{{Short description|Strip of land on the Nile valley between Nubia and Lower Egypt}}
{{about||the Wayne Horvitz album|Upper Egypt (album)|the jazz track|Tauhid (album)}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Ṣaʿīd|Saʿīd}}

[[File:Upper Egypt Nomes.png|thumb|Map showing Lower Egypt (on the North) and Upper Egypt (on the South)]]
{{History of Egypt}}
{{Ancient Egypt dynasties sidebar}}

'''Upper Egypt''' ({{langx|ar|صعيد مصر}} ''{{Transliteration|ar|DIN|Ṣaʿīd Miṣr}}'', shortened to {{lang|ar|الصعيد}}, {{IPA|arz|es.sˤe.ˈʕiːd}}, <small>locally:</small> {{IPA|[es.sˤɑ.ˈʕiːd]}}) is the southern portion of [[Egypt]] and is composed of the [[Nile River]] valley south of the [[Nile Delta|delta]] and the [[Circles of latitude between the 25th parallel north and the 30th parallel north#30th parallel north|30th parallel North]]. It thus starts at [[Beni Suef]] and stretches down to [[Lake Nasser]] (formed by the [[Aswan High Dam]]).<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Upper Egypt |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Upper-Egypt |access-date=5 January 2023}}</ref>

==Name==
In ancient Egypt, Upper Egypt was known as ''tꜣ šmꜣw'',{{sfn|Ermann|Grapow|1982|loc=Wb 5, 227.4-14}} literally "the Land of Reeds" or "the Sedgeland", named for the [[Cyperaceae|sedges]] that grow there.<ref>{{harvp|Ermann|Grapow|1982|loc=Wb 4, 477.9-11}}</ref>

In [[Arabic]], the region is called Sa'id or Sahid, from [[wikt:صعيد|صعيد]] meaning "uplands", from the root [[wikt:صعد|صعد]] meaning to go up, ascend, or rise. Inhabitants of Upper Egypt are known as [[Sa'idi people|Sa'idis]] and they generally speak [[Sa'idi Arabic|Sa'idi Egyptian Arabic]].

In [[Biblical Hebrew]] it was known as {{lang|hbo|{{Script/Hebrew|פַּתְרוֹס}}}} {{transliteration|he|Paṯrôs}} and in [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] it was known as {{Transliteration|akk|Patúrisi|}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Leichty |first1=Erle |url=http://www.aina.org/books/trioe.pdf |title=The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680-669 BC) |publisher=Eisenbrauns |year=2011 |volume=4 |pages=135 |doi=10.1515/9781575066462 |jstor=10.5325/j.ctv1bxh5jz |isbn=978-1-57506-646-2 |postscript=: pa-tú-ri-si.}}</ref> Both names originate from the Egyptian ''[[wikt:pꜣ|pꜣ]]-[[wikt:tꜣ|tꜣ]]-[[wikt:rsj|rsj]]'', meaning "the southern land".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=אחיטוב |first=שמואל |author-link=Shmuel Aḥituv |date=2003 |title=ירמיהו במצרים |trans-title=Jeremiah in Egypt |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23629799 |journal=Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies |volume=27 |pages=36 |jstor=23629799 |issn=}}</ref>

==Geography==
{{main|Northeast Africa|Lower Nubia|North Africa|Nile}}
Upper Egypt is between the [[Cataracts of the Nile]] beyond modern-day [[Aswan]], downriver (northward) to the area of El-Ayait,<ref>See list of nomes. Maten (Knife land) is the northernmost nome in Upper Egypt on the right bank, while Atef-Pehu (Northern Sycamore land) is the northernmost on the left bank. {{Cite book|last=Brugsch |first=Heinrich Karl |year=2015 |title=A History of Egypt under the Pharaohs |volume=1 |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5FyeBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA487 487] }}, originally published in 1876 in German.</ref> which places modern-day [[Cairo]] in [[Lower Egypt]]. The northern (downriver) part of Upper Egypt, between [[Sohag]] and El-Ayait, is also known as [[Middle Egypt]].

==History==
{{Infobox country
|conventional_long_name = Upper Egypt
|common_name  = Upper Egypt
|era               = 
|government_type   = [[Monarchy]]
|year_start        =
|year_end          = 
|event_pre         = 
|date_pre          = 
|event_start       = 
|date_start        = 
|event_end         = 
|date_end          = 
|image_flag        = 
|image_coat        = File:White crown.svg
|symbol_type       = [[Hedjet]]
|image_map         =
|image_map_caption = 
|p1                = Prehistoric Egypt
|p2                = 
|flag_p1           = 
|flag_p2           = 
|s1                = Early Dynastic Period (Egypt)
|flag_s1           = 
|capital           = [[Thinis]]
|national_motto    = 
|national_anthem   = 
|common_languages  = [[Egyptian language|Ancient Egyptian]]
|religion          = [[Ancient Egyptian religion]]
|currency          = 
|leader1           =  [[Scorpion I]] (first)
|year_leader1      = {{Circa|3400 BC}}
|leader2           = [[Narmer]] (last)
|year_leader2      = c. 3150 BC
|title_leader      = [[King]]
|today             = [[Egypt]]
}}
It is believed to have been united by the rulers of the supposed [[Thinite Confederacy]] who absorbed their rival city states during the [[Naqada III]] period (c. 3200–3000 BC), and its subsequent unification with [[Lower Egypt]] ushered in the [[Early Dynastic Period (Egypt)|Early Dynastic period]].<ref>Brink, Edwin C. M. van den (1992). "The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th.-3rd. Millennium B.C." ''Proceedings of the Seminar Held in Cairo, 21.-24. October 1990, at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies''. E.C.M. van den Brink. {{ISBN|978-965-221-015-9}}.</ref> Upper and Lower Egypt became intertwined in the symbolism of [[Pharaoh|pharaonic]] sovereignty such as the [[Pschent]] double crown.<ref>Griffith, Francis Llewellyn, A Collection of Hieroglyphs: A Contribution to the History of Egyptian Writing, the Egypt Exploration Fund 1898, p. 56</ref> Upper Egypt remained as a historical region even after the classical period.

===Predynastic Egypt===

The main city of [[prehistoric Egypt|prehistoric Upper Egypt]] was [[Nekhen]].<ref>{{harvp|Bard|Shubert|1999|p=371}}</ref> The patron deity was the goddess [[Nekhbet]], depicted as a vulture.<ref>{{harvp|David|1975|p=149}}</ref>

By approximately 3600 BC, Neolithic Egyptian societies along the [[Nile]] based their culture on the raising of crops and the domestication of animals.<ref>{{harvp|Roebuck|1966|p=51}}</ref> Shortly thereafter, Egypt began to grow and increase in complexity.<ref name=Roebuck1>{{harvp|Roebuck|1966|pp=52–53}}</ref> A new and distinctive pottery appeared, related to the [[Levantine archaeology#Ceramics analysis|Levantine ceramics]], and copper implements and ornaments became common.<ref name=Roebuck1 /> [[Mesopotamia]]n building techniques became popular, using sun-dried [[adobe]] bricks in arches and decorative recessed walls.<ref name=Roebuck1 />

These cultural advances paralleled the political unification of towns of the upper Nile River, or Upper Egypt, while the same occurred in the societies of the [[Nile Delta]], or [[Lower Egypt]].<ref name="Roebuck1" /> This led to warfare between the two new kingdoms.<ref name="Roebuck1" /> During his reign in Upper Egypt, King [[Narmer]] defeated his enemies on the delta and became sole ruler of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt,<ref>{{harvp|Roebuck|1966|p=53}}</ref> a sovereignty which endured throughout Dynastic Egypt.

===Dynastic Egypt===

In royal symbolism, Upper Egypt was represented by the tall White Crown ''[[Hedjet]]'', the flowering lotus, and the sedge. Its patron deity, Nekhbet, was depicted by the vulture. After unification, the patron deities of Upper and Lower Egypt were represented together as the ''[[Two Ladies]]'', to protect all of the ancient Egyptians, just as the two crowns were combined into a single pharaonic diadem.

For most of Egypt's ancient history, [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]] was the administrative center of Upper Egypt. After its devastation by the Assyrians, the importance of Egypt declined. Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies, [[Ptolemais Hermiou]] took over the role of the capital city of Upper Egypt.<ref>{{harvp|Chauveau|2000|p=68}}</ref>

===Medieval Egypt===
In the eleventh century, large numbers of [[Pastoralism|pastoralists]], known as Hilalians, fled Upper Egypt and moved westward into [[Libya]] and as far as [[Tunis]].<ref>{{harvp|Ballais|2000|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zbA2P0BXeI4C&pg=PA133 p. 133]}}</ref> It is believed that degraded grazing conditions in Upper Egypt, associated with the beginning of the [[Medieval Warm Period]], were the root cause of the migration.<ref>{{harvp|Ballais|2000|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zbA2P0BXeI4C&pg=PA134 p. 134]}}</ref>

===20th-century Egypt===
In the twentieth-century Egypt, the title [[Prince of the Sa'id]] (meaning ''Prince of Upper Egypt'') was used by the [[heir apparent]] to the Egyptian throne.{{#tag:ref|The title was first used by [[Farouk of Egypt|Prince Farouk]], the son and heir of [[Fuad I of Egypt|King Fouad I]]. Prince Farouk was officially named Prince of the Sa'id on 12 December 1933.<ref>{{harvp|Brice|1981|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6DYVAAAAIAAJ p. 299]}}</ref>|group=Note}}

Although the [[Kingdom of Egypt]] was abolished after the [[Egyptian revolution of 1952]], the title continues to be used by [[Muhammad Ali, Prince of the Sa'id]].

