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Comment by zozbot234 | Hacker News Reader

Worth noting for context that "Anatolia and the Levant" (better known perhaps as the Ancient Near East) also included plenty of darker-skinned folks in that time period, with an appearance that we might nowadays associate with Sub-Saharan Africa - and they were highly integrated in their societies, not just a servile underclass. This is also true of the ancient Mediterranean region as a whole. We're especially sure about this because of surviving pictorial/visual (e.g. from the Minoan civilization in Crete) and textual sources. So our Old-Kingdom Ancient Egyptian could well have looked quite "Sub-Saharan" in appearance, despite not originating anywhere south of present-day Sahara.

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Indeed. Regular interaction in the region at minimum went from well from modern day Lebanon and down through Ethiopia (Kush). In the biblical timeline Moses had a Kushite wife. I have read a compelling account that links biblical Moses with a possible identification as Senenmut during the New Kingdom Period and connected with Hatshepsut (possibly Pharoh's Daughter). Following this period we know there was regular political and military correspondence from all over the region, such as the Amarna letters which are on display at the British Museum. The point I make, as a lay person who has read the biblical narratives and other sources, is Egypt was extremely well connected for an extremely long period of time and significant DNA mixing the entire time is to be expected and I doubt tells us too much about origin migrations.

It didn’t. They clearly distinguished Nubians and Libyians from themselves in their art.

Gonna need a source for your assertion since the Egyptians and Minoans always differentiated between themselves and Nubians/Libyans in art and literature...

People from the ancient near East nearly always depicted themselves as somewhere between white and reddish/light brown and their modern populations fall within the same spectrum.

There's no evidence for near Eastern populations having ever looked "Sub Saharan".

Bob Brier’s “The Great Courses” lecture series on ancient Egypt. Nubians were painted dark and Libyans were always shown with a feather in their headgear and blue eyes.

So your source literally corroborates what I'm saying, not that Near East populations appeared Sub Saharan in complexion. Gotcha.

I never said that everyone in the Ancient Near East or the Mediterranean basin had a Sub-Saharan look, only that there were enough such people to be notable and that they were genuinely an integral part of those ancient societies, with quite high-status or even elite roles at times.

I suppose we do not know what she looked like, but Moses had a Kushite wife and was criticized for it. "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman." (Numbers 12:1 ESV)

It seems that no evidence is a bit of hyperbole.

There's evidence that Nubians/Kushites had plenty of contact with Egypt and some lived there, but again, they're referred to as distinct from Egyptians, Mesopotamians, etc...

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