Critique of the “Black Pharaohs” Theme: Racist Perspectives of Egyptian and Kushite/Nubian Interactions in Popular Media

Two recent documentaries promote a “Black Pharaohs” theme in which Kushite rulers overthrew the superior Egyptians and ruled Egypt (Twenty-Fifth Dynasty), but the Egyptians later erased their reign from history. This narrative undergirds The Rise of the Black Pharaohs produced by National Geographic and “Lost Kingdom of the Black Pharaohs” by the Science Channel. This article argues that these documentaries employ the use of presentism—the imposition of current perspectives and attitudes to depict and interpret past events. The two documentaries highlight fascinating archaeological finds in the Nile valley while also resurrecting now-discredited views on race and Egyptian–Kushite interactions arising in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The earliest Egyptologists (e.g., Petrie, Smith, Reisner) advanced the theory that dynastic Egypt emerged from the migration of a white race into the Nile valley, bringing in the elements of civilization superior to that of the indigenous blacks. While these documentaries condemn Reisner’s racist views on Kush, they largely accept this theory on Egypt’s origins and transfer this thinking onto the ancient Egyptians. These documentaries ignore the archaeological evidence showing that Egypt and Kush have shared origins and that ancient Egyptian civilization arose from a Pastoral Neolithic cattle-based culture encompassing Northern Sudan and much of ancient Northeast Africa. Craniometric studies and non-metrical studies of cranial and dental traits demonstrate a close relationship between ancient Upper Egyptian and Lower Nubian populations. They also demonstrate population continuity in Egypt from predynastic phases into the dynastic era. Presentism in the documentaries uses current racial constructs to interpret Egyptian–Kushite interactions. For example, the oppressive relationship between the colonizer and colonized that characterized European colonialism was assumed to apply to ancient Egypt during its colonization of Kush. This review article highlights archaeological findings that challenge these views of Egyptian–Kushite relationships. Examples of Kushite influences on Egyptian cosmology are presented to demonstrate millennia of cultural exchange between the two. The ancient Egyptians did not think of “race,” as presented in these documentaries. Pharaohs from earlier dynasties shared phenotypic features with Kushites, considered “Black” by current criteria.