==Peopling of Upper Egypt==

{{multiple image
| perrow = 2
| total_width = 400
| caption_align = center
| align = left
| direction = horizontal
| image1 = Mesehtisoldiers.JPG
| caption1 = [[11th Dynasty]] model of Egyptian soldiers from the tomb of [[Mesehti]], Upper Egypt
| image2 = Nubian Archers.jpg
| caption2 = 11th Dynasty model of Nubian archers from a tomb in [[Asyut]], Upper Egypt}}

In Upper Egypt, the predynastic [[Badari culture]] was followed by the [[Naqada culture]] (Amratian),<ref>Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters</ref> being closely related to the Lower Nubian;<ref name="onlinelibrary.wiley.com">{{cite journal |last1=Zakrzewski |first1=Sonia R. |title=Population continuity or population change: Formation of the ancient Egyptian state |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=April 2007 |volume=132 |issue=4 |pages=501–509 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.20569 |pmid=17295300 |bibcode=2007AJPA..132..501Z |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.20569 |language=en |quote=When Mahalanobis D2 was used, the Naqadan and Badarian Predynastic samples exhibited more similarity to Nubian, Tigrean, and some more southern series than to some mid- to late Dynasticseries from northern Egypt (Mukherjee et al., 1955). The Badarian have been found to be very similar to a Kerma sample (Kushite Sudanese), using both the Penrose statistic (Nutter, 1958) and DFA of males alone (Keita,1990). Furthermore, Keita considered that Badarian males had a southern modal phenotype, and that together with a Naqada sample, they formed a southern Egyptian cluster as tropical variants together with a sample from Kerma|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>Tracy L. Prowse, Nancy C. Lovell. {{Deprecated archive|url=https://archive.today/20121217220119/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/57896/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0|title="Concordance of cranial and dental morphological traits and evidence for endogamy in ancient Egypt"}}, ''[[American Journal of Physical Anthropology]]'', Vol. 101, Issue 2, October 1996, pp. 237-246</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Godde |first1=Kane |title=A biological perspective of the relationship between Egypt, Nubia, and the Near East during the Predynastic period (2020) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337001806 |access-date=16 March 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Mokhtar |editor-first=Gamal |title=Ancient Civilizations of Africa |date=1981 |publisher=UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa; Heinemann Educational Books; University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-03913-1 |pages=20–21, 148 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gB6DcMU94GUC |language=en |quote=The difference in behaviour between two populations of similar ethnic composition throws significant light on an apparently abnormal fact: one of them adopted and perhaps even invented, a system of writing, while the other, which was aware of that writing, disdained it}}</ref> with some affinities with other [[northeast Africa]]n populations,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=978-0-691-24409-9 |pages=84–85 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ&q=ancient+africa:+a+global+history,+to+300+ce+christopher+ehret |language=en}}</ref> coastal communities from the [[Maghreb]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Studies of ancient crania from northern Africa |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=September 1990 |volume=83 |issue=1 |pages=35–48 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330830105 |pmid=2221029 |bibcode=1990AJPA...83...35K |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.1330830105 |language=en |issn=0002-9483|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Strohaul |first1=Eugene |title=Anthropology of the Egyptian Nubian Men - Strouhal - 2007 - ANTHROPOLOGIE |url=http://puvodni.mzm.cz/Anthropologie/downloads/articles/2007/Strouhal_2007_p105-245.pdf |journal=Puvodni.MZM.cz |page=115}}</ref> some [[Afrotropical realm|tropical]] African groups,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Early Nile Valley Farmers From El-Badari: Aboriginals or 'European' AgroNostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered with Other Data |journal=Journal of Black Studies |date=November 2005 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=191–208 |doi=10.1177/0021934704265912 |s2cid=144482802 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021934704265912 |language=en |issn=0021-9347|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and possibly inhabitants of the [[Middle East]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Keita |first1=Shomarka |title=Analysis of Naqada Predynastic Crania: a brief report (1996) |url=https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeum/reader/download/180/180-30-76280-1-10-20161130.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205163430/https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeum/reader/download/180/180-30-76280-1-10-20161130.pdf |archive-date=2022-12-05 |access-date=2022-02-22}}</ref>

Mainstream scholars have situated the ethnicity and the origins of predynastic, southern Egypt as a foundational community primarily in northeast Africa which included [[the Sudan]], [[Afrotropical realm|tropical Africa]] and [[the Sahara]] whilst recognising the population variability that became characteristic of the pharaonic period.<ref>"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. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas.”{{cite encyclopedia |last=Lovell |first=Nancy C. |chapter=Egyptians, physical anthropology of |title=Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt |editor1-last=Bard |editor1-first=Kathryn A. |editor1-link=Kathryn A. Bard |editor2-last=Shubert |editor2-first=Steven Blake |date=1999 |location=London |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0415185890 |pages=328–331}}</ref><ref>“The data clearly suggests that the population in southern Egypt became more diverse as the society more complex (Keita 1992). Egyptian society seems never to have been “closed”, and it is hard to believe that the modal phenotype could have remain unchanged, especially if social and sexual collection were operating. However, it is important to emphasize that, while the biology changed with increasing local social complexity, the ethnicity of Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change. The cultural morays, ritual formulae, and symbols used in writing, as far as can be ascertained, remained true to their southern origins”.{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships |journal=History in Africa |date=1993 |volume=20 |pages=129–154 |doi=10.2307/3171969 |jstor=3171969 |s2cid=162330365 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171969 |issn=0361-5413}}</ref><ref>p.85–“The physical anthropological findings from the major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to the Levant. They reveal instead a population with cranial and dental features with closest parallels of those of other longtime populations of the surrounding areas of northeastern Africa, such as Nubia and the northern Horn of Africa. Members of this population did not come from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia.”{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=978-0-691-24409-9 |pages=83–86, 97, 167–169 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ&q=ancient+africa:+a+global+history,+to+300+ce+christopher+ehret |language=en |access-date=20 March 2023 |archive-date=22 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322125442/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ&q=ancient+africa:+a+global+history,+to+300+ce+christopher+ehret |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>p.355 - “The  importance  of  iconographic  sources  was  emphasized  in  the  main.  Säve-Söderbergh and Leclant stressed that the links indicated by cave paintings between the vast expanses of the Sahara and the banks of the Nile nodded to a migration of peoples of the Sahara and groups from the South to the valley –something confirmed by research over the last thirty years. Diop set out to return Egypt  to  its  southern  African  hinterland  by  systematically  using  Pharaonic  statues and art to support his point of view. Although a debate on the north-south  orientation  of  a  ‘civilizing’  wave  of  peoples  in  the  valley  had  prevailed  up  to  that  point,  the  avalanche  of  new  data  now  made  this  idea  redundant,  suggesting  instead  the  image  of  a  growing  and  unifying  political  movement  in  the  valley  from  south  to  north  that  repositioned  its  starting  point  back  in  time:  in  Upper  Egypt,  digs  at  the  Uj  tomb  of  King  Scorpion  at  the  Abydos  necropolis push back the origin of the first Horus back to circa 3250 BCE, and the resumption of excavations at Nekhen led to the exhumation of the famous ‘Elephant  Kings’  of  Hierakonpolis  (Nekhen)  which  have  no  inscriptions  and  date back even further to circa 3700 BCE.” <br /> p.356 - “It quantified the key impact of  sub-Saharan  populations  and  found  a  clear  link  between  the  Siwi  and  the  peoples of North-East Africa. We could continue with work by Zakrzewski on the predynastic population of Nekhen, investigations by Crubezy which traced the  boundaries  of  the  ancient  Khoisan  settlement  to  Upper  Egypt,  where  its 
faint traces remain identifiable, and Keita’s work, as the most groundbreaking.”'<br />p.356 - “Hence  the  work  by  Cerny’s team highlighting the close links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, North  Cameroon  and  Ethiopia  –  the  Cameroon  people  living  in  the  Mandara  mountains  speaking  Chadic  languages,  and  the  Ethiopians  speaking  Kushitic  languages, prior to Ge’ez being spread throughout the region during the Aksumite period. This broadens the linguistic debate to include language families that had been little studied or used in comparisons that have long focused on the East.”                                                                                                                         {{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title= "Review of Ancient Civilizations of Africa: General History of Africa Volume II " in (General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited) |pages=355–75|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref> Pharaonic Egypt featured a physical [[cline (biology)|gradation]] across the regional populations, with Upper Egyptians having shared more biological affinities with [[Sudanese]] and [[Sub Saharan Africa|southernly African populations]], whereas Lower Egyptians had closer genetic links with [[the Levant|Levantine]] and [[Mediterranean]] populations.<ref name="onlinelibrary.wiley.com"/><ref>"Southern Egypt and Nubia are geographically co-extensive, with populations grading into each other. The absorption of Qustul’s people would have reinforced this. There is biological overlap of these populations in origin, but ongoing admixture is also apparent."{{cite web |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Ideas about "Race" in Nile Valley Histories: A Consideration of "Racial" Paradigms in Recent Presentations on Nile Valley Africa, from "Black Pharaohs" to Mummy Genomest |url=https://egyptianexpedition.org/articles/ideas-about-race-in-nile-valley-histories-a-consideration-of-racial-paradigms-in-recent-presentations-on-nile-valley-africa-from-black-pharaohs/ |website=Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections|date=September 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hassan|first1=Fekri|title=The African Dimension of Egyptian Origins (May 2021) |date=20 May 2021 |url=https://nilevalleycollective.org/african-dimension-of-egyptian-origins/}}</ref>

===Position of international scholarship===

[[File:Guardian Figures Middle Kingdom (12th Dynasty) ca. 1919–1885 BCE. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 44951. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 14.3.17.jpg|thumb|right|Pair of guardian statuettes, depicting Middle Kingdom pharaohs, presumably [[Senusret I]] or [[Amenemhat II]], with the white crown of Upper Egypt (left), the other with the red crown of [[Lower Egypt]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Guardian Figure |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/543864 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=2025}}</ref> The 12th dynasty had origins in [[Ta-Seti]], Upper Egypt.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lobban |first1=Richard A. Jr. |title=Historical Dictionary of Ancient Nubia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pRUYEAAAQBAJ&dq=amenemhat+textual+evidence+nubian+mother&pg=PA28 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |language=en |date=10 April 2021|isbn=9781538133392 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Van de Mieroop |first1=Marc |title=A history of ancient Egypt |date=2021 |location=Chichester, West Sussex |isbn=978-1119620877 |page=99 |edition=Second}}</ref>]]

