ALBAWABA - A 2017 article by Nature Communications went viral on social media after users on X (formerly known as Twitter) speculated that Ancient Egyptians were "white" triggering a swarm of comments debating whether it's true or false.
Comments from users on X claiming that Ancient Egyptians were "white" sparked controversy on the social media platform with many Egyptians saying that the Pharaohs were "brown" and not "white" or "black" like some are claiming.
Some even slammed Netflix's recent take on Cleopatra whom many claimed to be "black" also causing controversy on social media. One user wrote, "Why won't you leave Egyptians and Ancient Egypt alone? We are sick of this sh*t."
Were Ancient Egyptians "white?" 2017 Study sparks controversy
According to Nature Communications and CNN, after sampling the DNA of 166 bone and teeth samples from 151 mummies, researchers claimed that Ancient Egyptians were related more to "Europeans and Anatolians than modern Egyptians."
Anatolia (Anadolu) is a peninsula also known as "Asia Minor" that dates back to both Turkey and Greece similar to the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine eras.
The study in question also claimed that Ancient Egyptians had DNA ties to sub-Saharan Africa from around 700 years ago and the Levant but then added that they're unsure of the reason behind it. The Levantine area covers countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.
According to CNN, previous DNA analysis by professor Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute in Germany states that "When you touch a bone, you probably leave more DNA on the bone than is inside it."
He added, "Contamination is a big issue. … Only in the last five or six years has it become possible to actually study DNA from ancient humans, because we can now show whether DNA is ancient or not by (its) chemical properties."
