---
title: "Ancient Egyptian race controversy"
chunk: 9/18
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"
---

Older literature maintained that the label "God's Land", when interpreted as "Holy Land" or "Land of the gods/ancestors", meant that the ancient Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt as their ancestral homeland. 
Flinders Petrie believed that the Dynastic Race came from or through Punt and that "Pan, or Punt, was a district at the south end of the Red Sea, which probably embraced both the African and Arabian shores." Moreover, E. A. Wallis Budge stated that "Egyptian tradition of the Dynastic Period held that the aboriginal home of the Egyptians was Punt...". James Breasted in 1906 argued that the term Ta netjer was not only applied to Punt, located southeast of Egypt, but also to regions of Asia east and northeast of Egypt, such as Lebanon, which was the source of wood for temples.
Modern scholars have noted that the term was applied to the Land of Punt,  the exact location had historically been a subject of scholarly debate with a spectrum of views associating Puntland with regions extending from Ethiopia to southern Arabia. Recent consensus has now located the region in modern northeast Africa due to the prevalence of indigenous goods and animals which are reflected in Egyptian reliefs and paintings.
In the view of British Africanist, Basil Davidson, the land of gods and ancestors of Egyptians was discussed in reference to lands south and west of their civilisation.
British archaeologist, Jacke Phillips, argued that the term "Ta Netjer" (God's Land) was applied to regions south and west of Egypt, which included not only Punt but other regions entitled "Irem" and "Am(am)", with the latter regions accessible through Punt and Nubia. Phillips further argued that Irem was most likely the same location accessed by Harkhuf through his expeditions into inner Africa during the Old Kingdom period.

According to Senegalese Egyptologist, Aboubacry Moussa Lam, the Egyptians considered the Land of Punt as being their ancestral homeland.
Stuart Tyson Smith, Egyptologist and professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote in 2001 that "The scene of an expedition to Punt from Queen Hatshepsuis mortuary complex at Deir el-Bahri shows Puntites with red skin and facial features similar to Egyptians, long or bobbed hair, goatee beards, and kilts".
In 2006, Tanzanian archaeologist, Felix Chami, had drawn on established scholarly interpretations of Egyptologists, Jean Leclant, Timothy Kendall and Kenneth Kitchen, in reaching the view:

“The most interesting part of the Egyptian knowledge about Sub-Saharan Africa is in relation to Punt and God’s Land, or the lands of the gods. These lands had traded with Egypt since 2500 BC or even before. The Egyptians are not known to have had any war with the people of Punt, probably due to the fact that the land was not near enough to wage wars of conquest (kitchen, 1999: 174). These were lands of semi-mythical “horizon dwellers”. Egyptians also considered their gods or ancestors to have originated from these lands thought to be in eastern and southern Africa (Whicker, 1990) and hence “God’s land” (Kitchen, 1993:592). The records of the last Millennium BC show that Osiris and Isis, the most powerful Egyptian god and goddess, were “Ethiopians”/Black originating from countries in the south of Africa (Leclant, 1997: 157; Kendall, 1997: 171; Waterfield, 1967).”
Africana professor, Aaron Kamugisha, reviewed the historiography and cultural debates concerning the ethnic status of the Ancient Egyptian population in 2003. He was critical of Kathryn Bard's views that Ancient Egyptians were a "Mediterranean peoples" and could not be classified as Sub-Saharan Blacks. In particular, her argued her views lacked wholesale consistency as she later stated that Egyptian artistic representations which depicted of Ancient Puntites' facial features looked "more Egyptian than "black".
In Kamguisha's view, this overlooked the fact that Punt is now generally regarded to be located in Somalia.
UNESCO scholar, Alan Anselin, observed that a conclusive view on the relations between Egypt and Punt remain tentative until further textual and archaeological evidence can confirm the full nature of their historical connections. Tanzanian archaeologist, Felix A. Chami, also maintained that cultural relationship between Egypt and Punt along with its precise location in Eastern Africa still remained an ongoing area of scholarly debate. Chami noted that Punt was referred to as "God's Land" from which Egyptian religious deities, Osiris and Isis were described to originate in the land of the south, yet observed that Egyptian trading missions had historically been perceived to trigger cultural diffusion and domestication throughout wider Africa.

=== Tutankhamun ===

Several scholars have claimed that Tutankhamun was black, and have protested that attempted reconstructions of Tutankhamun's facial features (as depicted on the cover of National Geographic magazine) have represented the king as "too white". Among these writers was Chancellor Williams, who argued that King Tutankhamun, his parents, and grandparents were black.
Forensic artists and physical anthropologists from Egypt, France, and the United States independently created busts of Tutankhamun, using a CT-scan of the skull. Biological anthropologist Susan Anton, the leader of the American team, said the race of the skull was "hard to call". She stated that the shape of the cranial cavity indicated an African, while the nose opening suggested narrow nostrils, which is usually considered to be a European characteristic. The skull was thus concluded to be that of a North African. Other experts have argued that neither skull shapes nor nasal openings are a reliable indication of race.