In the view of Egyptian scholar and editor of [[UNESCO]] [[General History of Africa]] Volume II (1981), Gamal Mokhtar, Upper Egypt and Nubia held "similar [[ethnicity|ethnic]] composition" with comparable material culture.<ref name="General history of Africa, II: Anci">{{cite book |last1=Mokhtar |first1=Gamal |title=General history of Africa, II: Ancient civilizations of Africa |pages=20–25|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184265}}</ref> Mokhtar described a notable difference between the communities with Upper Egyptians having adopted a [[hieroglyphics|system of writing]] earlier due to the exigencies of the Nile Valley whilst their Nubian counterparts were more reticent due to their higher reliance on mobile, [[livestock|stock-raising]] as an expressed feature of their economy.<ref name="General history of Africa, II: Anci"/>

UNESCO International Scientific Committee Chair for GHA and archaeologist, Augustin Holl, stated that Egypt was situated in an intersection between [[Africa]] and [[Eurasia]] but affirmed "Egypt is African" with a "fluctuating distribution of African and Eurasian populations depending on historical circumstances".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |page=LVIII |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref>

In a chapter review of UNESCO General History of Africa Volume II (which featured the conclusions of the 1974 symposium) by anthropologist and Egyptologist, Alain Anselin, (2025) the traditional historical view of a “wave of civilizing peoples” from the north to the south had been displaced by the weight of recent evidence in favour of a unifying movement from south to north.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=356–357|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref> He stated that recent research accumulated over three decades had confirmed the migration of peoples from the Sahara and regions south of Egypt to the Nile Valley.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> This research had also situated Upper Egypt as the origin of pharaonic unification.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Anselin argued that this aligned with the position of the late [[Cheikh Anta Diop]], who had attempted to "restore Egypt to its southern African hinterland".<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Anselin referenced a range of specialist studies ([[physical anthropology|anthropology]], [[historical linguistics|linguistics]], [[population genetics|genetics]] and [[archaeology]]) presented at a triennial conference in 2005 which he stated was a continuation of the 1974 recommendations.<ref name="General history of Africa, IX: Gene"/> This included a genetic study which quantified the "key impact" of Sub-Saharan populations and showed that the early pre-dynastic population of the Berber people of the Siwa Oasis in north-western Egypt had close demographic links with people of North-East Africa. He further described the value of other studies such as a Crubezy study which  "traced the  boundaries  of the  ancient [[Khoisan]]  settlement  to  Upper  Egypt,  where  its  faint traces remain identifiable and Keita’s work, as the most groundbreaking", and that Cerny's team had identified close genetic and linguistic links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, North [[Cameroon]] (some of whom spoke Chadic languages) and [[Ethiopia]] (some of whom spoke Kushitic languages).<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

====Biological anthropological data====

====Skeletal biology====

According to [[bioarchaeologist]] Nancy Lovell, the morphology of ancient Egyptian skeletons gives strong evidence that: "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and [[Nubia]] had the greatest biological affinity to people of the [[Sahara]] and more southerly areas", but exhibited local variation in an African context.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt |publisher=Routledge |location=London |date=1999 |editor1-last=Bard |editor1-first=Kathryn A. |pages=328–331 |isbn=0415185890 |quote=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. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas |author-last=Lovell |author-first=Nancy C. |chapter=Egyptians, physical anthropology of |editor2-last=Shubert |editor2-first=Steven Blake}}</ref> S. O. Y. Keita, a [[biological anthropologist]] also reviewed studies on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptian population and characterised the skeletal morphologies of predynastic southern Egyptians as a "Saharo-tropical African variant". Keita also added that it is important to emphasize that whilst Egyptian society became more socially complex and biologically varied, the "ethnicity of the Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change. The cultural morays, ritual formulae, and symbols used in writing, as far as can be ascertained, remained true to their southern origins."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |date=1993 |title=Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171969 |journal=History in Africa |volume=20 |pages=129–154 |doi=10.2307/3171969 |issn=0361-5413 |jstor=3171969 |s2cid=162330365|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[File:Megaliths Aswan Nubia museum.JPG|left|thumb|Megaliths from Nabta Playa displayed in the [[Aswan]], Upper Egypt]]

The early megalithic complex of [[Nabta Playa]] located in the [[Aswan Museum]], Upper Egypt has exhibited close resemblances to [[Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan]] and [[Sahelian]] ceremonial centres including structures found in [[Ethiopia]], [[Senegal]], regions north to [[Morocco]] and [[West Africa]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=469, 705–722|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref> Anthropological studies have indicated linkages to Sub-Saharan and [[North African]] populations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wendorf |first1=Fred |title=Holocene settlement of the Egyptian Sahara. |date=2001 |publisher=Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers |location=New York |isbn=978-0-306-46612-0 |pages=489–502}}</ref><ref>[http://hej3.as.utexas.edu/~www/wheel/africa/nabta_01.htm Ancient Astronomy in Africa] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503110521/http://hej3.as.utexas.edu/~www/wheel/africa/nabta_01.htm |date=3 May 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara | first=Fred |last=Wendorf| isbn=978-0-306-46612-0|publisher=Springer|year=2001|page=525|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qUk0GyDJRCoC&dq=nabta+playa+sub-saharan&pg=PA525 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232660407 |via=[[ResearchGate]]|doi=10.1007/978-1-4615-0653-9_18 |chapter=Human Skeletal Remains from Three Nabta Playa Sites |title=Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara |year=2001 |last1=Irish |first1=Joel D. |pages=521–528 |isbn=978-1-4613-5178-8 }}</ref><ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=R0buBwAAQBAJ&dq=Human+Skeletal+Remains+from+Three+Nabta+Playa+Sites&pg=PA521 Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa]'', by Fred Wendorf, Romuald Schild (chapter 18: Human Skeletal Remains from Three Nabta Playa Sites, by Joel D. Irish), p. 125-128, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-24409-9 |page=107 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wendorf |first1=Fred |title=Holocene settlement of the Egyptian Sahara |date=2001 |publisher=Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers |location=New York |isbn=978-0-306-46612-0 |pages=489–502}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.academia.edu/36832284 |title=Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy |chapter=Astronomy at Nabta Playa, Southern Egypt |date=2015 |publisher=Springer |pages=1080–1090 |doi=10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_101 |last1=McKim Malville |first1=J. |isbn=978-1-4614-6140-1 }}</ref>

A 1973 X-ray examination of southern king, [[Seqenenre Tao]], by American Egyptologists, [[Kent Weeks]] and James E. Harris had identified cranial similarities between his cranio-facial complex along with other Nubian and Old Kingdom Giza Skulls. In their view, this was supportive of scholarly interpretations that Sequenre Tao and his family may have held Nubian ancestry.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Y. |first1=Keita, S. O. |title=Studies of ancient crania from northern Africa |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=1990 |volume=83 |issue=1 |pages=35–48 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330830105 |pmid=2221029 |bibcode=1990AJPA...83...35K |url=https://www.academia.edu/29592422 |issn=0002-9483}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=F. J. Yurco |title='Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?' |journal=Biblical Archaeology Review |volume=(Vol 15, no. 5, 1989) |pages=35–37}}</ref>

James Harris and Fawzia Hussien (1991) conducted an X-ray survey on southern based 18th dynasty royal mummies and examined the mummified remains of [[Thutmose II]]. The results of the study determined that the mummy of Thutmose II had a craniofacial trait measurement that was common among Nubian populations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=James E. |last2=Hussien |first2=Fawzia |title=The identification of the Eighteenth Dynasty royal mummies; a biological perspective |journal=International Journal of Osteoarchaeology |date=September 1991 |volume=1 |issue=3–4 |pages=235–239 |doi=10.1002/oa.1390010317 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.1390010317 |language=en |issn=1047-482X |archive-date=20 April 2022 |access-date=20 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420214011/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.1390010317 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

A 1992 study conducted by S.O.Y. Keita on [[First dynasty of Egypt|First Dynasty]] crania from the royal tombs in [[Abydos, Egypt|Abydos]], noted the predominant pattern was "Southern" or a "[[tropical Africa]]n variant" (though others were also observed), which had affinities with Kerma Kushites.<ref name="Further studies of crania from anci">{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Further studies of crania from ancient Northern Africa: An analysis of crania from First Dynasty Egyptian tombs, using multiple discriminant functions |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=1992 |volume=87 |issue=3 |pages=245–254 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330870302 |pmid=1562056 |bibcode=1992AJPA...87..245K |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.1330870302 |language=en |issn=1096-8644|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The general results demonstrate greater affinity with Upper Nile Valley groups, but also suggest clear change from earlier craniometric trends. Moreover, analysis also found clear change from earlier craniometric trends, as "lower Egyptian, [[Maghreb]]ian, and [[Europe]]an patterns are observed also, thus making for great diversity". The gene flow and movement of northern officials to the important southern city may explain the findings.<ref name="Further studies of crania from anci"/>

In 1996, Lovell and Prowse reported the presence of individuals buried at Naqada, Upper Egypt, in what they interpreted to be elite, high status tombs, showing them to be an endogamous ruling or elite segment who were significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries, and more closely related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia than those in Southern Egypt.<ref>Tracy L. Prowse, Nancy C. Lovell. {{Deprecated archive|url=https://archive.today/20121217220119/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/57896/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0|title=Concordance of cranial and dental morphological traits and evidence for endogamy in ancient Egypt}}, [[American Journal of Physical Anthropology]], Vol. 101, Issue 2, October 1996, Pages: 237–246</ref>

