I dont care about some Karl Earlson.I mainly posted it because of that table which clearly states Roman authors own remarqes about Imperial complexions.
I really can't add much in the Roman context, but it seems possible that our modern assumption that Romans were dark and swarthy might come from too many hours watching Sicilian gangster movies. Throughout the broad spectrum of antiquity, many nationalities were known to have blonde and red-headed individuals. From my eastern research, many Iranian-speaking cultures had their share of blondes-- all the way to China-- the Tarim Yue-chi, the Saka, the Wusun, were all described by Sima Quan and several eastern historians as being blonde, red haired, with either blue or green eyes. Then why not the Romans or Greeks? :whistle:
Alan J. Campbell
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
suggests that an Early Bronze Age culture from the Pontic Steppe the Yamnaya Culture may have been the ancestral Indo-Europeans. Interestingly the latest ancient DNA work seems to suggest that ancestral Europeans, especially in the Mesolithic, were dark-skinned with light eyes, the Yamnaya people in contrast, the above paper suggests, were light-skinned but dark-eyed. The later Europeans being the result of admixture, light skin becoming rapidly fixed in the population, but eye colour remaining more mixed (with a N-S cline) to the present day. The Yamnaya may also have been the originators of the European lactose-digestion persistence mutation, an obvious advantage to a pastoral cattle-herding people.
All in all a bit of a kick in the balls for the blond-blue-eyed-pale-skinned Aryan myth beloved of Hitler et alia., if, as the DNA evidence suggests, pale eyes and pale skin had entirely different origins, in different populations.
suggests that an Early Bronze Age culture from the Pontic Steppe the Yamnaya Culture may have been the ancestral Indo-Europeans. Interestingly the latest ancient DNA work seems to suggest that ancestral Europeans, especially in the Mesolithic, were dark-skinned with light eyes, the Yamnaya people in contrast, the above paper suggests, were light-skinned but dark-eyed. The later Europeans being the result of admixture, light skin becoming rapidly fixed in the population, but eye colour remaining more mixed (with a N-S cline) to the present day. The Yamnaya may also have been the originators of the European lactose-digestion persistence mutation, an obvious advantage to a pastoral cattle-herding people.
All in all a bit of a kick in the balls for the blond-blue-eyed-pale-skinned Aryan myth beloved of Hitler et alia., if, as the DNA evidence suggests, pale eyes and pale skin had entirely different origins, in different populations.
Cannot access the above paper without a subscription, so does it also cover this theory? Europeans drawn from three ancient 'tribes' "Hunters and gatherers get vitamin D through their food - because animals have a lot of it. But once you're farming, you don't get a lot of it, and once you switch to agriculture, there's strong natural selection to lighten your skin so that when it's hit by sunlight you can synthesise vitamin D."
suggests that an Early Bronze Age culture from the Pontic Steppe the Yamnaya Culture may have been the ancestral Indo-Europeans. Interestingly the latest ancient DNA work seems to suggest that ancestral Europeans, especially in the Mesolithic, were dark-skinned with light eyes, the Yamnaya people in contrast, the above paper suggests, were light-skinned but dark-eyed. The later Europeans being the result of admixture, light skin becoming rapidly fixed in the population, but eye colour remaining more mixed (with a N-S cline) to the present day. The Yamnaya may also have been the originators of the European lactose-digestion persistence mutation, an obvious advantage to a pastoral cattle-herding people.
All in all a bit of a kick in the balls for the blond-blue-eyed-pale-skinned Aryan myth beloved of Hitler et alia., if, as the DNA evidence suggests, pale eyes and pale skin had entirely different origins, in different populations.
Well, he likely wouldn’t have passed airport profiling very well. The Mediterranean saw a lot of mixing before Septimius Severus was born and it saw a lot of mixing after that, too. As far as we can tell, he would have been dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a very deep tan. Sub-Saharan African? No. African? Yes. Ditto Augustine. There are a lot of different kinds of Africans and there were two thousand years ago, as well.
Weren't physical descriptions also used to improve (or ruin) the public image of a person? For example, in Middle English and French, any "good" person would be described as fair haired and with a light complexion, while everyone "bad" would be described as being dark like night, with the reasoning behind these descriptions being that light comes from God, so anyone good is light skinned and haired because God's light shines through them.
And with that in mind, could such beliefs have influenced the writings of late Roman/Christian era writers?