posted 24 March 2003 12:01 AM            

Again even in the Muslim Period, sure there were Arabs who settled in
Egypt, but most settled around Cairo, save for a few tribes imported into
Middle Egypt. All the political action was in Cairo, and that's where
the society was awash with all sorts of foreigners, Kurds, Turks, and
all the other ethnic types these brought with them. The rulers though
disdained the fellahin as the peasantry were known and never even dreamed
of intermingling with them. The overwhelming mass of Egyptian people
derive from the peasantry. Note that the Copts, who have not intermingled
also come light to dark. Copts from Luxor and Aswan look exactly like
their Muslim neighbors in that part of Egypt, dark brown.

That is the real history of Egypt and its people.

Most sincerely,

Frank J. Yurco
University of Chicago

posted 24 March 2003 08:34 AM            

This part of the quote is pretty clear for anyone who understands the diversity of North Africa:

"To this day, northern Egyptians are lighter in complexion and southern ones, are darker. This partly reflects the original diversity of the population, and no, this was not a mixed race as so many have asserted, another piece of old racist argument. What
helped this diversity was a slow steady inflow of Canaanites and other Semitic peoples from the northeast, and Nubian-Kushites people in the south."

This diversity is reflected in the modern population of Egypt...

A Northern Egyptian

posted 24 March 2003 08:53 AM            

Statment from egyptologist Frank Yurco

posted 24 March 2003 10:20 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Thor:
I agree with u Amun, north africans are a diverse people like many kinds of people, this diversity should not be mistaken for some kind proof of them being black africans, they were not!!

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posted 24 March 2003 10:52 AM            

Bosch E, Calafell F, Perez-Lezaun A, Comas D, Mateu E, Bertranpetit J.

After an intensive bibliographic search, we compiled all the available data on allele frequencies for classical genetic polymorphisms referring to North African populations and synthesized the data in an attempt to reconstruct the populations' demographic history using two complementary methods: (1) principal components analysis and (2) genetic distances represented by neighbor-joining trees. In both analyses the main feature of the genetic landscape in northern Africa is an east-west pattern of variation pointing to the differentiation between the Berber and Arab population groups of the northwest and the populations of Libya and Egypt. Moreover, Libya and Egypt show the smallest genetic distances with the European populations, including the Iberian Peninsula. The most plausible interpretation of these results is that, although demic diffusion during the Neolithic could explain the genetic similarity between northeast Africa and Europe by a parallel process of gene flow from the Near East, a Mesolithic (or older) differentiation of the populations in the northwestern regions with later limited gene flow is needed to understand the genetic picture. The most isolated groups (Mauritanians, Tuaregs, and south Algerian Berbers) were the most differentiated and, although no clear structure can be discerned among the different Arab- and Berber-speaking groups, Arab speakers as a whole are closer to Egyptians and Libyans. By contrast, the genetic contribution of sub-Saharan Africa appears to be small.

Hum Biol 1997 Jun;69(3):295-311

The last sentence says it all "the genetic contribution of sub-Saharan Africa appears to be small." also here "Libya and Egypt show the smallest genetic distances with the European populations, including the Iberian Peninsula." Numerous genetic studies will support this. North africans are quite distinct from sub-saharan blacks and if they are closer to another group that group would be europe.