I've been fascinated by ancient Egyptian civilization ever since my second grade class did a unit on it, but I have a hard time enjoying most ancient Egyptian-themed fiction and pop culture because more often than not they misrepresent the Egyptian people. Not only do these portrayals get the Egyptian culture and religion wrong, but they can't even get the skin color right. Most people have this misconception that the ancient Egyptians were always relatively light-skinned like Arabs or Greeks, but my own research into the subject has convinced me otherwise. The majority of the original Egyptian people, especially those in Upper (southern/upriver) Egypt, would have been darker-skinned Northeast Africans:
The following reproduction of a mural from the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I compares the Egyptians with neighboring peoples:
The Egyptians are the chocolate-brown people wearing white loincloths. The other people shown are olive-skinned Near Easterners, fair-skinned Mediterranean Berbers, and very dark-skinned Nubians from Sudan.
More images from Egyptian art:
And here are some images of Northeast Africans to whom the ancient Egyptians would have been related, including a few modern-day Egyptians:
---(Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)"There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas."
The following reproduction of a mural from the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I compares the Egyptians with neighboring peoples:
The Egyptians are the chocolate-brown people wearing white loincloths. The other people shown are olive-skinned Near Easterners, fair-skinned Mediterranean Berbers, and very dark-skinned Nubians from Sudan.
More images from Egyptian art:
And here are some images of Northeast Africans to whom the ancient Egyptians would have been related, including a few modern-day Egyptians: