Egyptiens anciens : origine et génétique [HistoireAncienne]

Since Napoleon Bonaparte's military campaign in 1798, Ancient Egypt aroused the passions of the West. Indeed, this region was the first to provide precise archaeological information thanks to the scientists who followed the Napoleonic armies. But it is often considered in the writings of the 19th century as the oldest of civilizations, such as the Egyptologist Eugène Lefebvre, who began his work entitled The Known Races of the Egyptians by saying that no nation goes back as far as Egypt in the past. However, if we now know that civilization was born in Mesopotamia, as we discussed in our previous video, we can still wonder where Egyptian civilization comes from, obviously without questioning its singularity. To know its origin, two essential factors must be taken into account. First of all, human mobility and constant relations on trade routes have always played a fundamental role in the propagation of what is commonly called civilization. Indeed, if certain peoples invent technologies or innovate in certain areas, such as the invention of the wheel, by the Indo-Europeans in Eurasia, their knowledge always ended up circulating and spreading through trade routes or population movements. Thus, genetics through the study of human flows and migrations is a determining factor to understand the origin of the mastery of knowledge by certain peoples. Let us remember that the ethnic composition of Egypt has strongly evolved over the last millennia and that these same changes correlate with its decline. Thus, the articulation of these two factors will explain the emergence of Egyptian civilization. First of all, we now know that the progress of Egyptian neolithic came quite late compared to that of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, as well as Central Europe. These progresses are not the direct work of the indigenous people of the Nile, but rather due to a migratory influx from the north and east of Egypt, which brought agricultural, farming, tooling, buildings, textiles, ceramics, rudiments, and writing techniques. In fact, most of the elements constituting the foundations of civilization were born outside of Egypt. The period from 9000 to 6000 BC left very few archaeological traces. Around 6000 BC, neolithic dwellings appeared throughout Egypt and North Africa. Studies based on morphological, genetic, and archaeological data attributed these dwellings to migrants from the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, bringing agriculture to the region. From a geographical point of view, the Nile Valley, thanks to its creeks, was an extremely rich and luxurious band of land that thronged in the middle of a semi-arid region. Men gathered as close as possible to the Nile and its lagoons, however, trying to keep themselves away from seasonal floods. They worked the land and produced barley and wheat, two cereals that the Egyptians, when they knew the writing, would represent with ideograms. In addition to the practice of agriculture, a large number of tools were imported from Mesopotamia, such as the rare, the canoes or the chadouf, which was invented in Mesopotamia and then introduced 1,500 years later in Egypt. In addition, all the metallurgy used to make tools comes from these same white peoples located further north. Indeed, ancient DNA revealed in 2015 that the ancient neolithic farmers in Anatolia, which are the source population of ancient European farmers, were genetically much closer to the current Europeans than the Near East. Sardinia seems to be a refuge where this ancient population has persisted to this day, without significant change. Thus, the population inhabiting the fertile croissant and making major innovations was white. The oldest metallurgy is that of copper. The oldest invention centers are in eastern Turkey and northern Mesopotamia, where the first native copper objects are hammered after being heated, around 8,000 BC. It is during the 4th millennium BC in Mesopotamia that tin is mixed with copper to make bronze. At this time, other metals such as silver, gold and lead will be used. The metallurgy of bronze, which will allow to make many objects, jewels, daggers, axes, knives, is also at the origin of changes in society, since it is a source of wealth mastered by specialized artisans, metallurgists. Egypt is a country located on the outskirts of three continents and represented a commercial hub of importance in Antiquity, which was able to take advantage of the many technological advances made by its neighbors. While the northern regions, that is, Anatolia, Syria and Iraq, are already at the age of average copper, this same age of copper barely begins in Egypt. Around 4,000 BC, this shift is normal since the tooling techniques were brought slowly by these white emigrants from the north, those who had already brought to the natives of the Nile the crops of gin, barley and wheat, therefore cereals that would serve as an agricultural base to Menes I, the pharaoh who unified Egypt. Around 3,500 years, a new discovery appears in Anatolia and northern Syria. It is bronze, an alloy of copper and more or less 25% of tin. At