Regarding culture, here are some traits of the Ancient Egyptians common to other Africans:
Quote:
“As a number of anthropologist- Egyptologists have argued, the Egyptian kingship displays strong similarities with that of East African cattle cultures. This tradition is now being re-examined by Toby Wilkinson in the light of newly discovered rock drawings in the Upper Egyptian deserts. “
(Robert Morkot. (2005) The Egyptians: An Introduction p.91)
The Egyptians: An Introduction - Robert Morkot - Google Books
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Quote:
“In addition to the well-known headrests, the dissymmetric horns of oxen (shaping the horns of their oxen) and the [symbolic use of the sceptre] , the Ancient Egyptians shared many features with the cultures of the Nilotic and Cush-itic pastoralists, probably as a result of their Saharo-Nubian roots.....
Headrests are known in many African cultures: Cush-itic (for example, Beja, Oromo, Somalia), Nilotic (for example, Nyangatom, Turkan), Bantu (for example,Luba, Cokwe, Kuba), Zande and Dogon (Lam 2003). In the Nyangatom culture, the headrest has a religious significance: it is the material double of his owner, just as the favourite ox is the living double (Tornay 2001, 67). This may shed light on the place and the meaning of the artefact in African cultures. In Ancient Egyptian culture,the headrest became a hieroglyph.”
“Egypt in its African Context” conference held at The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2009:
https://www.academia.edu/1921955/Egy...frican_Context
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Not to mention there is linguistic evidence of a strong African root to their language:
Quote:
“It is possible from this overview of the data to conclude that the limited conceptual vocabulary shared by the ancestors of contemporary Chadic-speakers (therefore also contemporary Cushi-itic-speakers), contemporary Nilotic-speakers and Ancient Egyptian-speakers suggests that the earliest speakers of the Egyptian language could be located to the south of Upper Egypt (Diakonoff 1998) or, earlier, in the Sahara (Wendorf 2004), where Takács(1999, 47) suggests their ‘long co-existence’ can be found.”
“Egypt in its African Context” conference at Manchester Museum, University of Manchester:
https://www.academia.edu/1921955/Egy...frican_Context
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So there’s evidence that the earliest people speaking the ancient Egyptian language were from below Egypt, that is, the region of Sudan.
Another (though very sad) commonality is the practice of female genetic mutilation (called pharaonic circumcision in the case of Ancient Egypt). It is found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, from west to east Africa. But Egypt has one of the highest cases as this map shows:
link:
Female genital mutilation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Notice Egypt is practically the only North African country to practice it.
So we see that Ancient Egyptians came from a common pastoral society as other northeast Africans like those of Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia. They also shared similar material culture. In essence, Ancient Egyptians descended from a common pastoral and Saharan group with other Northeastern Africans, then branched off and developed their own unique civilization, with some input from other peoples here and there over time.
Now I wrote this whole post only to balance the claims put out by cachibatches. Egypt was always a mixed society, with black African input just as important as the “Caucasoids” he talks about. No race or group was more significant than the other. At different times and different regions, the people would look different. So what I posted above, added to evidence from other studies showing important Eurasian elements gives us the following full picture:
Quote:
“There is no single ancient Egyptian population to study, but a diversity of local populations. That does not negate the existence of trends, though as yet it is hazardous to identify any particular one. There is, for example, a suggestion of a geographical cline, or chain of variation, running along the Nile valley. It is to be expected simply on the grounds that people tend to marry those from their neighbourhood. In the south of Egypt the population would have been close to, and would have ultimately merged with, that of northern Nubia. One trait was presumably a darkening of skin colour. As one moved north so local populations should, in general, have diverged more from those further south. This ought to mean if all factors worked equally (and they might not have done) that the population of the north-eastern Nile delta merged with that of southern Palestine.”
(Barry Kemp (2006): Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization” p.51)
Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation - Barry J. Kemp - Google Books
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In the end, I believe the best response on this subject was by Egyptologist, Frank Yurco:
http://homelink.cps-k12.org/teachers...93b9fc358c.pdf