Especially a couple thousand years ago, the Sahara was far smaller, and far lest hostile to life. The last trees only died in the Sahara about 20 or 30 years ago. Caravans crossed regularly. On top of the very easy route from Sudan to Egypt, and the Greeks were obsessed with Egypt. Even the Bible talks about Nubians in Ancient Egypt, so if even that as a “source” knows about the well-documented reality that Sub-Saharan populations were in contact and well-known individuals present in North Africa and the Levant as far back as 5,000 years ago.
I mean, did you not even think to search for this before spouting off? Literally the first search result for “did black people greece”:
“See! I told you that we could get them to pay for the wall!”
“That’s very good sir, but still, what the fuck are we supposed to do with all these giant wooden horses? And isn’t it suspicious that they drop off a new one every day?”
“Fake news! We have the most, the biggest and the best giant wooden horses! We’ll give them to our giants wooden cowboys to ride! Just yesterday a giant wooden cowboy, the biggest wooden cowboy you have ever seen, came up to me with tears in his eyes, tears just streaming down his wooden face. And he said thank you!. Thank you for the giant wooden horses! Until you we had nothing to ride and had to chase the giant wooden cows around on foot.”
…the first search result being about a community that in its largest part started existing in 1923 is relevant to ancient history?
I mean I don’t know enough about ancient demographics to comment on whether there would feasibly be more than an extremely tiny minority of sub-saharan africans in ancient greece, but claiming someone didn’t search and then providing an irrelevant search result has a certain irony to it.
Thanks, now I know a little more about ancient greek demographics! Well it still seems to be mainly about greeks in africa, but some exchange both ways seems inevitable when it’s that prominent.
It goes both ways. Ultimately, it’s that the Greeks (and Romans) were obsessed with Egypt, and Egypt was in direct and lasting contact with the Nubians (modern Sudan) and parts of modern Ethiopia because they were farther up the Nile.
This period ended right around when recorded history begins. Because the Sahara was not hostile it created a corridor for plants, and animals, and people to make an easy crossing into the levant and then further into Asia and Europe.
Yeah, it’s wild how there’s just a 5cm thick layer of salt down under the sand, and mining salt slabs from the ancient sea is how most nomadic groups flavor their food.
Plus all the rock art and ancient cities just out in the middle of nowhere today. I once bought a dinosaur tooth from a guy that 1) agreed with claims I had heard that the mountains in the Sahara still harbor things like peach trees, and 2) that there are badlands style areas where herders just find dinosaur bones lying around.
Might get to see it sooner this time. If the Atlantic current that brings warm water up to the Baltic sea stops, it could mean more rain in Africa (and more ice in Europe).
I said North Africans weren’t black. Are you perhaps mistaking me for the person in the OP? Because you’re seemingly going after points I’ve never made
Your link is about modern Greece btw. Did you read it before posting?
And I’m not confusing you with OP, I’m explaining that North Africa was not bordered on the south by an impenetrable desert and that thinking only North African peoples were in Ancient Greece really mid-understands geography and proximity to Africa and the commonality of trade along the Nile. Going east, Ancient Buddhists started depicting Shakyamuni Budda as a human figure and not an empty space under a tree directly as the result of Greek philosophical exchange. Buddhist “missionaries” are accounted for in Athens and the Levant more than 2000 years ago.
Ancient Greece was a pretty cosmopolitan place for the ancient world.
Your link is the opposite situation to what we’re talking about. It is talking about Greeks in Africa, not (sub-Saharan) Africans in Greece.
African Greeks, or Greeks in Africa (Greek: Έλληνες της Αφρικής), are the Greek people in the continent of Africa. Greek communities have existed in Africa since antiquity.
Ancient Greece was a pretty cosmopolitan place for the ancient world.
Right, I’m just saying the contacts were more common with North Africans, who weren’t black. But there were contacts for sure. Depends on who the black person is portraying if there’s any cause for the outrage.
I don’t know about how many would have lived in Greece, but they’re definitely in the tale of the Trojan War. There’s a whole poem, Aethiopis, starring them. The original text is pretty much entirely lost, but we do have a Roman-era summary of it to give us the broad strokes. Aethiopians show up in other stuff too; Perseus fights a sea monster there, for example
I’m aware of that, I don’t understand the complaint if the character is supposed to be Ethiopian or the like.
