Few civilizations of the past fascinate us as much as that of the ancient Egyptians. The kingdom along the Nile River has been the subject of countless books, magazine articles, films, television programs and documentaries. There's even a hotel in Las Vegas with an ancient Egyptian theme! Museums around the world dedicate entire galleries to Egyptian excavations, and Egypt itself receives millions of tourists every year who flock to photograph its ruins. There are many reasons behind our infatuation with ancient Egypt. One is its absolute antiquity. Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations, flourishing at a time when most of the rest of the world (including the ancestors of the Greeks, Chinese and Mayans) had not yet built anything more impressive than huts of wood. Another reason is that we are amazed by the achievements of the Egyptians: their colossal temples and tombs, their extraordinarily well-preserved mummies, their art and their glittering jewels. A third reason is that, despite more than two centuries of study by Egyptologists, much of ancient Egypt still remains mysterious. Many questions about the Egyptians still have the answers buried in the sands of time. For example, how were the pyramids built? What was responsible for the early death of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun? And how did the Egyptians influence later civilizations like Greece and Rome? However, the most controversial issue concerning ancient Egypt, the one that has inspired the most soulful discussions, concerns their ethnic identity. Egypt is located on the African continent, particularly in its northeastern region, but historians have traditionally classified it as part of the “Near East” (along with Sumer, Babylon, and Israel) or “Mediterranean” (along with Greece and Rome). Every time someone makes a movie or TV show set in Egypt, they cast white actors instead of black actors to play the Egyptians, for example Yul Brynner as Pharaoh Rameses in CB Demille's The Ten Commandments, or Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep in The Mummy. The implication here is that, despite being in Africa, ancient Egypt was actually a white civilization of European or Asian origin rather than being truly African. This view is wrong. The best evidence we have suggests that ancient Egyptian civilization was founded primarily by indigenous Africans. This is not to say that there was no influence, biological or cultural, from Asia or Europe on Egypt, but that influence was slight. The ancient Egyptians, biologically and culturally, were fundamentally African.