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King Tut's skin color a topic of controversy
LA Life ^ | Wednesday, June 15, 2005 | Evan Henerson

Posted on 06/16/2005 6:59:26 AM PDT by optik_b

King Tut's skin color a topic of controversy

By Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - Nobody can be sure exactly what the boy king Tutankhamun looked like. But a group of African-American activists charting the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibition are certain of one thing: He didn't look white.

Following an appearance before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, activists from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Committee for the Elimination of Media Offensive to African People, and the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations plan to protest the Tut exhibition, which opens today at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

They claim a trio of busts configured from Tut's corpse and a CT scan depict the ruler as being white, and are, therefore, inaccurate and racist.

"Those images are so critical for our children," says Legrand Clegg, Compton city attorney and a spokesman for the protesters. "We want them to focus not just on rappers, athletes and entertainers but on figures who are high achievers. What could be more elevating than a little boy who ruled the world?"

Three separate teams of researchers reviewing the data from the mummified corpse have concluded that Tutankhamun, who was part of the 18th Egyptian dynasty, was a Caucasoid North African. Clegg contends these conclusions fly in the face of separate research by a New Zealand and British research team that label Tut Negroid.

"The big variable is skin tone," says Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs for National Geographic, one of the exhibition's presenters. "North Africans, we know today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front, 'This is midrange.' We'll never know for sure what his exact skin tone was or the color of his eyes with 100 percent certainty.

"Maybe in the future, people will come to a different conclusion," Garcia continues. "From what we know, there is no doubt this individual was of North African descent."

That's not good enough for the activists, who demonstrated peacefully before an opening reception Wednesday and planned to protest again at today's opening.

"All we're asking," says Clegg, "is removal of those impostor busts, which have nothing to do with relics.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 18thdynasty; amarna; ancientautopsies; archaeology; blackathena; blackpharaoh; blackpharaohs; blackracism; blacksparkwhitefire; cary; earlofcarnarvon; egypt; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; haplogroupr1b1a2; helixmakemineadouble; history; howardcarter; iseedumbpeople; kingtut; r1b1a2; tut; tutankamen; tutankamun; tutankhamen; tutankhamun
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To: Austin Willard Wright

My point was that just because Eqypt was conquered by Arab Muslim armies did not change the ethic attributes of most Egyptians that much, and therefore most Egyptians and most Coptic Christians will be similarly related to ancient Egyptians but the Coptic Christians not more so.


101 posted on 06/16/2005 2:21:03 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Austin Willard Wright

as an undergrad, i had an egyptian copt for egyptian hierogylphics, coptic, hieratic, and demotic.

he was olive skinned.

he spoke english very poorly.


102 posted on 06/16/2005 2:22:18 PM PDT by ken21
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To: Wuli
(4) Until Moslem armies conquered Egypt, they never considered themselves Arabs and they never in all their history considered themselves related to Africa south of Egypt as much as to the Mediterranean peoples and others north of Egypt in the Middle East.

For most of human history, Northern Africa was much more closely tied to Europe than it was to the rest of the African continent. It wasn't until the two forces of Muhammed and later Charlemagne that people started thinking of North Africa as not being a part of Europe.

103 posted on 06/16/2005 2:22:33 PM PDT by Modernman ("Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." -Bismarck)
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To: Wuli

I agree....though many people from these armies settled in Egypt and progeny. The Copts were less likely to be descended from these Arab armies and thus the most likely (even more likely that the Jews) to resemble Ancient Egyptians both in appearance and genetically.


104 posted on 06/16/2005 2:34:20 PM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
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To: Austin Willard Wright

That's "had progeny."


105 posted on 06/16/2005 3:37:15 PM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
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To: Red Badger

Did you see the comments on the righthand portion of the web page?

BIZARRO WORLD.


106 posted on 06/16/2005 3:59:27 PM PDT by Skywalk (Transdimensional Jihad!)
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To: Austin Willard Wright

Actually, I saw a movie from the early thirties. Tut looked like an Englishman named Boris Karloff. Maybe they had the same mum-my.


107 posted on 06/16/2005 4:06:37 PM PDT by Brofholdonow
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To: Brofholdonow
Works for me.


108 posted on 06/16/2005 5:44:10 PM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
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To: Antoninus
"The second is a close up of Tut's footstool, showing Asiatic and African captives:"

Which one is the Asian? Two of the four look to have heavy beards and the other two look black.

109 posted on 06/16/2005 6:00:02 PM PDT by blam
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To: Modernman
"For most of human history, Northern Africa was much more closely tied to Europe than it was to the rest of the African continent."

Liybans have the same incident for red-hair today as the Irish.

110 posted on 06/16/2005 6:06:49 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

So now does this mean that we are going to call King Tut a Celt? Hell, why not? It'd give my boys something to aspire to.


111 posted on 06/16/2005 7:27:15 PM PDT by Nucluside (Cultural Relativism is a lie; Western culture IS superior)
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To: Servant of the 9

Thanks for posting the picture. I was going to do the same thing. I visited the Berlin museum, which houses the bust. I bought a reproduction.


112 posted on 06/16/2005 7:40:02 PM PDT by kabar
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To: optik_b
LIES FOR PROFIT: THE MYTH OF BLACK HISTORY
113 posted on 06/16/2005 7:46:29 PM PDT by kabar
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To: Austin Willard Wright

LOL! I see Karloff on the left but who's that on the right? Tut or Moms Mabley?


114 posted on 06/16/2005 8:39:28 PM PDT by Brofholdonow
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To: ken21

de nada.


115 posted on 06/16/2005 10:29:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (FR profiled updated Tuesday, May 10, 2005. Fewer graphics, faster loading.)
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To: kabar

Should you be posting National Vanguard(white racist) material on FR and is it that credible?


116 posted on 06/16/2005 11:09:27 PM PDT by Skywalk (Transdimensional Jihad!)
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To: kabar

On second thought, the source may be disgusting, but the information I'm looking at I've seen from other sources.


117 posted on 06/16/2005 11:10:06 PM PDT by Skywalk (Transdimensional Jihad!)
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To: Skywalk
Should you be posting National Vanguard(white racist) material on FR and is it that credible?

I had no idea what National Vanguard was. I googled the info and this was the first source I came up with, which coincided with what I have read and heard elsewhere. I was actually looking for a Harvard anthropology professor (couldn't recall her name) whom I saw on C-SPAN a number of years ago who debunked some of the myths perpetuated by these African-American studies "history" courses.

I am not a racist nor do I have any tolerance for those who are, white or black. Thanks for pointing this out to me about National Vanguard.

118 posted on 06/17/2005 6:16:59 AM PDT by kabar
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To: massgopguy

Uh dude, the Caucasus is on the eastern side of the Black Sea, flanked on the other (eastern) side by the Caspian Sea, Greece is the southern end of the Balkan Penninsula, projecting into the Mediterranean Sea.
There are or were Greeks in the Caucasus but to the best of my knowledge those ties go back to Greek traders, pirates and explorers (the distinction wasn't always clear, more a matter of opportunity than anything else) from the Med., ie., from West to East, not from East to West.


119 posted on 06/17/2005 7:57:54 PM PDT by skepsel
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To: Millee

No wait a minute didn't Steve "Tut" Martin give his lineage in the Jerk? Maybe he was black after all and these "historians" are on to something!!!


120 posted on 06/17/2005 8:23:10 PM PDT by xp38
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