Was king Tut black?

King Tut Black? And what does this have to do with a Dutch archaeology museum getting kicked out of doing excavations in Egypt? So a Dutch archaeology museum is hosting an exhibition called Kemet, which means the dark soil and also the ancient Egyptian word for dark skin. The exhibition focuses on how ancient Egypt has influenced African American culture and it includes a remake of King Tut, a la this Nas cover, King Tut Look Black, which has caused a furor, particularly amongst Egyptians. Why? First, it's really important to note our concepts of race and blackness didn't exist in ancient Egypt. But there are certainly figures that we would now call black. For example, in the 25th dynasty, rulers from Kush, which would be now Sudan, took over all of Egypt. And if we saw them today, we would call them black. But not all Egyptians were what we would now call black. Many of the people living in Egypt today are descendants of the ancient Egyptians who had olive skin and dark eyes. So some of the furor comes from the rightful criticism that the stories about black ancient Egyptians were often not told. For example, there's royal wife Amos Nefertiti, who is seen here. And thanks to her surviving mummy, had skin that we would now call black. To add complications, a lot of times art is symbolic. So not showing what they look like racially, but something about them. Which takes us to the question of King Tut. This is his grandmother, Queen Ti, who many people think was black. Was she? We don't actually know. Which is also true of King Tut. We don't know.