---
title: "Ancient Egyptian race controversy"
chunk: 3/18
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"
---

In 2025, members of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of New Volumes IX, X and IX of General History of Africa reviewed the 1974 Symposium with the availability of new sources of data. This volume featured 60 scholars from 28 countries across every continent, with the International Scientific Committee consisting of 16 member specialists appointed by the UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay. These committee members included Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Paul Lovejoy, Tayeb Chenntouf, Anshan Li, Hilary Beckles and Vanicléia Silva Santos. The international publication featured multidisciplinary views across several chapter sections on the population formation of Egypt.
UNESCO International Scientific Committee Chair and archaeologist, Augustin Holl, stated that Egypt was situated in an intersection between Africa and Eurasia but affirmed "Egypt is African" with a fluctuating distribution of African and Eurasian populations depending on historical circumstances.
Coordinating reviewer, historian and archaeologist Doulaye Konate stated the volume featured a general review of the archaeology of sub-Saharan Africa and “one of the strengths of the work is an emphasis on the African roots of the Egyptian civilization”. He later stated the Volume II of General History of Africa had integrated the Pharaonic civilization into a ‘Negro-African bosom’.
In a chapter review of Volume II (which featured the conclusions of the 1974 symposium) by a single Egyptologist and anthropologist, Alain Anselin, he stated that the traditional historical view of a “wave of civilizing peoples” from the north to the south had been displaced in favour of a unifying movement from south to north. He also alluded to recent research accumulated over three decades which had confirmed the migration of peoples from the Sahara and regions south of Egypt to the Nile Valley.  Anselin argued that this aligned with the position of the late Cheikh Anta Diop, who had attempted to "restore Egypt to its southern African hinterland". Anselin referenced a range of specialist studies (anthropology, linguistics, population genetics and archaeology) presented at a triennial conference in 2005 which he stated was a continuation of the 1974 recommendations. This included a genetic study which quantified the "key impact" of Sub-Saharan populations and showed that the early pre-dynastic population of the Berber people of the Siwa Oasis in north-western Egypt had close demographic links with people of North-East Africa. He further described the value of other studies such as a Crubezy study which  "traced the  boundaries  of the  ancient  Khoisan  settlement  to  Upper  Egypt,  where  its  faint traces remain identifiable and Keita’s work, as the most groundbreaking", and that Cerny's team had identified close genetic and linguistic links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, North Cameroon (some of whom spoke Chadic languages) and Ethiopia (some of whom spoke Kushitic languages).

Biological anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita stated that the ancient population of Egypt emerged primarily from interactions from local ancient Nilotic and Saharan populations with some groups such as the Beja in Sudan and Egypt having long assimilated peoples from local Arab pastoral groups. He also stated the presence of the E haplogroup, based on the indications from current evidence (sourced from a number of genetic studies) likely originated and experienced most genetic mutations in tropical East Africa, had widespread distribution across Africa including Egypt. Keita further stated this had implications for older conceptions of ‘race’ and African populations. He also argued that the P2 lineage ancestral to the E1b1b haplogroup showed a primary connection between males from all over Africa including sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt.
British archaeologist David Wengrow noted that the legacy of racial studies had led to a shift towards repositioning of Egypt in an African context with greater reliance on historical linguistics, physical anthropology and analysis of genetic diversity.