the beginning, the latter comes from the mines of Taurus. The new creations resulting from it, weapons, statuettes, bases, etc., will spread slowly to the south and southeast, where, little by little, after a millennium and a half, they will have completely eliminated the more fragile copper objects, especially harmful in the field of armament. As for iron metallurgy, it is only towards the end of the second millennium BC that it is regularly used to make weapons and tools in the Middle East, Greece and the Balkans. The war chariot, a symbol of military progress par excellence, appears in Egypt 500 years after the inhabitants of Andronovo culture invented it in Eurasia in less than 2000. Indeed, the Egyptians took over the totality of the Syrian model, which themselves took it over that of Andronovo culture, of which we have dedicated a complete video. It is therefore real technological transfers that take place throughout the regions. Very quickly, this war machine was seized by pharaohs, who created elite corps led by trusted people, always of high social rank. The late appearance of the chariot did not, however, displace the Egyptian armies. On the contrary, it even quickly became the symbol of the Egyptian army, bringing together many characteristics, aesthetics and warriors. The horse and the chariot of war in ancient Egypt will be used as a new attribute of the power of the pharaohs. The links with Mesopotamia allow the Egyptians to discover this animal and to familiarize themselves with the chariot. Now that we have studied the origin of most of the technologies present in Egypt, via white populations further north, we will deal with their installation in Egypt by observing the genetic constitution of ancient Egypt. From prehistoric to Neolithic, successive waves of white immigrants from the Middle East gradually march on Egypt for trade, diplomacy, immigration or invasion. The contacts intensified and they probably came to mix peacefully and in small groups with the local population. They descended towards the Nile, in favor of the trade currents, passing through Palestine and the Valley of Jericho or along the Mediterranean. They came from Anatolia, Kurdistan, Cilicia, the Mons Agros and Armenia. They quickly placed themselves above the social hierarchy and organized themselves in cities-states, regularizing the crews of the Nile and building cities. They gradually became more and more vast countries to finish with no more than two great empires along the Nile. Finally, it was in 3200 that the two empires of the upper and lower Nile were unified in one by King Menes I. Egypt was created. By taking any period confused, recent genetic studies support the fact that the ancient Egyptians are close to the Europeans of the current south and far from the modern Egyptians. A large study of 2017 by Verena Shuneman sequenced the genome of 151 mummies from the Abuzir el-Malek community in Middle Egypt. The oldest sequenced mummy of the new empire is found in 1388 BC when Egypt was at the peak of its power and glory. The youngest date is 426 BC when the country was ruled since Rome. More precisely, ancient DNA data revealed that ancient Egyptians are more closely linked to samples of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in the Levant as well as to Neolithic, Anatolian and European populations. By comparing this model with the modern Egyptians, we find that the ancient Egyptians are more closely linked to all the modern and ancient European populations that we have tested. The study explains, in particular, this by the fact that today the modern Egyptians have an additional African component that was not present before. Moreover, the site where the mummies were located was relatively to the south. Thus, it is suspected that as we climb to the north of Egypt, the European ascent increases more. It is also possible that the populations of southern Egypt were more closely linked to that of Nubia and to a higher subsarian genetic component. Throughout the pharaonic history, there has been an intense interaction between Egypt and Nubia, ranging from trade to conquest and colonialism. There is irrefutable evidence of ethnic complexity within the households where Egyptian men marry Nubian women and vice versa. As a result, white immigrants easily mixed with local populations, which quickly diluted the percentage of Anatolian and European farmers' genes. These famous mixed Caucasoids became the Shamites of the Bible. But around 1500, Amenemhet III authorized the Semitic settlers to enter the high Nile delta, which marked the beginning of a large-scale Semitic influx in Egypt. Originally from the Arabian plateau and African with relatively pale skin, they do not bring technological progress but will be imposed by force or by their political ability. They will also mix with the rest of the population. These flows led to the appearance of stabilized mixtures. Indeed, after the Neolithic, the genetic temporal transect, i.e. the genetic evolutions over time, suggests a continuity between pre-Ptolemaic, Ptolemaic and Roman populations. However, if there is mixing, most of the mummies of the higher classes studied