Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian

I'll have to bookmark it for later to spend more time than just skimming, but I find 2 things interesting. The lack of any Egyptian archeologists on most interesting and significant findings about Ancient Egypt is one. The other is the seemingly strong conclusion that Ancient Egyptians did in fact move to Egypt from Mesopotamian which is pretty cool.

Egyptians don't like the notion that "they moved there from somewhere". They claim their own unique, uninterrupted, history and connection to the land as well as their civilizational independence from Mesopotamian, Asia Minor, Europe, and Africa.

It's also the same you rarely find Egyptian archeologists/scholars on scientific papers. While this might be a matter of ancient history and science to everyone, it's a matter of current day politics for Egyptians and especially the Egyptian government. The "findings" of the paper has to agree with the narrative built and proposed by the ministry of antiquities or they will literally charge whoever publishes it with a national crime.

>The lack of any Egyptian archeologists on most interesting and significant findings about Ancient Egypt is one.

It seems like Egyptian archaeologists is a clique of academics that do not like to rock the apple cart and go against established ideas about Egyptian history. There is a lot of gate keeping going on, mostly in part of Zahi Hawass, a narcissist that likes to self insert into every research into the subject, and control publication of results, etc. Even worse, claim attribution for work he's not even part of. So, if you don't kiss the ring, or dare to challenge ideas without his blessing, you'll be pretty much become a pariah that will never access archaeological sites again. Because of this, research in the field seems to be stagnant.

Yes, Zahi Hawass is a comical example at this point. But I'm afraid he is merely the manifestation of general desire from the political regime as well as the majority of the uneducated masses there. Zahi Hawass is just the current sociopath to happen to benifiet from the situation to call himself a "scholar".

I spent a significant part of my teen years in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There isn't really 1 unified feelings towards the "Ancient Egypt" history among Egyptians. First time I heard about the "Ancient Aliens" conspiracy WAS from an Egyptian. I never really paid the theory much attention until all the articles about how "it's a racist theory" "basically indigenous people can't do things without aliens" narrative was surprising.

There was pride in the telling of the conspiracy theory of Ancient Egyptians contacting aliens. "Of course when the Aliens visited Earth, they had to come to Egypt, you konw. We were in touch with aliens and had far more advanced technologies than all other societies. sadly it's been lost" type thinking.

The general opinion was split between people who don't give a shit about all this pharo shit, people who think it's a cool marketing story in the 21st century, people who think it's their history and identity. It was allover the place

They are ambivalent about "all this pharo" stuff because it is not really their heritage.

> because it is not really their heritage

Could you expand on this?

Egypt is an Arab country. They're literally called the Arab Republic of Egypt. Before that the United Arab Republic. Official language Arabic.

Arabs came from Arabia, not Egypt.

Copts are a bit closer to ancient Egypt (their language especially) but their religion is Orthodox Christianity which influences their culture, which came out of the Greek/Roman culture of Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt.

Oh boy, the subject of Egyptian identity is a complicated subject. Are they Arabs? Egyptians? Muslims? Mediterraneans? Pharaohs? Coptic? Bedouin? Berbers?

An "Arab" is not a race nor is it exclusionary with Ancient Egypt. If someone had an uninterrupted ancestory line from today to Ramasis II, those ancestors learned Arabic at some point and became Arabs or Muslims themselves.

Ok, most Egyptians I have known would immediately strike out Berbers/Amazeghs identity. They actively dislike "amazeghs" and consider them foreigners even though they look the same, speak the same language, and plenty are legally Egyptians with families that have lived there since the 17th century. Egyptians consider them imposters and maybe thats why they are hated more than the "obviously a foreigner". At least the latter isn't pretending.

But at the "Bedouin" the lines start getting blurred. They identify as independent tribes that partially moved from Arabia in the 7th or 8th century and they are very very adamant about their independence from the Egyptian state and their right to self determination and how they live. They are the libertarians of Egypt, except they actually practice a fully bedouin/nomad/libertarian lifestyle. The state is always fighting with them. Most regular Egyptians I knew consider them Egyptians despite their disapproval. Egyptians public like the bedouins in general. It's a romanticized existence.

The Arabic/Egyptian/Muslim/Christian/Coptic/Pharaonic/Roman/Greek/Ottomon identity of Egyptians (and arabs in general) is a subject of many books.