But the source for there being plenty of black people in Ancient Greece I’d still like to see since it sounds like a pretty interesting claim. I hope the other person delivers.
Ahh, fair enough. I hope so too, I’d be interested to read that. I can believe there would be at least some, because there was definitely steady contact between those two parts of the world at that time, but I don’t know specifics
Yes, I’m sure there were a few at least but “plenty” sounds dubious. Of course I’m not sure what they meant with “plenty” here. But we’ll see when they come back with the source
They make trivial to find references to black people and depict them in the manner they depict themselves in art.
Because their division was not “Greek” and “black” but “Greek” and “not Greek”, they simply didn’t document it.
Aristotle describes the ideal skin tone as halfway between an Ethiopian and a woman.
Black people were quite literally unremarkable to them, so it’s pretty easy to argue that an ancient Greek wouldn’t find it odd to travel with a black person.
I think I’d like the person who made the claim to tell us what they meant with “plenty”. A reference here and there to there having been a black person in Ancient Greece doesn’t feel like it’s proving the claim, but they might’ve meant just that when they said “plenty”.
Alright, demonstrate that the demographics are as you assert they are. I’ve shown you that they’re depicted in their arts and culture, both as they depicted outsiders and as they depicted themselves, as well as that they had unremarkable interactions with Ethiopia and beyond.
The link also details the history of using the racial composition of ancient Greece for all manner of racial weirdness that wasn’t representative of the Greeks themselves, up to and including Internet race weirdos who get bent out of shape about a black person being depicted in a movie set in the Mediterranean.
At this point you’ve been given plenty of evidence that there sufficient numbers of dark skinned people that it wasn’t remarkable. If you disagree that it would somehow have been remarkable, or that this isn’t a perfectly workable definition of “plenty”, then show some reason why beyond “well everyone knows”.
Hell, demonstrate that there were plenty of white people.
You’ve shown that Greeks had connection and knew about black people but that wasn’t disputed… The claim was that there was “plenty” of black people in Ancient Greece. Connections to people being in Ancient Greece aren’t the same…
I’m not sure why you are taking the burden of proving someone else’s claim but you’re now trying to spin that burden to me to prove it the other wat around. That’s just silly.
Are you asking me why I have an opinion on something? Because I do. You don’t need special reasons to make comments on a forum.
You aren’t listening. They depicted black people in the fashion that they depicted Greek people. They didn’t find them a weird novelty. The nature of ancient Greek prejudice wouldn’t have them depict people as Greek that they didn’t consider Greek. That intrinsically says something about the cultural integration, because that’s what the Greeks got weird over. If it was uncommon for them to be there they would have mentioned it because they mentioned all manner of uncommon things.
If they were a part of the society, and common enough that it wasn’t worth mentioning “…and then the one black guy in Athens showed up…”, then it seems clear to me that that’s “plenty”.
Nothing is being spun. I and others have given you evidence. You haven’t and are just making vacuous claims. Why do you have the opinion you do about the skin tone content of ancient Greece? Is it the enlightenment era paintings of Greek philosophers as white as could be? That the paint fell off the statues so now they’re just white marble? That all the black people in the pottery are “obviously” artistic choices, but the white people just … Are?
I’m sure you have a reason for thinking what you do, so what is it?
Neither a conversation nor a debate works by one person demanding evidence, denying it, and then refusing to elaborate In their beliefs.
North Africans had trade routes going all the way into modern day Tanzania, and a big chunk of modern day Sudan used to be part of Ancient Egypt. The Iliad itself mentions people from Sudan.
North Africans did, right. But we’re talking about black Africans.
Tbh the whole thing depends on what the character is trying to portray. If it tries to portray everyday normal Ancient Greek, yeah that’s an issue. If it is meant to be someone from Ethiopia, something like that, yeah no issues.
Unless the trailer shows what they’re portraying (and imu the movie isn’t even out yet) then the complaints are premature.
Are they portraying someone from Ethiopia or just some regular fella from Ancient Greece? That makes all the difference. Like said, if the trailer doesn’t tell, it’s premature upset.