Egyptologist [[Frank J. Yurco]] also considered the [[Badarian culture|Badarians]] as exhibiting a "mix of [[North Africa]]n and [[Sub-Sahara]]n physical traits", and referenced older analysis of skeletal remains which "showed [[tropical Africa]]n elements in the population of the earliest Badarian culture".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yurco |first1=Frank |chapter=An Egyptological Review| editor1=Lefkowitz, Mary R.| editor1-link=Mary Lefkowitz |editor2=Rogers, Guy MacLean |title=Black Athena Revisited |date=1996 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |isbn=978-0-8078-4555-4 |pages=65–67}}</ref>

In 2003, Japanese anthropologists Tsunehiko Hanihara, Hajime Ishida and Yukio Dodoet (2003) examined cranial traits from 70 human populations. The survey included samples from Predynastic Naqada (Upper Egypt) and 12th-13th dynasty [[Kerma culture|Kushite Kerma]] (Sudan). In the context of the study, these samples were collectively classified as "[[North Africans]]" and other samples from Somalia along with Nigeria were classified as "[[Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharans]]", but lacked a specified dating period.<ref name="Characterization of biological dive">{{cite journal |last1=Hanihara |first1=Tsunehiko |last2=Ishida |first2=Hajime |last3=Dodo |first3=Yukio |title=Characterization of biological diversity through analysis of discrete cranial traits |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=July 2003 |volume=121 |issue=3 |pages=241–251 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.10233 |pmid=12772212 |bibcode=2003AJPA..121..241H |language=en|doi-access=free }}</ref> Overall, the samples from predynastic Naqada and [[Kerma]] clustered most closely and more remotely with European groups, whilst the other samples from Sub-Saharan Africa showed "significant separation from other regions, as well as diversity among themselves".<ref name="Characterization of biological dive"/>

In 2005, Keita examined [[Badarian]] crania from predynastic upper Egypt in comparison to various [[Europe]]an and [[tropical Africa]]n crania. He found that the predynastic Badarian series clustered much closer with the tropical African series. The  comparative samples were selected based on "Brace et al.'s (1993) comments on the affinities of an upper Egyptian/Nubian epipalaeolithic series".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Early Nile Valley Farmers From El-Badari: Aboriginals or "European"AgroNostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data |journal=Journal of Black Studies |date=November 2005 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=191–208 |doi=10.1177/0021934704265912 |s2cid=144482802 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021934704265912 |language=en |issn=0021-9347|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In 2006, [[Barry Kemp (Egyptologist)|Barry Kemp]] found that skeletal samples from [[Elephantine]] (the border between Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia) from the [[Sixth Dynasty of Egypt|6th]] to [[Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt|26th Dynasties]] showed very strong affinities with the Nubian population.<ref name="Kemp 46–58">{{cite book |last=Kemp |first=Barry J. |author-link=Barry J. Kemp |title=Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IT6CAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT46 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=7 May 2007 |pages=46–58 |isbn=978-1-134-56388-3}}</ref> Comparatively, Kemp examined samples sourced from populations located in Africa, the Near East, and the Mediterranean.<ref name="Kemp 46–58"/> Furthermore, he found that samples from northern Egypt (Merimde, Maadi, and the Wadi Digla) from before the 1st Dynasty showed no affinities with samples from Palestine and Byblos, and the proportions of members of these Egyptians group them with Africans, not Europeans.<ref name="Kemp 46–58"/>

In 2006, [[C. Loring Brace]] and a team of anthropologists examined the skeletal morphology of humans populations from Neolithic and Bronze Age period. The analysis based on 24 craniofacial measures/variables, found close affinities between the Egyptian [[Naqada culture|Naqada Bronze]] sample and Somalis, Nubia Bronze, Nubians and to a lesser extent, Tanzania Haya, Dahomey, and Congo.<ref name="Brace, C. Loring 2006 242–247">{{cite journal |author=Brace, C. Loring|display-authors=etal |title=The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form |journal=PNAS |date=2006 |volume=103 |issue=1 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0509801102|pmid=16371462 |quote= |pages=242–247|pmc=1325007 |bibcode=2006PNAS..103..242B |doi-access=free }}</ref> On the other hand, lower similarities were found between the Egyptian Naqada sample and the other regions of the world, which included samples named Middle East, Berber, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Italy amongst others, with the exception of the Israeli Fellaheen who also plotted with Naqada Bronze.<ref name="Brace, C. Loring 2006 242–247"/>

In 2008, Keita found the early predynastic groups in Southern Egypt which included Badarian skeletal samples, were similar to Nile-Valley remains from areas to the south and north of Upper Egypt. Overall, the dynastic Egyptians (includes both Upper and Lower Egyptians) showed much closer affinities with these particular Northeast African populations. In his comparison to the various Egyptian series, Greeks, Somali/Horn, and Italians were used. He also concluded that more material was needed to make a firm conclusion about the relationship between the early [[Holocene]] Nile valley populations and later ancient Egyptians.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |last2=Boyce |first2=A. J. |title=Temporal variation in phenetic affinity of early Upper Egyptian male cranial series |journal=Human Biology |date=April 2008 |volume=80 |issue=2 |pages=141–159 |doi=10.3378/1534-6617(2008)80[141:TVIPAO]2.0.CO;2 |pmid=18720900 |s2cid=25207756 |issn=0018-7143}}</ref>

Anthropological analysis conducted by Eric Crubézy (2002, 2010) on an Adaïma predynastic cemetery from 3700 CE and which contained 6,000 skeletons had found affinities with a southerly African population.<ref name="unesdoc.unesco.org">{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=724–731|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref>

In 2018, Godde assessed population relationships in the Nile Valley by comparing crania from 18 Egyptian and Nubian groups, spanning from Lower Egypt to Lower Nubia across 7,400 years. Overall, the results showed that the Mesolithic Nubian sample had a greater similarity with Naqada Egyptians. Similarly, Lower Nubian and Upper Egyptian samples clustered together. However, the Lower Egyptian samples formed a homogeneous unit, and there was a north–south gradient in the data set.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Godde |first1=K. |title=A new analysis interpreting Nilotic relationships and peopling of the Nile Valley |journal=Homo: Internationale Zeitschrift für die Vergleichende Forschung am Menschen |date=July 2018 |volume=69 |issue=4 |pages=147–157 |doi=10.1016/j.jchb.2018.07.002 |pmid=30055809 |s2cid=51865039 |issn=1618-1301}}</ref>

In 2020, Godde analysed a series of crania, including two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Nagada series), a series of A-Group Nubians and a Bronze Age series from Lachish, Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest affinities, followed by closeness between the Nagada and the Nubian series. Further, the Nubian A-Group plotted nearer to the Egyptians and the Lachish sample placed more closely to Naqada than Badari. According to Godde the spatial-temporal model applied to the pattern of biological distances explains the more distant relationship of Badari to Lachish than Naqada to Lachish as gene flow will cause populations to become more similar over time.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Godde |first1=Kane |title=A biological perspective of the relationship between Egypt, Nubia, and the Near East during the Predynastic period (2020) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337001806 |access-date=16 March 2022}}</ref>

In 2025, Egyptian historian and archaeological inspector at the [[Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities|Ministry of Antiquities]], H. A. A. Ibrahim, examined the megalithic complex of [[Nabta Playa]], Upper Egypt to understand the cultural and population influences of the [[Holocene]] on pre-dynastic Egypt. She cited an anthropological study confirming the appearance of a Sub-Saharan high status child in a ceremonial centre and concluded that the megalithic structures had close resemblance to comparable structures in the [[Sahelian]] and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=705–723|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref>

====Dental studies====

A 2002 study had found that [[Tasian culture|Tasian]] dental markers were shown to similar be Sub-Saharan Africans and some also to North Africans. According to the researchers, it is possible that the population may have been a mix of both groups, but the sample size was concluded to be too small to make definitive statements.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Friedman |first1=Renee |last2=Hobbs |first2=Joseph |date=2002-01-01 |title=Friedman Hobbs 2002 A 'Tasian' Tomb in Egypt's Eastern Desert |url=https://www.academia.edu/36618376 |journal=Egypt and Nubia. Gifts of the Desert}} Edited by R. Friedman.</ref>

A 2006 [[bioarchaeology|bioarchaeological]] study on the dental [[morphology (biology)|morphology]] of ancient Egyptians in Upper Egypt by Joel Irish found that their dental traits were most similar to those of other Nile Valley populations, with more remote ties with Bronze Age to Christian period Nubians (e.g. A-Group, C-Group, Kerma) and other Afro-Asiatic speaking populations in Northeast Africa (Tigrean). Moreover, the Egyptian groups were generally distinct from the sampled West and Central African populations.<ref name="JIrish 2007, 138–156">{{cite journal | last1 = Irish | first1 = J. D. | last2 = Konigsberg | first2 = L. | year = 2007 | title = The ancient inhabitants of Jebel Moya redux: measures of population affinity based on dental morphology | url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229961799| journal = International Journal of Osteoarchaeology | volume = 17 | issue = 2| pages = 138–156 | doi=10.1002/oa.868}}</ref> Among the samples included in the study is skeletal material from the [[commons:Fayum mummy portraits|Hawara tombs of Fayum]] (from the Roman period), which clustered very closely with the [[Badarian]] series of the [[Predynastic Egypt|predynastic]] period. All the samples, particularly those of the Dynastic period, were significantly divergent from a [[Neolithic]] West Saharan sample from Lower Nubia. Biological continuity was also found intact from the dynastic to the post-pharaonic periods.<ref name="JIrish 2007, 138–156" />

Irish (2008) conducted a morphological comparison between the dental traits of human remains from Lower Nubian Neolithic sites at Gebel Ramlah (modern Southern Egypt) and Upper Nubian Neolithic sites from the cemeteries at R12 (modern Northern Sudan). Irish compared these remains to pooled dental samples from post-Neolithic Egyptians and Nubians to determine and distinguish biological affiliatations in the regional context. He concluded that the Lower Nubian samples of Gebel Ramlah and the Upper Nubian samples of R12 were not closely related biologically, whereas the post-Neolithic Egyptians and Nubians were closely related based on the Mean Measure of Divergence statistical analysis of 36 dental traits from the samples. This apparent homogeneity was attributed to population interaction stemming from a combination of trade, migration and genetic exchange along the River Nile, whereas the earlier Neolithic groups were more isolated from each other, both spatially and genetically.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Irish |first1=Joel |title=A dental assessment of biological affinity between inhabitants of the Gebel Ramlah and R12 Neolithic sites |date=1 January 2008 |url=https://www.academia.edu/47149396}}</ref>

