<P> Modern scholars who have studied ancient Egyptian culture and population history have responded to the controversy over the race of the ancient Egyptians in different ways . </P> <P> At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974, the Black Hypothesis met with "profound" disagreement . Most participants concluded that the ancient Egyptian population was indigenous to the Nile Valley, and was made up of people from north and south of the Sahara who were differentiated by their color . The arguments for all sides are recorded in the UNESCO publication General History of Africa, with the "Origin of the Egyptians" chapter being written by Cheikh Anta Diop . </P> <P> Since the second half of the 20th century, most anthropologists have rejected the notion of race as having any validity in the study of human biology . Stuart Tyson Smith writes in the 2001 Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, "Any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depends on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study . Thus, by modern American standards it is reasonable to characterize the Egyptians as' black', while acknowledging the scientific evidence for the physical diversity of Africans ." Frank M. Snowden asserts "Egyptians, Greeks and Romans attached no special stigma to the colour of the skin and developed no hierarchical notions of race whereby highest and lowest positions in the social pyramid were based on colour ." </P> <P> In 1975, the mummy of Ramesses II was taken to France for preservation . The mummy was also forensically tested by Professor Pierre - Fernand Ceccaldi, the chief forensic scientist at the Criminal Identification Laboratory of Paris, who wrote: "Hair, astonishingly preserved, showed some complementary data - especially about pigmentation: Ramses II was a Red haired cymnotriche leucoderma", that is a fair - skinned person with wavy red hair . </P>

Who were the first inhabitants of ancient egypt
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