Xenophobic

Ancient Africa

In Ancient Egypt, foreigners were conceived of through a complex xenophobic discourse. Given ancient Egypt's long history, Egyptians encountered a number of different peoples. Peoples living in present-day Greece, Sudan, and Turkey, for instance, were referred to by various names in Egyptian. According to one source, "...all the names have at the end the same hieroglyphic sign– a determinative or taxogram– indicating the word group. This is the hieroglyph for a hilly country or the desert– indicating 'foreign land' (khaset)...By contrast, Egypt (Kemet/Black land) is written with the determinative for a town. This indicates that Egyptians regarded their part of the world as cultivated, ordered and civilized, while the other countries were not." This indicates an early example of a xenophobic attitude towards other peoples. In addition, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics indicate xenophobic ideas about a necessity to conquer non-Egyptians, with Hittites in particular being referred to as "vile".