Biological anthropologist Shomarka Keita takes issue with the suggestion of Irish that Egyptians and Nubians were not primary descendants of the African [[epipaleolithic]] and [[Neolithic]] populations. Keita also criticizes him for ignoring the possibility that the dentition of the ancient Egyptians could have been caused by "in situ microevolution" driven by dietary change, rather than by racial admixture.<ref name="S.O.Y. Keita">{{cite journal|title= Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships|year=1995|last1=Keita |first1= S. O. Y. |doi=10.1007/BF02444602|journal= International Journal of Anthropology|volume= 10|issue= 2–3|pages= 107–123 |s2cid=83660108|doi-access= free}}</ref>

Eric Crubézy (2010) found that 25% of the sampled children's teeth from a cemetery in Adaima, Upper Egypt, had "[[Bushmen]]" upper canines typical of people from [[Khoi-San]] which "confirmed the African origin of the Adamia population.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=723–41|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref>

====Limb proportions====

Robins and Shute (1983) performed X-ray measurements on the physical proportions of Upper Egyptian rulers such as [[Thutmose III]], [[Amenhotep III]], [[Tutankhamun]]. The authors reported that the limbs of the pharaohs, like those of other Ancient Egyptians, had "[[negroid]] characteristics", in that the distal segments were relatively long in comparison with the proximal segments. An exception was Ramesses II, who appears to have had short legs below the knees.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Robins |first1=G. |last2=Shute |first2=C. C. D. |title=The physical proportions and living stature of New Kingdom pharaohs |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |date=1 July 1983 |volume=12 |issue=5 |pages=455–465 |doi=10.1016/S0047-2484(83)80141-9 |bibcode=1983JHumE..12..455R |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248483801419 |language=en |issn=0047-2484|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

A 2003 study performed by [[Sonia Zakrzewski]] had found Upper Egyptians, with sample collections sourced from the Badarin and Middle Kingdom eras, as having [[tropical]] body proportions.<ref name="Variation in ancient Egyptian statu">{{cite journal |last1=Zakrzewski |first1=Sonia R. |date=July 2003 |title=Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.10223 |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |language=en |volume=121 |issue=3 |pages=219–229 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.10223 |issn=0002-9483 |pmid=12772210 |bibcode=2003AJPA..121..219Z |s2cid=9848529|url-access=subscription }}</ref> She described their proportions as measured in the raw data to be "super-negroid" (i.e. the limb indices are relatively longer than in many "African" populations) in line with the results of the Robbins study (1983).<ref name="Variation in ancient Egyptian statu"/>  Nonetheless, she proposed that the apparent development of an increasingly African body plan over time may also be due to Nubian mercenaries being included in the Middle Kingdom sample.<ref name="Variation in ancient Egyptian statu"/> Overall, she found that the available samples featured in the study "relatively clustered together" as compared to other populations. Zakrzewski cautioned that the results were provisional due to the limited small sizes and lack of skeletal material that "cross-cuts all social and economic groups within each time period".<ref name="Variation in ancient Egyptian statu"/>

Raxter (2014) examined skeletal collection of 492 males and 528 females, all adults from the Predynastic and Dynastic Periods, a time spanning c. 5500 BCE-600 CE. Overall, she found that Ancient Egyptians have more tropically adapted limbs in comparison to body breadths, the latter she interpreted to be suggestive of intermediate when plotted against higher and lower latitude populations.<ref name="Raxter 2011">{{Cite thesis|last=Raxter|first=Michelle|date=2011|title=Egyptian Body Size: A Regional and Worldwide Comparison|url=https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/3305|type=PhD dissertation |publisher=University of South Florida}}</ref> Her results identified a gradation with Upper Egyptians and [[Lower Nubia]]ns having shared affinities whilst Lower Egyptians were more closely linked with Southern European populations.<ref name="Raxter 2011"/> Raxter summarised that her results might also suggest early [[Mediterranean]] or [[Near East]]ern influence in Northeast Africa.<ref name="Raxter 2011"/>

====Other biological data====

Shomarka Keita reported that a 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had a [[histology]] which indicated notably [[dark skin]]".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keita Shomarka.|title="Ancient Egyptian "Origins and "Identity" In Ancient Egyptian society : challenging assumptions, exploring approaches |date=2022 |location=Abingdon, Oxon |isbn=978-0367434632 |pages=111–122}}</ref>

In 2023, [[Christopher Ehret]] reported that physical anthropological findings, performed by Keita and Zakrzewski, on the "major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the fourth millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to the [[Levant]]". Ehret specified that these studies revealed cranial and dental affinities with "closest parallels" to other longtime populations in the surrounding areas of [[Northeast Africa|Northeastern Africa]] "such as Nubia and the northern  [[Horn of Africa]]". He further commented that the [[Naqada culture|Naqada]] and Badarian populations did not migrate "from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia".<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=978-0-691-24409-9 |pages=83–86, 97|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ&q=ancient+africa:+a+global+history,+to+300+ce+christopher+ehret |language=en |access-date=20 March 2023 |archive-date=22 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322125442/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ&q=ancient+africa:+a+global+history,+to+300+ce+christopher+ehret |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Genetic studies====

====Ancient samples====

Multiple forms of genetic analysis have been conducted on the 18th dynasty royal [[Amarna period|Amarna]] mummies (including pharaohs Tutankhamun, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten) that were based in Thebes, Upper Egypt with conflicting set of results.<ref name="Czech Institute of Egyptology">{{cite book |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353306320 |title=Guardian of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of Zahi Hawass |date=2020 |chapter=Maternal and paternal lineages in King Tutankhamun's family |publisher=Czech Institute of Egyptology |last1=Gad |first1=Yehia |isbn=978-80-7308-979-5 |pages=497–518}}</ref><ref name="academic.oup.com">{{cite journal|url=https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/30/R1/R24/5924364 |journal=Human Molecular Genetics |volume=30 |issue=R1 |date=2020 |title=Insights from ancient DNA analysis of Egyptian human mummies: clues to disease and kinship |last1=Gad |first1=Yehia |doi=10.1093/hmg/ddaa223 |pages=R24–R28|pmid=33059357 |doi-access=free  | issn = 0964-6906}}</ref>

Keita, Gourdine and Anselin performed [[Short Tandem Repeat|STR analysis]] on the [[Thebes, Egypt|Theban]] royal mummies, which derived from a 2010 genetic study performed by [[Zahi Hawass]] and his team, to determine the population affinities. According to Gourdine (2025), this he analysis had found “that they had strong affinities with current sub-Saharan populations: 41 per cent to 93.9 per cent for sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 4.6 per cent to 41 per cent for Eurasia and 0.3 per cent to 16 per cent for Asia (Gourdine, 2018).”<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |page=730|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref> Gourdine also referenced supporting analysis conducted by DNA Tribes company, which specialized in genetic genealogy and had large datasets, with the latter having identified strong affinities between the Amarna royal mummies and Sub-Saharan African populations.”<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited|page=730|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref>

Hawass and his team had produced another study in 2020 which identified haplogroup R1b and mtDNA K genetic markers in the Amarna royal mummies and interpreted this to show strong genetic affinities with European and West Asian populations.<ref name="Czech Institute of Egyptology"/><ref name="academic.oup.com"/>

In another 2025 multidisciplinary review, noting the R1b M89 haplogroup subtype identified among the three Amarna pharaohs (Tutankhamun, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten) was not further specified.<ref name="Oxford University Press">{{cite book |last1=Schoenbrun |first1=David |last2=Ehret |first2=Christopher |last3=A Brandt |first3=Steven |last4=Keita |first4=Shomarka |title="Afrasian linguistics" in The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology and Language |date=9 June 2025 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-269455-3 |pages=540–569 |edition=Mark Hudson, Martine Robbeets (eds) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JJkEQAAQBAJ&dq=ehret+2025&pg=PA540 |language=en}}</ref> The authors also stated that the R1b haplogroup usually interpreted as indicating a back migration to Africa from or via the Near East could have been attributed to [[Eurasian backflow|Asian back migration]] or [[Green Sahara|trans-Saharan connections]] as the genetic marker is found at relative high frequencies among [[Chadic languages|Chadic populations]].<ref name="Oxford University Press"/> Referencing a [[Short Tandem Repeat|Short Tandem Report]] (STR) autosomal background analysis on the Amarna royal mummies, performed by Keita in an earlier publication, the authors considered this analysis could suggest closer trans-Saharan connections.<ref name="Oxford University Press"/>  Ehret et al also disclosed through personal communication with the Gad team that "other eighteenth dynasty lineages in the Amarna period were found to be E1b1a (Gad et al 2020)".<ref name="Oxford University Press"/> The authors further postulated that association of the palaeolithic Asian lineage (R1B) and an affiliation that is tropical African (E1b1a) is an example of admixture found in some Nile Valley populations, and that a mixture of lineages could illustrate Egypt being near a crossroads.<ref name="Oxford University Press"/>

====Modern samples====

Genetic analysis of a modern Upper Egyptian population in Adaima by Eric Crubézy had identified genetic markers common across Africa, with 71% of the cases carrying E1b1 haplogroup and 3% carrying the L0f mitochondrial haplogroup.<ref name="General history of Africa, IX: Gene">{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=728|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref> A secondary review published in 2025 noted the results were preliminary and need to be confirmed by other laboratories with new sequencing methods.<ref name="General history of Africa, IX: Gene"/>

