MYTH: Egyptians were white
This is the longest myth ever in existence, which is pedaled as true scholarship and truth. Yet it is an outright myth, deliberately created from 1830 onwards, to explain away Egyptian civilization. During the 1800’s there was all kinds of pseudo-sciences floating around about the genetical and inherent inferiority of peoples of African descent, and also a belief blacks are to be colonized because they are uncivilized and savage by nature. This was created to justify colonialism and also denying blacks equal rights in America. In order to moralize their mistreatment of blacks, scientific racism was created. And a part of this was in denying blacks had ever had a civilization. Since Egypt was a very impressive and marvelous civilization, and much of the heritage of the western world (such as writing and the calendar) came from ancient Egypt, it became necessary to whiten Egypt.
But the truth is, the ancient Egyptians were not white. Neither were they pure black. The ancient Egyptians were a mixed-race people, especially in Upper Egypt, where Egyptian civilization began. While the earliest inhabitants, the Tasians, are believed to have been of Cro-Magnoid stock, the predynastic Badarian period which starts at 5500 B.C. in Upper Egypt, was quite Negroid. Carleton S. Coon calls the predynastic Egyptian population of Upper Egypt during the Badarian period “Mediterrenean” and denies any black admixture, on account of their thick and wavy hair. But thin and wavy hair is Caucasion hair. Wavy hair that is thick in texture is typical of peoples with African ancestry. The hair-type Coon described can be found amongst many modern-day Nubians, as well as some Northern Ethiopians, and a number of persons of mixed ancestry in Latin America, the Caribbean, and even in the United States. And besides, he described the crania of the Badarian skulls he studied as being dolichocephalic, with short faces, blurred margin (broad noses), and prognathisms. These are distinctly Negroid traits, and are undeniable evidence of black admixture. As for the hair of predynastic Upper Egyptian of the Badarian period, recent studies of their hair, show them to be semi-frizzy, like Mulattoes and many Northeast Africans. [Keita, S.O.Y. Studies and "Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History of Africa 20, p.140] Of the Badarian predynastic Egyptian population, other scholars do not hesitate to call the characteristics of the crania as Negroid and as being due to African ancestry. Dr. Childe V. Gordon, a British anthropologist, spoke of the Negroid traits in Badarian crania. Other Egyptologists and anthropologists have noted the same. Dr. Emile Massourlard, a French Egyptologist, published a work in 1949 called[ “Prehistoire et Protohistoire d’Egypt”[ in which he cites various studies on predynastic and dynastic Egyptian culture. On the Badarians, he quotes a study by Miss Stoessiger.