remain of Mediterranean descent. Later, we note a genetic impact of the more pronounced Greek and Roman emigration in the northwestern delta and the Fayoum, where most of the Greek and Roman colonies concentrated, as well as among all the higher classes of Egyptian society. In fact, according to the study conducted by Verena Shouneman and using his own words, under the Ptolemaic and Roman domination, ethnic ascension was crucial to belong to an elite group and offer a privileged position in society. Especially in the Roman era, there may have been important legal and social incentives to marry within their ethnic group, because the people of Roman nationality had to marry other Roman citizens to transmit their citizenship. Such policies probably affected mixed marriages of Romans and non-Romans to some extent. In addition, the construction workers were not slaves, but represented an elite that was not representative of the large mass of peasants who constitute the average Egyptian. This fact is visible on the tomb of Req Mireh, where two distinct groups, a Semite and an Egyptian, work together. Thus, genetics teaches us that if most of the peasant population was able to mix, the tendency of the ruling elites was rather to maintain a lineage in connection with their privileged position. This social practice has been confirmed in addition to the study of 2017 that we have previously addressed by the study of the DNA of certain pharaohs or members of the royal family. Less than 1% of modern Egyptians belong to this category. Takabuti, an Egyptian mummy whose death dates back to the end of the 25th dynasty, around 660 BC, also has a DNA more similar to European than to current Egyptians. Swiss researchers have made a surprising discovery. According to a genetic analysis, the pharaoh Tutankhamun would be from the European genetic group. The researchers have in fact reconstructed the DNA profile of Tutankhamun, his father Akhenaton and his grandfather Amenophis III. They then observed that the young pharaoh belonged to the allogroup Yr1b1a2. But what better than the official statement of Roman Schultz, director of IGENEA. It was very interesting to discover that he belonged to a genetic group in Europe. There were many possible groups in Egypt to which the DNA could have belonged. Obviously, within the ruling elites, there was a certain genetic variety. Thus, additional studies on ancient human remains in Egypt are necessary to enlarge our current image in precision and detail. Despite everything, genetics has already revolutionized the vision that we had of ancient Egyptians because it has finally made it possible to enlighten the ethnic composition of some of its former inhabitants. We can observe this diversity on some Egyptian paintings. However, if for a long time the Egyptologists wanted to know the appearance of the ancient Egyptians through their paintings, this method proved to be quite imprecise. Indeed, if we take the case of Ramses II, commonly admitted as being clear of skin and wheels, he was regularly represented with a brown skin. Thus, these colors cannot be a reliable indicator. Another example, some black pharaohs during the 25th dynasty are also represented as being brown on the paintings. This brown color is therefore above all an artistic and cultural choice that may refer to the color of the majority of the population. There were in the Egyptian power Demetis and more rarely some Subsaharans during the 25th dynasty in particular. They mostly inhabited Nubia and Ethiopia, mixed with a Semitic population. They provided the pharaohs with soldiers under the 6th dynasty. But the many tribes of Nubia and Ethiopia made frequent incursions into Egypt. So that the pharaohs, anxious to assert their authority, severely repressed them and then conquered them. Indeed, under Thutmose I, Egypt made several southern campaigns. Equipped with chariots and war dogs, the Egyptians penetrated the Nubian troops and crushed them under their wheels. Thus, ancient Egypt offered the story of amazing battles where the Indo-European warrior soul had been preserved and above all used against these black peoples from the south and who constantly threatened the Nile Valley. This eventually led to the annexation of Nubia around 1504. In fact, the conquests were allowed thanks to the military knowledge that the Urites brought, a white people who had settled for the second millennium BC in Mesopotamia, then some of which went to Egypt. To put you in place, around 1750, following the reigns of several unstable pharaohs, Egypt split into small counties and returned to anarchy. It was at this time that again, as there are decades back, nomadic tribes from the north penetrated the delta. They come from Syria and Palestine. These new migrants who appeared in Egypt are called the Ixos, a partly Levantine and Semite people, but formed and supervised by these famous Urites who held an unquestionable warrior superiority thanks to their knowledge of metallurgy and armament. Indeed, the Ixos chiefs of Urite origin taught the Egyptians the revolutionary use of the wheel and the war chariot, as well as the sufficient domestication of the