"Relief fragment showing a carpenter with a stubbled beard squatting on scaffolding and working on a wooden object with his adze. Contrary to custom he is shown disheveled and unshaven. New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1292-1189 BC. From Deir el-Medina, West Thebes. Now in the Staatlich Museum, Berlin.
The beard was a sign of neglect and was reserved for days of mourning. At the same time, a fake, well-tended beard was a sign of high social rank: the rulers wore a ceremonial beard of great length and squared shape, made from the wool of sheep."
The Carpenters long matted dread locs and dark melanated skin served to protect him from the hot sun and harsh desert climate as he worked. Melanin acted as a natural sun screen for Nile Valley Africans and their thick Afro hair protected their scalp from the UV rays. Other populations wore full robes and turbans to protect themselves from the elements but the ancient Kemetyu, also known as the "Children of the Sun" evolved in tropical Africa and were well suited their environment.
In 2023, Christopher Ehret reported that the physical anthropological findings from 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 Northeastern Africa “such as Nubia and the northern Horn of Africa”.
Ehret, Christopher (20 June 2023). Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 83–85
"King of Upper Kemet…Beautiful is the Ka-Soul of Ra who appears in Waset"
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