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Clemenza,what was your girlfriend’s take on the whole”Are Egyptians black”controversy?
I ask that because I have had several Egyptian co-workers of various hues and facial shapes,ranging from very European to one dude who was dead on Mike Tyson!
From what I can gather,the further south you go toward Thebes and Aswan,the darker complected people become more numerous.Seems that there has historically been a lot of mixing between these southern Egyptians and the Nubians of the area.
I noticed that when they made the movie on Anwar Sadat a while back,Lou Gossett played Sadat.And it was sure an eerie resemblance.

Cities like Cairo and Alexandria were cosmopolitan for centuries, attracting Arabs, Greeks, Nubians, Kushites (Ethiopians), Slavs (brought as slaves), Armenians, etc. This is why Egyptians vary in appearance from dark skinned/wooly haired to fair and hazel eyed. They are not "pure Arabs", even though modern Egypt is almost entirely Arabic speaking.

Nubians would be considered "black" by appearance, although they have more delicate (for lack of a better word) features than west Africans. Back in the days of racial junk science, they were categorized as "Hamitic/Semitic", like the Ethiopians, the latter of which STILL believe they are the descendants of Solomon and Sheba.

Ann is a Coptic Christian, olive skinned and semitic in appearance like most Arabs from Lebanon through Yemen. Nevertheless, Copts claim to be the direct descendants of the "pure" Egyptians who lived there prior to the Arab conquest (ie descendants of the pharoahs).

I think Anwar Sadat's mother was Nubian.

In Acts 21.38, St. Paul is mistaken for an Egyptian by the Roman chief captain (chiliarch), who is surprised to hear St. Paul speaking Greek. The chiliarch must have thought that Egyptians could be white (since there is no reason to suppose that St. Paul wasn't).