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Just recieved the following missive in my email, from a teacher no less.
praise the lord God and his son our Savior Jesus
Christ:
Just visiting your web site for a class ( I'm the instructor). Your image showed the Egyptians as a black man and a white woman. Lets be for real, the Egyptians were negroid race bothe the men and the WOMAN. Your obviously a caucasion female, but if your gonna show this site lets be real and not fibbing to those that stop by the site. I wont visit it again and don't respond to this e-mail cause your on block. You have a problem lady.
I have a problem? Apparently this guy has a problem with a piece of ancient art depicting the Goddess, HetHert (Hathor) and King Seti I, because she is "lighter skinned" than he is. Umm...that's because She is a Goddess, and typically, they are shown according to an ARTISTIC CANON, which was pretty much practiced throughout all of Egypt's history. Goddesses are shown as being golden-skinned, to denote their divinity as being seperate from that of humans, imagine that! The artistic canon is less about realism and more about symbolism. The entire culture was focused on the symbolic. Wasir is shown as Green and Amun is shown as being Blue, does that mean that They really ARE those colours?!
I will never debate that Egypt is in Africa, because it is. I will also never debate the race of the Egyptians, we all know about this. There were numerous Nubian Nisuts (Pharaohs), one of whom, Piye, who really rocks my world! I think those of us in the House of Netjer have seen this argument time and time again, and we have, many of us, recieved similar messages where we are told something along the lines of, "How dare you worship OUR African Gods! You have the wrong color skin!" " I want them make that same comment in front of my sister, AsetMekti! :-) I also love that this guy says I am undoubtedly caucasian. How does one determine that? In truth, I am not Caucasian. I am of mixed ancestry and I define myself as being American Indian. My people know who I am, other Indians take one look at me and know what my ancestry is. Race isn't something we can get away from, but is it something that we need to wear on our sleeves and use an excuse to snipe at each other?
I understand the hurt and the stain and the predjudice, and the resonating words of early Egyptologists, mainly from pre-Third Reich Germany who said: "We must not let Egypt partake of Africa's spirit." It was born purely or predjudice and master-race mentality that this was said. This is the same reason why many new agers like to believe in the 100 year out-of-date notion of the Dynastic Race Theory - whereby the ruling class were lighter skinned and decended from the Gods from the stars, which proves that people of colour were less than. It is unfortunate,and I am indeed sorry for that hurt, but I in no way subscribe to it myself. If anything I am all for Ma'at, for the Truth of what Egypt Was and Is. Striking out at those of us who love Egypt for Egypt's sake, is counter productive. Those of us who love Ancient Egypt, don't do so because we covet the culture in order to remake it into the image that we would wish it to be. It is a sincere love and appreciation for the beauty of the greatest civilization that the world has ever seen (in our view). If they were black, they were black - but what does that mean? In Egypt, to be honest, they did not really care in the way that we in modern America seem to. Afrocentrist's go overboard and accuse anyone who does not agree with them at all times and everywhere as being Eurocentrists. Why can't we just be Egyptocentric or Humanocentric or even Enlightenedcentric?
praise the lord God and his son our Savior Jesus
Christ:
Just visiting your web site for a class ( I'm the instructor). Your image showed the Egyptians as a black man and a white woman. Lets be for real, the Egyptians were negroid race bothe the men and the WOMAN. Your obviously a caucasion female, but if your gonna show this site lets be real and not fibbing to those that stop by the site. I wont visit it again and don't respond to this e-mail cause your on block. You have a problem lady.
I have a problem? Apparently this guy has a problem with a piece of ancient art depicting the Goddess, HetHert (Hathor) and King Seti I, because she is "lighter skinned" than he is. Umm...that's because She is a Goddess, and typically, they are shown according to an ARTISTIC CANON, which was pretty much practiced throughout all of Egypt's history. Goddesses are shown as being golden-skinned, to denote their divinity as being seperate from that of humans, imagine that! The artistic canon is less about realism and more about symbolism. The entire culture was focused on the symbolic. Wasir is shown as Green and Amun is shown as being Blue, does that mean that They really ARE those colours?!
I will never debate that Egypt is in Africa, because it is. I will also never debate the race of the Egyptians, we all know about this. There were numerous Nubian Nisuts (Pharaohs), one of whom, Piye, who really rocks my world! I think those of us in the House of Netjer have seen this argument time and time again, and we have, many of us, recieved similar messages where we are told something along the lines of, "How dare you worship OUR African Gods! You have the wrong color skin!" " I want them make that same comment in front of my sister, AsetMekti! :-) I also love that this guy says I am undoubtedly caucasian. How does one determine that? In truth, I am not Caucasian. I am of mixed ancestry and I define myself as being American Indian. My people know who I am, other Indians take one look at me and know what my ancestry is. Race isn't something we can get away from, but is it something that we need to wear on our sleeves and use an excuse to snipe at each other?
I understand the hurt and the stain and the predjudice, and the resonating words of early Egyptologists, mainly from pre-Third Reich Germany who said: "We must not let Egypt partake of Africa's spirit." It was born purely or predjudice and master-race mentality that this was said. This is the same reason why many new agers like to believe in the 100 year out-of-date notion of the Dynastic Race Theory - whereby the ruling class were lighter skinned and decended from the Gods from the stars, which proves that people of colour were less than. It is unfortunate,and I am indeed sorry for that hurt, but I in no way subscribe to it myself. If anything I am all for Ma'at, for the Truth of what Egypt Was and Is. Striking out at those of us who love Egypt for Egypt's sake, is counter productive. Those of us who love Ancient Egypt, don't do so because we covet the culture in order to remake it into the image that we would wish it to be. It is a sincere love and appreciation for the beauty of the greatest civilization that the world has ever seen (in our view). If they were black, they were black - but what does that mean? In Egypt, to be honest, they did not really care in the way that we in modern America seem to. Afrocentrist's go overboard and accuse anyone who does not agree with them at all times and everywhere as being Eurocentrists. Why can't we just be Egyptocentric or Humanocentric or even Enlightenedcentric?
