I Don't Want Him, You Can Have Him . . .
So, we're interrupting this regularly scheduled broadcast to have a little fun with history today. If my tone is kind of goofy and flip while I make my point, it is that sometimes I just have to not take things too seriously.
So there’s an uproar about the Philadelphia Franklin Institute’s* King Tut Exhibit. Critics claim that the forensic reconstruction is inaccurate, not because of the young king’s features, but because his skin is white. I’m inclined to sigh and say “oh brother, here we go again—it’s just like when people start yelling about Cleopatra being a black woman.
She wasn’t a black woman: According to all credible accounts, she was a Macedo
nian Greek who became Queen of Egypt, which made her African by default. But at least once a year I get an e mail from someone flying off the handle because whatever latest incarnation of Cleopatra someone has put on the screen (the last one was in the HBO show Rome) isn’t a brown/dark-skinned woman.
She was not a black African;
she was Greek, with European features. At left are two coins minted during her and her lover, the Roman general Marc Antony’s lifetime. However crude the portrait, I'm having a hard time stretching my imagination to believe she resembles in any way a black African.
As for Tut, I am no expert, but I think he’s too lightskinned in that forensic reconstruction. Although there is no way of knowing for sure, according to some scholars, the average Ancient Egyptian was somewhere between dark-skinned and white, which would make him tan. His lack of tan is explained away by scholars who say his royal status would have kept him indoors, with precious little time spent, if any, in the broiling Egyptian sun. It’s plausible. Much is conjecture—absent of something conclusive, like a photograph, or several corroborating physical descriptions— based on what archeologists have discovered about the habits and customs of Egyptians.
But that does lead to the critics’ more arguable point: That museums, books, educators and the like consistently talk about Egypt as if it were not part of the continent of Africa and as if there was absolutely no connection between Egypt and other African countries. Never mind that the Kushites from the Sudan ruled Egypt from 712 to 657 BC, nearly 150 years. National Geographic has a decent article on the Kushites, or Nubians.
That some of them had black African features is just too hard to ignore when you look at statues of Taharqa, who was a Nubian King who ruled Egypt during the twenty-fifth dynasty. Look at the photo of him as a sphinx, or the one at the left, and tell me if you stuck an afro on his head, he wouldn’t look like a black man.
My point, in the end, is that instead of trying to claim Cleopatra or Tut (who was really just a minor player in Egyptian history), maybe folks should really be looking into the lives of the great Nubian kings and queens (and the queens have an amazing story all their own) and getting them into the classrooms, into the movies, and onto good gigs on the museum circuits.
*No disrespect to the Franklin Institute. I have fond memories of field trips there and walking through the giant heart that lives there, pretending I was a red corpuscle. Also the static electricity ball that makes your hair stand on in is pretty neat. A lot neater if your hair is not thick and curly.
So there’s an uproar about the Philadelphia Franklin Institute’s* King Tut Exhibit. Critics claim that the forensic reconstruction is inaccurate, not because of the young king’s features, but because his skin is white. I’m inclined to sigh and say “oh brother, here we go again—it’s just like when people start yelling about Cleopatra being a black woman.
She wasn’t a black woman: According to all credible accounts, she was a Macedo
nian Greek who became Queen of Egypt, which made her African by default. But at least once a year I get an e mail from someone flying off the handle because whatever latest incarnation of Cleopatra someone has put on the screen (the last one was in the HBO show Rome) isn’t a brown/dark-skinned woman.She was not a black African;
she was Greek, with European features. At left are two coins minted during her and her lover, the Roman general Marc Antony’s lifetime. However crude the portrait, I'm having a hard time stretching my imagination to believe she resembles in any way a black African. As for Tut, I am no expert, but I think he’s too lightskinned in that forensic reconstruction. Although there is no way of knowing for sure, according to some scholars, the average Ancient Egyptian was somewhere between dark-skinned and white, which would make him tan. His lack of tan is explained away by scholars who say his royal status would have kept him indoors, with precious little time spent, if any, in the broiling Egyptian sun. It’s plausible. Much is conjecture—absent of something conclusive, like a photograph, or several corroborating physical descriptions— based on what archeologists have discovered about the habits and customs of Egyptians.
But that does lead to the critics’ more arguable point: That museums, books, educators and the like consistently talk about Egypt as if it were not part of the continent of Africa and as if there was absolutely no connection between Egypt and other African countries. Never mind that the Kushites from the Sudan ruled Egypt from 712 to 657 BC, nearly 150 years. National Geographic has a decent article on the Kushites, or Nubians.
That some of them had black African features is just too hard to ignore when you look at statues of Taharqa, who was a Nubian King who ruled Egypt during the twenty-fifth dynasty. Look at the photo of him as a sphinx, or the one at the left, and tell me if you stuck an afro on his head, he wouldn’t look like a black man.
My point, in the end, is that instead of trying to claim Cleopatra or Tut (who was really just a minor player in Egyptian history), maybe folks should really be looking into the lives of the great Nubian kings and queens (and the queens have an amazing story all their own) and getting them into the classrooms, into the movies, and onto good gigs on the museum circuits.
*No disrespect to the Franklin Institute. I have fond memories of field trips there and walking through the giant heart that lives there, pretending I was a red corpuscle. Also the static electricity ball that makes your hair stand on in is pretty neat. A lot neater if your hair is not thick and curly.
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