Anthropologist Alain Anselin found the distribution of linguistic, archaeological data to be consistent with initial genetic findings on Upper Egyptian population in [[Kurna|Gurna]] which had a remnant of high [[Haplogroup M (mtDNA)|M1 haplogroup]] and sub-Saharan affinities.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref> This has been interpreted to suggest that the current population structure of Egypt may be the result of neighbouring influences on the ancestral population.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref>  Anselin also suggested that the combination of historical genetics and recent archaeological excavations in the Western Desert could contribute to the peopling of Egypt for which Saharan affinities had been identified in a previous, interdisciplinary review.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref>

Another 2004 mtDNA study featured the samples from Gurna, Upper Egypt and clustered them together with the [[Ethiopian]] and [[Yemeni]] groups, in between the Near Eastern and other African sample groups.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Kivisild T, Reidla M, Metspalu E, Rosa A, Brehm A, Pennarun E, Parik J, Geberhiwot T, Usanga E, Villems R |title=Ethiopian Mitochondrial DNA Heritage: Tracking Gene Flow Across and Around the Gate of Tears |journal=American Journal of Human Genetics |date=2004 |volume=75 |issue=5 |pages=752–770 |doi=10.1086/425161 |pmid=15457403 |pmc=1182106 |bibcode=2004AmJHG..75..752K }}</ref>

Compiled genetic publications have identified a high frequency of [[Haplogroup E-M96|E haplogroup subclades]] across Egypt, including among Egyptian Copts in Adaima, Upper Egypt and émigré Coptic communities in Sudan.<ref name="Afrasian linguistics in The Oxfor">{{cite book |last1=Schoenbrun |first1=David |last2=Ehret |first2=Christopher |last3=A Brandt |first3=Steven |last4=Keita |first4=Shomarka |title="Afrasian linguistics" in The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology and Language |date=9 June 2025 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-269455-3 |pages=567–69|edition=Mark Hudson, Martine Robbeets (eds) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JJkEQAAQBAJ&dq=ehret+2025&pg=PA540 |language=en}}</ref> Other haplogroups with a notable occurrence in the Egyptian populations have included the [[Haplogroup J (Y-DNA)|J]] and [[Haplogroup R (Y-DNA)|R]] haplogroups.<ref name="Afrasian linguistics in The Oxfor"/> The E-M35 haplogroup subclade is found among all [[Afro-Asiatic]] speaking regions, with the [[Haplogroup E-V68|M-78 clade]] now commonly thought to have arisen in either Sudan or Egypt, "or further south in the northeastern quadrant of Africa".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schoenbrun |first1=David |last2=Ehret |first2=Christopher |last3=A Brandt |first3=Steven |last4=Keita |first4=Shomarka |title="Afrasian linguistics" in The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology and Language |date=9 June 2025 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-269455-3 |pages=563–69|edition=Mark Hudson, Martine Robbeets (eds) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JJkEQAAQBAJ&dq=ehret+2025&pg=PA540 |language=en}}</ref>

====Cultural affinities====

[[File:Statue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee Garment MET DP302397.jpg|thumb|left|Statue of [[Mentuhotep II]], 11th dynasty ruler, originated from [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]], southern Egypt.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Oppenheim |first1=Adela |last2=Arnold |first2=Dorothea |last3=Arnold |first3=Dieter |last4=Yamamoto |first4=Kei |title=Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom |date=12 October 2015 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-1-58839-564-1 |page=307 |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Ancient_Egypt_Transformed/FpqZCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=mentuhotep+ii+southern+egypt&pg=PA307&printsec=frontcover |language=en}}</ref>]]

Upper Egypt is considered to have formed the pre-dominant basis for the cultural development of Pharaonic Egypt and the Proto-dynastic kings emerged from the Naqada region.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge history of Africa |date=1975–1986 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-22215-0 |pages=500–509}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford history of ancient Egypt |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=0-19-280458-8 |page=479 |edition=New}}</ref> Several dynasties of southern or Upper Egyptian origin, which included the [[Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt|11th]], [[Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt|12th]], [[Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt|17th]], [[Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt|18th]] and [[Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt|25th]] dynasties, reunified and reinvigorated pharaonic Egypt after periods of fragmentation.<ref>"historically not only was Upper Egypt the source of the core identifiable Egyptian culture, but that it was primarily southerners of the Eleventh/Twelfth, Seventeenth/Eighteenth, and Twenty-fifth Dynasties who politically reunited Egypt and reinvigorated its culture"{{cite web |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Ideas about "Race" in Nile Valley Histories: A Consideration of "Racial" Paradigms in Recent Presentations on Nile Valley Africa, from "Black Pharaohs" to Mummy Genomest |url=https://egyptianexpedition.org/articles/ideas-about-race-in-nile-valley-histories-a-consideration-of-racial-paradigms-in-recent-presentations-on-nile-valley-africa-from-black-pharaohs/ |website=Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections|date=September 2022 }}</ref>

In the view of American Egyptologist [[Frank J. Yurco]],

<blockquote>"The XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yurco |first1=Frank J. |title=Were the Ancient Egyptians Black Or White? |date=1989 |publisher=Biblical Archaeology Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fJ4gtwAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

An assemblage of older scholarship have identified a common African substratum for early Egyptian cultural practices. Central African tool designs are featured in the Badarian and Naqada archaeological sites.<ref name="anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com">{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=Shomarka O. Y. |title=royal incest and diffusion in Africa |journal=American Ethnologist |date=May 1981 |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=392–393 |doi=10.1525/ae.1981.8.2.02a00120|url=https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ae.1981.8.2.02a00120 |language=en|url-access=subscription }}</ref>  According to archaeologist, [[Charles Thurstan Shaw]], "the early cultures of Merimde, Badari, Naqadi I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of Egyptian way of life."<ref name="anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com"/>

[[File:Qustul Incense Burner, Qustal, Nubia, Cemetery L, tomb 24, A-Group, 3200-3000 BC, limestone - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC08007.JPG|thumb|right|[[Qustul]] Incense Burner, excavated from a royal Nubian tomb in [[Lake Nasser]], considered among the earliest representations of the White Crown Hedjet in Upper Egypt.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: a global history, to 300 CE |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=978-0691244099 |pages=112–113}}</ref>]]

Archaeologist Bruce Williams has advanced the view that Nubians participated with the first dynastic counterparts in the development of the pharaonic civilization.<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=Bruce |title=Forebears of Menes in Nubia: Myth or Reality? |journal=Journal of Near Eastern Studies |date=1987 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=15–26 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/544188 |issn=0022-2968}}</ref> Williams also clarified in 1987 that his discovery of the Qutsul incense burner advanced no claim of a Nubian origin or genesis for the pharaonic monarchy but that excavations had shown Nubian linkages and contributions.<ref name="jstor.org"/> He maintained that detailed, archaeological evidence has found cemeteries of tombs situated in [[Qustul]], Nubia vastly greater and wealthier in size than the [[Abydos, Egypt|Abydos]] tombs of the first dynastic rulers.<ref name="jstor.org"/>

Excavations at Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt) found archaeological evidence of ritual masks similar to those used further south of Egypt, and obsidian linked to [[Ethiopian]] quarry sites.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davies |first1=W. V. |title=Egypt uncovered |date=1998 |publisher=Stewart, Tabori & Chang |location=New York |isbn=1556708181 |pages=5–87}}</ref> [[Frank Yurco]] stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the [[Crowns of Egypt|royal crowns]], [[Horus]] falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and [[A-Group culture|A-Group Lower Nubia]].<ref name="Yurco 1996 34–35">{{cite book |last=Yurco |first=Frank J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CpdDAQAAIAAJ&q=crowns |title=Egypt in Africa |date=1996 |publisher=Indianapolis Museum of Art |isbn=0-936260-64-5 |editor=Theodore Celenko |location=Indianapolis |pages=34–35 |chapter=The Origin and Development of Ancient Nile Valley Writing}}</ref>

Anthropologist Joseph Vogel (1997) stated "The period when sub-Saharan Africa was most influential in Egypt was a time when neither Egypt, as we understand it culturally, nor the Sahara, as we understand it geographically, existed. Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant."<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of precolonial Africa: archaeology, history, languages, cultures, and environments |date=1997 |publisher=AltaMira Press |location=Walnut Creek, Calif. |isbn=0-7619-8902-1 |pages=465–472}}</ref>

British Africanist, [[Basil Davidson]], (1995) observed that the earliest southern Egyptian farmers, [[Tasian culture|Tasian]] and [[Badarian culture|Badarian communities]], were close neighbours of the Middle Nile and would have emerged from regions south-west or west of the Nile territories.<ref name="Collier Books">{{cite book |last1=Davidson |first1=Basil |title=Africa in history : themes and outlines |date=1991 |publisher=Collier Books |location=New York |isbn=0684826674 |pages=15 |edition=Rev. and expanded}}</ref> In his view, the early Egyptians belonged to wide communities that lived between the Red Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, shared a common '[[Sahara]]n-[[Sudan|Sudanese culture]]' and drew their reinforcements from this source whilst absorbing a number of wanderers from the [[Near East]] over time.<ref name="Collier Books"/>

Egyptian archaeologist, [[Fekri Hassan]] (1996), argued that religious iconography in the Naqada II ornaments shared animistic (cow) symbolism with cultural practices of Saharan pastoralists who lived west of the Nile.<ref name="Indianapolis Museum of Art">{{cite book |last1=Fekri Hassan |title="The Predynastic of Egypt: Africa's Preclude to Civilization," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed). |date=1996 |publisher=Indianapolis Museum of Art |location=Indianapolis, Ind. |isbn=0-936260-64-5 |pages=31–32}}</ref>  Hassan further related that predynastic Egypt shared many similarities with other African societies with a common heritage and that the African substratum served as the cradle of Egyptian civilization.<ref name="Indianapolis Museum of Art"/>