Nobody is debating existence of black people here lol
I don’t see where the article mentions that these are direct descendants of people who moved to Greece in ancient times? Both articles seem to talk about Greeks in these other countries…
Ah, my bad. So it’s possible for Greeks to have travelled All the way to Ethiopia in ancient times and have populations that survived to this day, but not the other way around? Interesting way of thinking.
they weren’t white either. and black Africans were well known to all of Africa and the Mediterranean FAR further back than written history. Greeks aren’t even white, as far as you want to use “white” as some kind of identification, it’s useless other than as a racist concept to harm other people, but the most generous inclusions are pretty fucking difficult to include Greeks in. dark skin, woolly hair, blunt noses, a language distinctly outside European language roots. you got nothing.
Sorry, man, I thought this was about that film and the actors in it, and their ethnicity. my bad. didn’t realize you were having a no context argument unrelated to this entire fucking thread.
What’s that big ol’ thing lying there on the Mediterranean? Oh, its Africa.
North Africans aren’t black though. I don’t think they were during Ancient times either
Oh fun history time!
Especially a couple thousand years ago, the Sahara was far smaller, and far lest hostile to life. The last trees only died in the Sahara about 20 or 30 years ago. Caravans crossed regularly. On top of the very easy route from Sudan to Egypt, and the Greeks were obsessed with Egypt. Even the Bible talks about Nubians in Ancient Egypt, so if even that as a “source” knows about the well-documented reality that Sub-Saharan populations were in contact and well-known individuals present in North Africa and the Levant as far back as 5,000 years ago.
I mean, did you not even think to search for this before spouting off? Literally the first search result for “did black people greece”:
Edit: meant to paste this link - my bad - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Greeks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Greeks
gasp
people migrate and stuff?
bewildered
Why didn’t the Greeks build a wall? Are they stupid?
They did but people kept sneaking in on giant wooden horses
“See! I told you that we could get them to pay for the wall!”
“That’s very good sir, but still, what the fuck are we supposed to do with all these giant wooden horses? And isn’t it suspicious that they drop off a new one every day?”
“Fake news! We have the most, the biggest and the best giant wooden horses! We’ll give them to our giants wooden cowboys to ride! Just yesterday a giant wooden cowboy, the biggest wooden cowboy you have ever seen, came up to me with tears in his eyes, tears just streaming down his wooden face. And he said thank you!. Thank you for the giant wooden horses! Until you we had nothing to ride and had to chase the giant wooden cows around on foot.”
They did, actually. To keep the Ottomans out. Didn’t work (spoiler).
They also did that with the Persians, though instead of bricks they used Spartans.
…the first search result being about a community that in its largest part started existing in 1923 is relevant to ancient history?
I mean I don’t know enough about ancient demographics to comment on whether there would feasibly be more than an extremely tiny minority of sub-saharan africans in ancient greece, but claiming someone didn’t search and then providing an irrelevant search result has a certain irony to it.
That’s my bad, I had 2 links open in 2 tabs and copied the wrong one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Greeks
Thanks, now I know a little more about ancient greek demographics! Well it still seems to be mainly about greeks in africa, but some exchange both ways seems inevitable when it’s that prominent.
It goes both ways. Ultimately, it’s that the Greeks (and Romans) were obsessed with Egypt, and Egypt was in direct and lasting contact with the Nubians (modern Sudan) and parts of modern Ethiopia because they were farther up the Nile.
So we’re confident that black people did in fact greece.
It’s well-documented that black Greeks did.
And to add on to your point about the Sahara being less hostile, it used to be filled with life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
This period ended right around when recorded history begins. Because the Sahara was not hostile it created a corridor for plants, and animals, and people to make an easy crossing into the levant and then further into Asia and Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_pump_theory
Yeah, it’s wild how there’s just a 5cm thick layer of salt down under the sand, and mining salt slabs from the ancient sea is how most nomadic groups flavor their food.
Plus all the rock art and ancient cities just out in the middle of nowhere today. I once bought a dinosaur tooth from a guy that 1) agreed with claims I had heard that the mountains in the Sahara still harbor things like peach trees, and 2) that there are badlands style areas where herders just find dinosaur bones lying around.
