What ethnic groups inhabited ancient Greece and ancient Egypt?

There were the Greeks, and there were the Minoans on Crete. In Egypt, there was more going on, from the South. There was trade with sub-Saharan Africans.

Greece was full of Steve Reeves, Kirk Douglas’, and Anthony Quinns.
Egypt was full of Yul Brenners, Elizabeth Taylors, and Charleton Hestons.
the movies wouldn’t lie to me!

My husband’s ancestors inhabited Greece, and King Tut’s family and friends inhabited Egypt.
@filmfann HEH HEH!

@doggywuv You will not find any good homework answers here. If you need some lighthearted nonsense, stay tuned, otherwise, try Goodsearch.com The advertisers there will donate to your favorite charity, and you can find some real answers.

@YARNLADY I think the point we all try to make, just like on Wisdm, that this site is not a big cheat sheet. Don’t get the idea that we’re just going to give you the answers (after doing all the collective research while the kid goes to watch TV in the meantime.) We’re not going to let you get away with not putting any thought of your own into your homework assignments and asking all of us to do it for him, because that does the kid absolutely no good, any more than just handing them the answers to a quiz or a test.

@Val123 like I said….

I don’t need this information for homework. It seems to me that the ethnic groups that inhabited ancient Greece and ancient Egypt are not the same ones that inhabit these nations today and I want to verify my supposition.

@YARNLADY :) Got it! Send $ and if you don’t have none, and momma won’t give it to you, you’re SOL! LOL! (BTW, you are SO totally featured over there on the right! How do I find out my points score? I wanta party too!)

OK, at @doggywuv generally speaking, if you did a DNA test on the local residents and had an ancient DNA sample to compare it to, you’d have matches closer than, say, to me, in Kansas. But over the course of the centuries, just like in every other nation, the ease of travel and immigration would affect the bloodlines, eventually pretty drastically. But I would suggest that the ethnicity of “born and bred” are still closer to the ancient groups than to outside groups. Just my opinion. Not based on any research.

@Val123 Your points are right next to your screen name (1870)

@YARNLADY O. I see. (sadness) I have a looooong way to go, don’t I. I wanta party tho. Just for me.

@YARNLADY I’d rather use Helpuu, a similar service that uses a better search engine (Google). Though I don’t know which service is more beneficial.

Do you have any idea how drunk I was when I posted this: “OK, at @doggywuv generally speaking, if you did a DNA test on the local residents and had an ancient DNA sample to compare it to, you’d have matches closer than, say, to me, in Kansas. But over the course of the centuries, just like in every other nation, the ease of travel and immigration would affect the bloodlines, eventually pretty drastically. But I would suggest that the ethnicity of “born and bred” are still closer to the ancient groups than to outside groups. Just my opinion. Not based on any research.” I can’t believe myself sometimes!!

ok and now a serious answer:

there were very different tribes, in the same way that “Native Americans” are not all one nation. Most of them fought with each other all the time and eventually formed city-states.

The original Greek “phyla” (meaning something like “tribe” “clan” or “large family”) were the Pelasgoi, but by the classical times most of the Greeks were decendants of Dorians (Sparta etc in the south) Achaians (Athens, Corinth and central Greece) Ionians (on the coast of what today is Turkey) Macedonians (in the north) and Aeolians (in the northern Aegean islands). The Minoans and Mycenaeans were older tribes, Minoans living in Crete and Mycenaeans in Peloponese.

There were also the Thracians, which Greeks themselves considered to be “foreigners”, even though they spoke the same language and had similar gods. I think one could compare it to the way modern Americans see Canadians. After Philip II conquered all the other tribes and his son Alexander expanded his empire to include half the world, the idea of “hellenism” was born, with all Greeks realising they had a lot more in common (as opposed to Persians or Indians for example) than they had previously thought. It doesn’t mean they became a country in the modern, nation-state sense we have today, but they saw themselves as having more similarities than differences.

Some theorists have suggested that Egyptians are closely related to the earlier Greek tribes, and with other Mediterranean tribes such as the Phoenecians they are called “protohellenes”. This is a very controversial theory though, it’s very hard to determine when a national identity is born, especially when you’re talking about people who lived thousands of years ago and never saw the world the way we do.

As for the modern-day populations of those countries: modern Egyptians have decended from Arabs and probably have very little to do with the original Egyptian populations. Similarly, Greeks have been conquered and interbred with several other nations over the last 3000 years, so even though there’s probably some Achaian blood in many modern Athenians, most Greeks have probably decended from a variety of different nations. Which is why modern-day Spartans look a lot darker than the blonde Dorians who built the city all those centuries ago.

I just realised it’s basically what Val just said, but in much smaller letters lol

LOL!

@Val123 I can imagine, I wanted to reply to you but didn’t really know what to say!

Are you referring to my state of mind when I wrote that paragraph? It sure looked perfectly fine to me! I was amazed. I even spelled “DNA” right!

@Val123 Um, I was referring to your answer itself.

@doggywuv OK, I’m confused. Why didn’t you know what to say?