Similarly, [[Christopher Ehret]], historian and linguist, stated that the cultural practice of sacral chiefship and kingship which emerged in Upper Egypt in the fourth millennium had originated centuries earlier in Nubia and the Middle Nile south of Egypt. He based this judgement on supporting, [[archaeological]] and comparative [[ethnography|ethnographic]] evidence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-24410-5 |page=141 |language=en}}</ref> Ehret also reviewed the excavations from the neighbouring [[Lower Nubia]] which demonstrated that “The Qustul elite and ruler in the second half of the fourth millennium participated together with their counterparts in the communities of the Naqada culture of southern Egypt in creating the emerging culture and paraphernalia of pharaonic culture”.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-24410-5 |pages=112–113|language=en}}</ref> Ehret argued that archaeological data had presented cultural continuity between the Afian period and [[Holocence|Holocene epoch]], with existing populations of Upper Egypt incorporating new crops and food productions from the Levant without evidence of any notable population intrusions into that region during the [[7th millennium BC|seventh]] and [[6th millennium BC|sixth millennia]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-24410-5 |page=97|language=en}}</ref>

[[Anthropologist]] Alain Anselin cited recent [[archaeological]] data compiled which had identified Tasian and [[Badarian]] Nile Valley sites as peripheral networks of earlier African cultures that featured the movement of [[Badarian]], [[Sahara]]n, [[Nubia]]n, and [[Nilotic]] populations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context : proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1407307602|pages=43–54}}</ref> American archaeologist, Bruce Williams, has stated "The Tasian Period is significantly related to the Neolithic of Sudanese-Saharan tradition as found just north of Khartoum and near Dongola in [[Sudan]]".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Bruce |title="The Qustul Incense Bruner and the Case for a Nubian Origin of Ancient Egyptian Kingship" In Egypt in Africa. Celenko, Theodore (ed.). |date=1996 |publisher=Indianapolis Museum of Art |location=Indianapolis, Ind. |isbn=978-0936260648 |pages=95–97}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Darnell |first1=John Coleman |title="Rock Inscriptions and the Origin of Egyptian Writing" , in Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Third International Colloquium on Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt. London, British Museum Press. |publisher=London, British Museum Press |pages=82–3 |edition=Edited by: McNamara, L, Friedman, R |url=https://www.ashmolean.org/publication/811803/manual}}</ref>

Stan Hendrick, [[John Coleman Darnell]] and Maria Gatto in 2012 excavated [[petrography|petroglyphic engravings]] from Nag el-Hamdulab to the north of [[Aswan]], in southern Egypt, which featured representations of a boat procession, [[solar symbol]]ism and the earliest known depiction of the [[White Crown]] with an estimated dating range between 3200 BCE and 3100 BCE.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hendrickx |first1=Stan |last2=Darnell |first2=John Coleman |author2-link=John Coleman Darnell |last3=Gatto |first3=Maria Carmela |title=The earliest representations of royal power in Egypt: the rock drawings of Nag el-Hamdulab (Aswan) |journal=[[Antiquity (journal)|Antiquity]] |date=December 2012 |volume=86 |issue=334 |pages=1068–1083 |doi=10.1017/S0003598X00048250 |s2cid=53631029 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/earliest-representations-of-royal-power-in-egypt-the-rock-drawings-of-nag-elhamdulab-aswan/5DB2326AD5659EF652D1F77C2B713729 |language=en |issn=0003-598X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Maria Gatto (2014) stated that archaeological research in the [[Aswan]] area had identified cultural admixture in the boundary region of the [[cataracts of the Nile|first cataract of the Nile during the fourth millennium BCE]].<ref name="academia.edu">Cultural Entanglement at the Dawn of the Egyptian History: A View From The Nile First Cataract Region; by Maria Carmela Gatto; 2014; published in Prehistory and Protohistory of Ancient Civilizations, from the Università Di Roma Dipartimento Di Scienze Dell'antichità – Museo Delle Origini; {{ISBN|978-88-492-3024-6}}, at [https://www.academia.edu/19519311/_Cultural_entanglement_at_the_dawn_of_the_Egyptian_history_a_view_from_the_Nile_First_Cataract_region_Origini_Prehistory_and_Protohistory_of_Ancient_Civilizations_XXXVI_93_123]</ref> According to Gatto, the advent of the Naqada culture lead to a divergence between Egyptian and Nubian identities.<ref name="academia.edu"/> This culture was later spread northwards in Egypt and southwards in Nubia. Prior to this period, earlier Egyptian cultures (Tarifian, Badarian and Tasian) in the southern region were strongly similar to Nubian and Nilotic pastoral traditions and the cultural substratum in Upper Egypt was Nubian mostly-related.<ref name="academia.edu"/>

In 2018, American anthropologist [[Stuart Tyson Smith]], reviewed evidence which indicated linkages between the Upper Egyptian region, the Sahara and the Sudanese Nubia.<ref name="Gift of the Nile? Climate Change, t">{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Stuart Tyson |title=Gift of the Nile? Climate Change, the Origins of Egyptian Civilization and Its Interactions within Northeast Africa |journal=Across the Mediterranean – Along the Nile: Studies in Egyptology, Nubiology and Late Antiquity Dedicated to László Török. Budapest |date=1 January 2018 |url=https://www.academia.edu/43275151}}</ref> He argued that the cultural features which characterised the Egyptian civilisation were "widely distributed in north-eastern Africa but not in western Asia" and this had earlier origins in the Saharan wet phase period.<ref name="Gift of the Nile? Climate Change, t"/>

====Linguistic connections====

American Egyptologist, Frank Yurco, affirmed that "[[Egyptian hieroglyphics|Egyptian writing]] arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and [[A-Group culture|A-Group]] Lower Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct [[Western Asia]]n contact was made, further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".<ref name="Yurco 1996 34–35"/>

Viktor Cerny's research team had identified close biological and linguistic links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, North [[Cameroon]] (some of whom spoke [[Chadic languages]]) and Ethiopia (some of whom spoke [[Cushitic language]]s).<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Anthropologist Alain Anselin had issued a comparative review of [[Afro-Asiatic language]] families which suggested earliest speakers of the Egyptian language could be located in regions south of Upper Egypt or the Saharan hinterland.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref> In his concluding passage, he found it plausible that early Upper Egyptian cultures were a crossroads for [[North East Africa|North Eastern African]] groups such as the [[Beja people|Beja]] peoples.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref> From this interpretation, Anselin, found the most probable scenario that some Saharao-Nubian populations moved southwards to regions such as Darfur whilst others had migrated to Upper Egyptian territories such as [[Bir Sahara]], Nabta Playa, [[Gebel Ramlah]], and [[Hierakonpolis|Nekhen/Hierakonpolis]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref> Anselin viewed this to hold wider significance for [[glottochronology]] and [[cultural anthropology]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anselin|first1=Alain |title="Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-4073-0760-2|pages=43–54}}</ref>

According to historical linguist, Christopher Ehret, the [[cultural anthropology|material cultural indicators]] of the Nabta Playa complex in Upper Egypt, correspond with the conclusion that the inhabitants of the wider Nabta Playa region were a [[Nilo-Saharan]]-speaking population.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=20 June 2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-24409-9 |page=107 |language=en}}</ref>

British linguist, [[Roger Blench]], observed that pockets of Nilo-Saharan speakers are present in Upper Egypt.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin |title=General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited |pages=533|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=1&queryId=N-EXPLORE-612fe50c-9ec6-4256-8bd3-7b7ec50033a7}}</ref> He further added that it was possible that early [[Afro-Asiatic language|Afro-Asiatic speakers]] had [[domestication|domesticated wild cattle]] in the Egyptian-Sudanese border 10,000 years ago.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

The Cushitic language which is a sub-branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family was spoken in Lower Nubia, an ancient region which extends from Upper Egypt to Northern Sudan, before the arrival of North Eastern Sudanic languages in the Middle Nile Valley.<ref name="Rilly200162">{{cite journal | vauthors = Rilly C | title = The Wadi Howar Diaspora and its role in the spread of East Sudanic languages from the fourth to the first millennia BCE | journal = Faits de Langues | volume = 47 | date = January 2016 | pages = 151–163 |url = https://brill.com/view/journals/fdl/47/1/article-p151.xml | doi = 10.1163/19589514-047-01-900000010 | s2cid = 134352296 | url-access = subscription }}</ref><ref name="Cooper">{{cite journal | vauthors = Cooper J | title = Toponymic Strata in Ancient Nubian placenames in the Third and Second Millennium BCE: a view from Egyptian Records | journal = Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies | volume = 4 | date = 2017 | url = https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7d8a387b-f850-4d56-8105-f84a30bf121a/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=Cooper%252C%2BToponymic%2BStrata%2Bin%2BAncient%2BNubian%2BPlacenames%252C%2BDotawo%2B4.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200523123606/https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7d8a387b-f850-4d56-8105-f84a30bf121a/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=Cooper%252C%2BToponymic%2BStrata%2Bin%2BAncient%2BNubian%2BPlacenames%252C%2BDotawo%2B4.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article | archive-date = 2020-05-23 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rilly |first1=Claude|title=Handbook of Ancient Nubia|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mXWcDwAAQBAJ&q=cushitic+nubia&pg=PA134|access-date=2019-11-20 |year=2019|chapter=Languages of Ancient Nubia|publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-3-11-042038-8|quote="Two Afro-Asiatic languages were present in antiquity in Nubia, namely Ancient Egyptian and Cushitic.}}</ref><ref name="Bechhaus-Gerst">{{cite book |last1=Bechhaus-Gerst |first1=Marianne |chapter=Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of livestock in Sudan |pages=469–481 |doi=10.4324/9780203984239-37 |editor1-last=Blench |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=MacDonald |editor2-first=Kevin |title=The Origins and Development of African Livestock: Archaeology, Genetics, Linguistics and Ethnography |date=27 January 2006 |publisher=Routledge |doi-broken-date=1 July 2025 |isbn=978-1-135-43416-8 }}</ref>

