---
title: "Ancient Egyptian race controversy"
chunk: 18/18
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The Dynastic race theory, which has been rejected by modern scholarship, is the hypothesis that a Mesopotamian force had invaded Egypt in predynastic times, imposed itself on the indigenous Badarian people, and become their rulers. The Mesopotamian-founded state or states were supposed to have conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty of Egypt.
The theory was proposed in the early 20th century by Flinders Petrie, who deduced that skeletal remains found at pre-dynastic sites at Naqada (Upper Egypt) indicated the presence of two different races, with one race differentiated physically by a noticeably larger skeletal structure and cranial capacity. Petrie also noted new architectural styles—the distinctly Mesopotamian "niched-façade" architecture—pottery styles, cylinder seals and a few artworks, as well as numerous predynastic rock and tomb paintings depicting Mesopotamian style boats, symbols, and figures. Based on plentiful cultural evidence, Petrie concluded that the invading ruling elite was responsible for the seemingly sudden rise of Egyptian civilization. In the 1950s, the dynastic race theory was widely accepted.
While there is clear evidence the Naqada II culture borrowed abundantly from Mesopotamia, the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period, and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time. The most commonly held view today is that the achievements of the First Dynasty were the result of a long period of cultural and political development, and the current position of modern scholarship is that the Egyptian civilization was an indigenous Nile Valley development.
Frank Yurco stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and A-Group Nubia. He further elaborated that "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, [which] further vititates the Mesopotamian-influence argument". According to David Wengrow, the A-Group polity of the late 4th millenninum BCE is poorly understood since most of the archaeological remains are submerged underneath Lake Nasser.
The Senegalese Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop fought against the dynastic race theory with his own "Black Egyptian" theory and claimed, among other things, that Eurocentric scholars supported the dynastic race theory "to avoid having to admit that Ancient Egyptians were black". Martin Bernal proposed that the dynastic race theory was conceived by European scholars to deny Egypt its African roots.

== Reactions in modern Egypt ==

Egyptian geoarchaeologist Fekri Hassan wrote, in an article titled "The African Dimension of Egyptian Origins", in 2021: "Sadly, one of the main impediments is the persistence of inherited statements that perpetuate defunct racist constructions of African peoples that were once provided in the context of “science.” This is appalling given that modern anthropological and linguistic studies have destroyed the myth of races quite some time ago. In addition, to be “African” does not mean to necessarily be “Black” or “Brown” or to have certain facial features judging by the extensive variations in Africa, even sub-Saharan Africa, which begins in southern Egypt. The biological assimilation of various peoples into a range of African populations is a part of African biological history".
In 2023, American comedian Kevin Hart's planned tour of Egypt was cancelled, after an uproar on Egyptian social media over Afrocentric claims made by Hart about Egyptian history.
In response to the Hart controversy, Egyptian Egyptologist Zahi Hawass stated that "Africans have nothing to do with the pyramids scientifically" Hawass has previously commented on the race controversy and expressed the view that "No Africans built the pyramids because Kushites didn't exist at the period when the pyramids were built" and dismissed the "notions that Egyptians are Black Africans despite our presence in Africa".

== See also ==

== Notes ==

== References ==

== Sources ==

== Further reading ==
"A Case of Turkish Genetic Appropriation". Aris Govjian. The Armenian Weekly. June 2017..

== External links ==
 Media related to Ancient Egyptian race controversy at Wikimedia Commons