In a previous article, Why Can’t Researchers Study the Genetic Structure of the Copts as a Distinct Racial and Ethnic Group in Egypt? (July 31, 2020), I expressed the Copts’ frustration at the paucity of studies on the Coptic genome. Today, I would like to list the very few genetic studies that touched the Copts as a distinct ethnic and racial group.
There are only three studies that studied the Coptic DNA – all indirectly.
- In 2008, Hisham Y. Hassan et al published: Y‐chromosome variation among Sudanese: Restricted gene flow, concordance with language, geography, and history in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology 137 (3): 316-323. Hassan was a Sudanese researcher in the Institute of Endemic Diseases, University of Khartoum, Sudan.
- In 2009, Hisham Y. Hassan produced: Genetic Patterns of Y-chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Variation, with Implications to the Peopling of the Sudan. Yousif was a Sudanese zoologist, and the paper was actually a thesis submitted to the Department of Molecular Biology, Institute of Endemic Disease, University of Khartoum, for the fulfilment of requirements for Philosophy Degree of Science in Molecular Biology.
- In 2015, Begona Dobon et al (with Hisham Y. Hassan being one of the authors) published an important paper: The genetics of East African populations: A Nilo-Saharan component in the African genetic landscape in Scientific Reports 5, 9996. Dobon was a Spanish researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. On this study, see: Zack Shenouda, The genetic structure of the Copts is distinguishable from that of the Muslims of Egypt (September 28, 2016).
Three studies only! All conducted in Sudan! None in Egypt! And the Copts were not the main population target! The studies were not trying to find about the Coptic genome as a main purpose. The Copts who were included in the samples of all three studies were Copts from the city of Omdurman, Sudan. Almost all of them were migrants from Naqada in Upper Egypt.
Common, genetic anthropologists! The Copts must be more interesting than that! They are the direct descendants of Ancient Egypt, and the study of their genome should tell us much about the ancient Egyptians, and will most probably aid in solving the riddle of the first human migration from Africa and later back to Africa migrations.
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