It’s on a long term cycle 50kyears ish where it goes from green to dry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell
Well, it was.
Might get to see it sooner this time. If the Atlantic current that brings warm water up to the Baltic sea stops, it could mean more rain in Africa (and more ice in Europe).
I said North Africans weren’t black. Are you perhaps mistaking me for the person in the OP? Because you’re seemingly going after points I’ve never made
Your link is about modern Greece btw. Did you read it before posting?
I pasted the wrong link, which is my mistake - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Greeks
And I’m not confusing you with OP, I’m explaining that North Africa was not bordered on the south by an impenetrable desert and that thinking only North African peoples were in Ancient Greece really mid-understands geography and proximity to Africa and the commonality of trade along the Nile. Going east, Ancient Buddhists started depicting Shakyamuni Budda as a human figure and not an empty space under a tree directly as the result of Greek philosophical exchange. Buddhist “missionaries” are accounted for in Athens and the Levant more than 2000 years ago.
Ancient Greece was a pretty cosmopolitan place for the ancient world.
Your link is the opposite situation to what we’re talking about. It is talking about Greeks in Africa, not (sub-Saharan) Africans in Greece.
Right, I’m just saying the contacts were more common with North Africans, who weren’t black. But there were contacts for sure. Depends on who the black person is portraying if there’s any cause for the outrage.
There were plenty of sub-Saharan African people in Ancient Greece.
Do you happen to have a source for there being plenty?
I don’t know about how many would have lived in Greece, but they’re definitely in the tale of the Trojan War. There’s a whole poem, Aethiopis, starring them. The original text is pretty much entirely lost, but we do have a Roman-era summary of it to give us the broad strokes. Aethiopians show up in other stuff too; Perseus fights a sea monster there, for example
I’m aware of that, I don’t understand the complaint if the character is supposed to be Ethiopian or the like.
But the source for there being plenty of black people in Ancient Greece I’d still like to see since it sounds like a pretty interesting claim. I hope the other person delivers.
Ahh, fair enough. I hope so too, I’d be interested to read that. I can believe there would be at least some, because there was definitely steady contact between those two parts of the world at that time, but I don’t know specifics
Yes, I’m sure there were a few at least but “plenty” sounds dubious. Of course I’m not sure what they meant with “plenty” here. But we’ll see when they come back with the source
Define “plenty”.
The ancient Greeks didn’t care about skin tone in the modern sense, so there isn’t some racial census data like we have now.
https://lucas.leeds.ac.uk/article/skin-colour-in-ancient-greece/
They make trivial to find references to black people and depict them in the manner they depict themselves in art.
Because their division was not “Greek” and “black” but “Greek” and “not Greek”, they simply didn’t document it.
Aristotle describes the ideal skin tone as halfway between an Ethiopian and a woman.
Black people were quite literally unremarkable to them, so it’s pretty easy to argue that an ancient Greek wouldn’t find it odd to travel with a black person.
I think I’d like the person who made the claim to tell us what they meant with “plenty”. A reference here and there to there having been a black person in Ancient Greece doesn’t feel like it’s proving the claim, but they might’ve meant just that when they said “plenty”.
That makes it sound hard to prove
Alright, demonstrate that the demographics are as you assert they are. I’ve shown you that they’re depicted in their arts and culture, both as they depicted outsiders and as they depicted themselves, as well as that they had unremarkable interactions with Ethiopia and beyond.
The link also details the history of using the racial composition of ancient Greece for all manner of racial weirdness that wasn’t representative of the Greeks themselves, up to and including Internet race weirdos who get bent out of shape about a black person being depicted in a movie set in the Mediterranean.
At this point you’ve been given plenty of evidence that there sufficient numbers of dark skinned people that it wasn’t remarkable. If you disagree that it would somehow have been remarkable, or that this isn’t a perfectly workable definition of “plenty”, then show some reason why beyond “well everyone knows”.
Hell, demonstrate that there were plenty of white people.
You’ve shown that Greeks had connection and knew about black people but that wasn’t disputed… The claim was that there was “plenty” of black people in Ancient Greece. Connections to people being in Ancient Greece aren’t the same…
I’m not sure why you are taking the burden of proving someone else’s claim but you’re now trying to spin that burden to me to prove it the other wat around. That’s just silly.
