty, and oppression but demanding a handout is not a way to correct that.
I couldn't agree with you here more.

I wonder then, based on the various atrocities that many different cultures (races?) suffered at the hands of others, why aren't there more descendants not demanding or expecting handouts? Is this just unique to the US? And why? Could it be due to the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality? I'm asking in earnest. I don't want to sound like I'm hastily generalizing here or worse, racist. I'm just not sure how to ask without coming off as either.
Zixinus wrote:That creates a strong impetus for the problem I outlined above. But to be fair, Victorian history was blatantly racist up to the point that when an explorer found a tremendous ruined city, he flat-out refused to believe that it was created and conceived by the descendants of the locals. Without a good understanding of history, it makes you wonder what other archivements were attributed and forgotten due to racism. Egyptsearch is an example where this approach was taken with disregard to both deeper understanding of history and how race actually works.
That is really sad when you think about it.

My only hope is that racism continues to be diminished until extinction, and that the desire to learn facts can move mankind forward for greater realizations and discoveries.
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