==List of rulers of prehistoric Upper Egypt==

The following list may not be complete (there are many more of uncertain existence):
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! width="15%" | Name
! width="15%" | Image
! width="50%" | Comments
! width="20%" | Dates
|-
| [[Elephant (pharaoh)|Elephant]]
|
|
| End of [[4th millennium BC]]
|-
| [[Bull (Pharaoh)|Bull]]
|
|
| [[4th millennium BC]]
|-
| [[Scorpion I]]
|
| Oldest tomb at [[Umm el-Qa'ab]] had scorpion insignia
| c. 3200 BC?
|-
| [[Iry-Hor]]
| [[File:Iry Hor name.jpg|center|110x110px]]
| Possibly the immediate predecessor of Ka.
| c. 3150 BC?
|-
| [[Ka (pharaoh)|Ka]]{{sfn|Rice|1999|p=86}}{{sfn|Wilkinson|1999|p=57f}}
| [[File:Ka vessel.JPG|center|110x110px]]
| May be read Sekhen rather than Ka. Possibly the immediate predecessor of Narmer.
| c. 3100 BC
|-
| [[Scorpion II]]
| [[File:Kingscorpion.jpg|center|110x110px]]
| Potentially read Serqet; possibly the same person as [[Narmer]].
| c. 3150 BC
|-
| [[Narmer]]
| [[File:NarmerPalette-CloseUpOfNarmer-ROM.png|center|110x110px]]
| The king who combined Upper and Lower Egypt.{{sfn|Shaw|2000|p=196}}
| c. 3150 BC
|}

==List of nomes==
{{further|Nome (Egypt)}}
{| class="wikitable" 
! Number !! Ancient Name !! Capital !! Modern Capital !! Translation !! God
|-
|  1 || [[Ta-Seti|Ta-khentit]] || Abu / Yebu ([[Elephantine]]) || [[Aswan]] || The Frontier/Land of the Bow || [[Khnemu]]
|-
|  2 || [[Wetjes-Hor]] || Djeba (Apollonopolis Magna) || [[Edfu]] || Throne of [[Horus]] || Horus-Behdety
|-
|  3 || [[Nekhen (nome)|Nekhen]] || [[Nekhen]] (Hierakonpolis) || al-Kab || Shrine || [[Nekhebet]]
|-
|  4 || [[Waset (nome)|Waset]] || Niwt-rst / Waset ([[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]]) || [[Karnak]] || Sceptre || [[Amun]]-[[Ra]]
|-
|  5 || [[Nomos of Harawî|Harawî]] || Gebtu (Coptos) || [[Qift]] || Two Falcons || [[Min (god)|Min]]
|-
|  6 || [[Aa-ta]] || Iunet / Tantere (Tentyra) || [[Dendera]] || Crocodile || [[Hathor]]
|-
|  7 || [[Seshesh]] || Seshesh (Diospolis Parva) || [[Hu, Egypt|Hu]] || [[Sistrum]] || Hathor
|-
|  8 || [[Ta-wer]]|| Tjenu / Abjdu ([[Thinis]] / [[Abydos, Egypt|Abydos]]) || al-Birba || Great Land || [[Onuris]]
|-
|  9 || [[Min (nome)|Min]] || Apu / Khen-min (Panopolis) || [[Akhmim]] || [[Min (god)|Min]] || Min
|-
| 10 || [[Aphroditopolite Nome|Wadjet]] || Djew-qa / Tjebu (Antaeopolis) || [[Tjebu|Qaw al-Kebir]]|| Cobra || Hathor
|-
| 11 || [[Set (nome)|Set]] || [[Shashotep]] (Hypselis) || Shutb || [[Set animal]] || Khnemu
|-
| 12 || [[Tu-ph]] || Per-Nemty (Hieracon) || [[Hieracon|At-Atawla]]|| Viper Mountain || [[Horus]]
|-
| 13 || [[Atef-Khent]] || Zawty (Lycopolis) || [[Asyut]] || Upper Sycamore and Viper || [[Apuat]]
|-
| 14 || [[Atef-Pehu]] || Qesy ([[Cusae]]) || al-Qusiya || Lower Sycamore and Viper || Hathor
|-
| 15 || [[Hare nome|Wenet]] || Khemenu (Hermopolis) || [[Hermopolis]] || [[hare (hieroglyph)|Hare]]<ref name=WG>{{harvp|Grajetzki|2006|pp=109–111}}</ref> || [[Thoth]]
|-
| 16 || [[Oryx nome|Ma-hedj]] || [[Herwer]]?  || Hur? || [[Oryx]]<ref name=WG/> || Horus
|-
| 17 || [[Anpu (nome)|Anpu]] || Saka ([[Cynopolis]]) || [[al-Kais]] || [[Anubis]] || Anubis
|-
| 18 || [[Sep (nome)|Sep]] || Teudjoi / Hutnesut (Alabastronopolis) || [[el-Hiba]] || [[Set (deity)|Set]] || Anubis
|-
| 19 || [[Uab (nome)|Uab]] || Per-Medjed ([[Oxyrhynchus]]) || el-Bahnasa || Two Sceptres || [[Set (mythology)|Set]]
|-
| 20 || [[Noret-Khent]] ||  Henen-nesut ([[Heracleopolis Magna]]) || Ihnasiyyah al-Madinah || Southern Sycamore || [[Heryshaf]]
|-
| 21 || [[Atef-Pehu]] || Shenakhen / Semenuhor ([[Faiyum#Ancient history|Crocodilopolis]], Arsinoë) || [[Faiyum]] ||  Northern Sycamore || Khnemu
|-
| 22 || [[Maten (nome)|Maten]] ||  Tepihu (Aphroditopolis) || [[Atfih]] || Knife || Hathor
|}

==Governorates and large cities==
Nowadays, Upper Egypt forms part of these 7 [[Subdivisions of Egypt|governorates]]:

* [[Beni Suef Governorate|Beni Suef]]
* [[Minya Governorate|Minya]]
* [[Asyut Governorate|Asyut]]
* [[Sohag Governorate|Sohag]]
* [[Qena Governorate|Qena]]
* [[Luxor Governorate|Luxor]]
* [[Aswan Governorate|Aswan]]
Large cities located in Upper Egypt:
* [[Beni Suef]]
* [[El Fashn]]
* [[Beni Mazar]]
* [[Minya, Egypt|Minya]]
* [[Mallawi]]
* [[Dairut]]
* [[Asyut]]
* [[Tahta]]
* [[Sohag]]
* [[Girga]]
* [[Nag Hammadi]]
* [[Qena]]
* [[Luxor]]
* [[Edfu]]
* [[Aswan]]

==See also==
* [[Sa'idi people]]
* [[Copts]]
* [[Egyptians]]
* [[Lower Nubia]]
* [[Ta-Seti]]
* [[Nubian people]]
* [[Beja people]]
* [[Upper and Lower Egypt]]
* [[Geography of Egypt]]

== Explanatory notes ==
{{reflist|group=Note}}

==References==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist|21em}}

=== General and cited references  ===
{{refbegin|32em}}
*{{cite book |last=Ballais |first=Jean-Louis |year=2000 |chapter=Conquests and land degradation in the eastern Maghreb |editor1=Graeme Barker |editor2=David Gilbertson |series=The Archaeology of Drylands: Living at the Margin |publisher=Routledge |location=London |volume=1, Part III |title=Sahara and Sahel |pages=125–136 |isbn=978-0-415-23001-8 }}
*{{cite book |editor-last1=Bard |editor-first1=Kathryn A. |editor1-link=Kathryn A. Bard |editor-last2=Shubert |editor-first2=Steven Blake |year=1999 |title=Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=0-415-18589-0 }}
*{{cite book |last=Brice |first=William Charles |year=1981 |title=An Historical Atlas of Islam |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=90-04-06116-9 |oclc=9194288 }}
*{{cite book |last=Chauveau |first=Michel |year=2000 |title=Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra: History and Society Under the Ptolemies |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, NY |isbn=0-8014-3597-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780801435973 }}
*{{cite book |last=David |first=Ann Rosalie |year=1975 |title=The Egyptian Kingdoms |publisher=Elsevier Phaidon |location=London |oclc=2122106 }}
*{{cite book |last1=Ermann |first1=Johann Peter Adolf |author-link1=Adolf Erman |last2=Grapow |first2=Hermann |year=1982 |title=Wörterbuch der Ägyptischen Sprache |publisher=Akademie |location=Berlin |isbn=3-05-002263-9 |language=de |trans-title=Dictionary of the Egyptian Language }}
*{{cite book |last=Grajetzki |first=Wolfram |author-link=Wolfram Grajetzki |year=2006 |title=The Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt: History, Archaeology and Society |location=London |publisher=Duckworth Egyptology |isbn=978-0-7156-3435-6 }}
*{{cite book |last=Rice |first=Michael |year=1999 |title=Who's Who in Ancient Egypt |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-15449-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinancient0000rice }}
*{{cite book |last=Roebuck |first=Carl |year=1966 |title=The World of Ancient Times |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons Publishing |location=New York, NY }}
*{{cite book |last=Shaw |first=Ian |year=2000 |title=The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, UK |isbn=978-0-19-280458-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofa00shaw }}
*{{cite book |last=Wilkinson |first=Toby A.&nbsp;H. |year=1999 |title=Early Dynastic Egypt |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=0-415-18633-1 }}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
* Edel, Elmar (1961) ''Zu den Inschriften auf den Jahreszeitenreliefs der "Weltkammer" aus dem Sonnenheiligtum des Niuserre'' Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, {{OCLC|309958651}}, in German.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Upper Egypt}}
* [https://annis.copticscriptorium.org/annis/scriptorium#_q=aWRlbnRpdHk9IlVwcGVyIEVneXB0Ig==&_c=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 References to Upper Egypt in Coptic Literature]—Coptic Scriptorium database

{{Sa'id / Upper Egypt Main Cities}}
{{Ancient Egypt topics}}
{{Regions of Africa}}

[[Category:Upper Egypt| ]]
[[Category:Geography of ancient Egypt|*]]
[[Category:Historical regions of Africa]]
[[Category:Regions of Egypt|Upper]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in the 4th millennium BC]]
[[Category:States and territories established in the 4th millennium BC]]