Why not trust the other guy to make their case?
Are you asking me why I have an opinion on something? Because I do. You don’t need special reasons to make comments on a forum.
You aren’t listening. They depicted black people in the fashion that they depicted Greek people. They didn’t find them a weird novelty. The nature of ancient Greek prejudice wouldn’t have them depict people as Greek that they didn’t consider Greek. That intrinsically says something about the cultural integration, because that’s what the Greeks got weird over. If it was uncommon for them to be there they would have mentioned it because they mentioned all manner of uncommon things.
If they were a part of the society, and common enough that it wasn’t worth mentioning “…and then the one black guy in Athens showed up…”, then it seems clear to me that that’s “plenty”.
Nothing is being spun. I and others have given you evidence. You haven’t and are just making vacuous claims. Why do you have the opinion you do about the skin tone content of ancient Greece? Is it the enlightenment era paintings of Greek philosophers as white as could be? That the paint fell off the statues so now they’re just white marble? That all the black people in the pottery are “obviously” artistic choices, but the white people just … Are?
I’m sure you have a reason for thinking what you do, so what is it?
Neither a conversation nor a debate works by one person demanding evidence, denying it, and then refusing to elaborate In their beliefs.
Yes, we have plenty of sources for colored cyclops during ancient greece.
Oh it was a cyclops they were portraying? Then the complaint makes no sense tbh
But I honestly want a source on there being plenty of black people in Ancient Greece. I’ve never heard of that before
North Africans had trade routes going all the way into modern day Tanzania, and a big chunk of modern day Sudan used to be part of Ancient Egypt. The Iliad itself mentions people from Sudan.
North Africans did, right. But we’re talking about black Africans.
Tbh the whole thing depends on what the character is trying to portray. If it tries to portray everyday normal Ancient Greek, yeah that’s an issue. If it is meant to be someone from Ethiopia, something like that, yeah no issues.
Unless the trailer shows what they’re portraying (and imu the movie isn’t even out yet) then the complaints are premature.
Like Aethiopians that are literally in the Illiad? Maybe Homer was woke too. /s
There were some black people in the Mediterranean in ancient times. Egypt even had dynasties led by black people.
Europeans didn’t find about black people suddenly in the 14th century.
Are they portraying someone from Ethiopia or just some regular fella from Ancient Greece? That makes all the difference. Like said, if the trailer doesn’t tell, it’s premature upset.
Nobody is debating existence of black people here lol
They portray a mythical creature. Take your meds.
What mythical creature is the black person portraying? I haven’t seen tg the trailer/movie
No need to get emotional
Like they literally exist in Greece today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_Greeks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Greeks
Ignorance isn’t a sin, but you’re not even trying.
Uhh we’re talking about Ancient Greece…
Did you read the articles? Guess not.
These small communities are direct descendants of the ones from ancient Greece.
I don’t see where the article mentions that these are direct descendants of people who moved to Greece in ancient times? Both articles seem to talk about Greeks in these other countries…
Ah, my bad. So it’s possible for Greeks to have travelled All the way to Ethiopia in ancient times and have populations that survived to this day, but not the other way around? Interesting way of thinking.
Here you go then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avato
they weren’t white either. and black Africans were well known to all of Africa and the Mediterranean FAR further back than written history. Greeks aren’t even white, as far as you want to use “white” as some kind of identification, it’s useless other than as a racist concept to harm other people, but the most generous inclusions are pretty fucking difficult to include Greeks in. dark skin, woolly hair, blunt noses, a language distinctly outside European language roots. you got nothing.
I didn’t talk about anyone being white though
Sorry, man, I thought this was about that film and the actors in it, and their ethnicity. my bad. didn’t realize you were having a no context argument unrelated to this entire fucking thread.
No worries, but yeah I was just talking about the stuff I actually said
“How dare this work of fiction not be my interpretation of historically accurate?!”
That’s sorta their complaint yeah
And my complaint is that that is a stupid fucking child’s complaint.
Corey has provably got a reaming over it on Twitter hah