Gennarelli's Folly

Due to the vibrant reader response we had from Jake's last review, the editorial board has requested and received another dazzling gem. Jake has quickly risen to the position of most favored reviewer, although it cannot be said that he has had much competition... - RD

The essay by C. H. E. Carmichael, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1874; 300-4), outlines Gennarelli’s theory on an early race of “red-men” in Egypt, Europe, and beyond. Although he marshals a fair amount of data, his argument is ultimately unconvincing.

Perhaps Gennarelli’s greatest weakness is his failure to understand art. Rather than attempting to understand how a red hue represented ancient Egyptian thought, he suggests that their artistic style was simply designed to mimic reality. Art, however, is more than a simple photograph, but how one sees and interprets an image. He fails to provide a cursory explanation of art and its relationship to perceived and actual reality. By analogy, one could argue that Egyptian torsos were naturally rotated and that moving their appendages was a difficult enterprise, and that men with giant square-shaped heads lived on Easter Island! Gennarelli’s failure to appreciate the subtleness of art leads him to the conclusion that Egyptian art was simply a conventional practice designed to mimic reality like banal photography.

He supports this argument by observing the artistic representations of prehistoric races, and how the red-man motif is present in Europe (and not Asia), which could have only come from Egypt. However, his parallels are inadequate. The bronze figures found in the district of Motecchio could not have indicated the color of the figurines skin, and using several disparate bas-reliefs still suffers from the same shortcomings of his interpretation (or lack thereof) of art. One need only find an ancient example of artwork that depicts an individual in any color other than red to vitiate his argument. Furthermore, one wonders why he didn’t cull from early Christian iconography, where Jesus is often painted with a reddish hue (cf. The Dark Church in Cappadocia, Turkey).

After making the claim that Egypt was the cradle of European civilization, he then argues that southern Arabia (Yemen) was the cradle of Egyptian civilization because its name means red (hemiar). Using locations and tribal names as a description of its inhabitants is unconvincing because one could find a variety of reasons for these red city epithets (a tribe that conquered others by blood, the color of the sand, a type of indigenous bird, etc.). Gennarelli makes the same presupposition as he did earlier because he presupposes that the names of tribes and locations depict people and areas as a photograph would. Lastly, recent archaeological discoveries suggest that people came from further north (Ethiopia) before settling in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

After making these sweeping conclusions, Gennarelli then suggests that Egyptian history was the backbone of North/Central American history because of Mayan pyramids, Native American hieroglyphic languages, and even a so-called Nile region in Guatemala. He adduces every parallel he can muster, yet proves nothing. Several cultures have had common customs with no contact: Cultures often evolve similarly because they are subject to the same harsh realities of life, because they are still dependent on the whims of nature, and because they share many of the same human instincts. Simply because one adduces a parallel says nothing about actual evidence.

While I always enjoy speculation, I rarely find it convincing. Gennarelli’s suggestion, with its many holes, is unconvincing speculation of the first order. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of his thesis is its reminder to interpret art with an appreciation for artistic style and convention. One can only hope that historians in the coming millennia do not employ Gennarelli’s methodology by using Picasso as their touchstone for our generation.

- Jake McCarty