horse for its use at work. This invention had been realized a few centuries earlier by the Indo-European peoples of the steppes living beyond the Gaspian Sea. In Egypt, therefore, the old mixed-race aristocracy, some of whom were Anatolian agricultural ancestors, which we talked about at the beginning of the video, had been dethroned by these new warriors mounted on war chariots. They dominate the populations wherever they go and impose a morality that is based on honor, courage and hierarchy. They import with them typically Indo-European customs, such as burying the dead warriors with their horses, a good example of which is provided by the Ixos tombs of Gaza in Palestine. Once installed, the Ixos, whose emblem is the scarab, rebuild all the important societies of Palestine and Egypt and fortify them with ramparts and glaciers to protect them from the increasingly frequent use of the bellows. They dominate Egypt and impose their laws on it from their capital, Avaris, in the delta of the Nile. But 100 years later, the Egyptians manage to overthrow the Ixos from the north after having assimilated their tactics of hippo-mobile chariots and their technique of manufacturing bronze weapons. Because the Ixos, despite their courage and their warrior qualities, were still too few and therefore never managed to extend their hand on the entire valley of the Nile. They were never able to rise higher than Memphis, leaving many Egyptian populations unsubdued without surveillance. When the new empire of Egypt began, the Ixos no longer kept their establishment in Palestine, because further north, in Syria, a new Indo-European cavalry took their place, the Mithanians. Thus, thanks to the Urit white warriors, which they had eventually defeated by the numerical force, the Egyptians had adopted a more elaborate new administration, as well as a powerful army, directly copied from the Urit model. These two forces allowed Egypt to play a role of regional power, especially on Nubia and Palestine, which passed under its protection. It is also the new empire that dates back to the most remarkable achievements, such as the encyclopedia of Amun-Re to Karnak or the temples of Abu Simbel. A few centuries later, in 1085, Egypt was dominated by dynasties from a few white Libyan people, but some of the elites mixed with the subsarians, which considerably weakened social cohesion and contributed to the instability of the region. They settled in the delta of the Nile, while the Upper Egypt, led by priests, slipped into the increasingly important grip of the Nubians of the kingdom of Napata, giving birth to the era of the black pharaohs. From this period, the prestige of Egypt had considerably fallen, its foreign allies fell under the sphere of influence of Assyria, and from 671, the Assyrians began the hostilities against Egypt. Unable to face it, the subsarian dynasty was overthrown by the Assyrians, which eventually pushed them back to Nubia. However, not wanting to conquer Egypt, the Assyrians went back to the East. Then began the low period. Devoid of any military or moral strength, both among the peoples and among the elites, the decline of Egypt saw the alternating of unstable periods of government, led again by subsarian pharaohs, or under the cup of foreign occupation, Persia in particular. More than ever, Egyptian society, and in particular the army, appeared very cosmopolitan and mixed. Greeks and Carians were added to the Nubians and Libyans formerly integrated, and also to the Jewish, Syrian and Phoenician contingents. Then, Alexander the Great, after defeating the Persians, seized Egypt in 332 BC, welcomed as a liberator, founded the city of Alexandria and inaugurated the short Macedonian period, which ended in 305 BC, but restored order in this region, then it will be under the control of the Roman Empire. However, Ancient Egypt was no longer. Included between three continents, it has been over the millennia influenced by various peoples, who mingled and gave birth to a rather stable mixed population over the centuries, as proven by recent studies. It is noted that some successive contributions allowed him to perennialize for a long time, preserve the ethnicity of a part of his elite, and conquer new lands or create culture. The case of Ancient Egypt shows that a very slow genetic disintegration can lead to the collapse of a civilization. The members of any society must be as homogeneous as possible. If, on the other hand, the civilization of a particular region changes its biological composition through invasion, immigration or the decrease in the number of individuals, then the civilization that this society has produced will disappear with them. During the Middle Ages, Muslim Arabs imported millions of blacks to North Africa and Egypt, destroying, and forever, any hope of seeing the indigenous population recreate a civilization as it was in the past. Used by the natural laws of history, Egypt seems to have been defeated by itself. Before leaving your best like and comment, just watch these beautiful sandals of Tutankhamun, decorated by two Asian prisoners and two Nubian prisoners. Ahem, weird, I don't hear the Africanists anymore.