The better question is whether any of them would have considered themselves Egyptian at all. I highly doubt it. The Ptolemies and the Greek residents of cities like Alexandria and Naukratis certainly did consider themselves Hellenic though, rather than Egyptian, despite living in Egypt for hundreds of years. Philo, writing in the 1st century AD in Alexandria would have considered himself a Hellene, despite being Jewish. Oh, I've no dog in this fight - I'm not Greek in any way. Given the complicated history of Greek Egypt there's no right or wrong answer here. I view the Ptolemies much the same way I would, say, the Mughal Emperors.
How does Egypt compare to China, essentially just as old, but lasted much longer. Still holds it's basic form today, only went through a very brief period of foreign domination (I don't count the Manchus as foreign). Basically the highest developed society on earth for multiple millennia. Invented just as much maybe more than Europe combined. Heck their own attitude has always been that China is the center of the earth and the rest (including the Romans) are provincial hill billys. The "imperial" system lasted 4000 years and only ended in ~ 1912. Even today the country has risen back to the top, as compared to Egypt which hasn't really been important for centuries. (yes it was important to the British because of the canal, but being a colony sort of gives you negative points).
The only thing that might disqualify China as being #1 empire would not be foreign domination (totally insignificant amount of China's history) but the amount of time China was divided into many states (independent kingdoms).
I'm going from memory so that's why I put might be disqualified. But wasn't China divided from the end of the Han dynasty until its unification under the Yuan dynasty? I'm guessing at least a thousand years.
My knowledge of Chinese history is basically based off two undergrad classes I had. I'd also have to look it up. Ha
Well, the Imperial system lasted 2000 years, not 4, I don't think you can really claim it earlier than Shi Huang Ti. But China certainly has a strong claim. For quite some time, especially until the Normans assimilated and began speaking English, that's exactly how England viewed it.
Then Cleopatra was really the last Pharaoh of Egypt and the only Ptolemie that can be said was Egyptian (at least politically)
I'm not sure how you can claim she was Egyptian in any other way. Historically we can trace nearly all of Cleopatra's ancestors (easy, considering they mostly married each other!), and I don't recall a single Egyptian in her line. There was a daughter of Mithridates in there, but they almost certainly would have called themselves "Greek" too.
Egypt, as a geographic entity, should be distinguished with discussions which might imply an Egyptian identity. Indeed, the fact that Arab identity was so easily assumed by Egypt following the Islamic conquest itself is indicative of the tenuous nature of Egyptian identity, after so many centuries where Egypt's rulers (ever since the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses II) were foreign and did not regard themselves "Egyptian" by any means. The issue is not merely one of ethnicity per se, but rather identity. It has to do with whether a ruler or dynasty regard themselves as Egyptian or something else? It is informed by whether these rulers look to or claim indigenous criteria to justify and legitimize their rule? Or whether they see themselves as ruling subjects who are different than them? On those criteria, the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt was certainly not Egyptian, at least not until Cleopatra (the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt), who learned the Egyptian language and tried to present herself as reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess. But over all, I would not consider the Ptolemaic dynasty as Egyptian as they were Greek, not only by virtue of ethnicity but in terms of how they regarded themselves and how they distinguished themselves from their subjects. As an aside, the truth is there are very few nations with a modern, present day, identity which can legitimately trace that identity over several millennia of history. Iran and China are two such nations whose people can also associate that identity to a particular geographic location as well. The "Jews", while having lost any geographic center for most of history, are also another such example nonetheless. Egyptians are not in that category. Pharaonic Egypt essentially came to an end with the Persian conquest of Egypt under the Achaemenids and subsequent rulers in Egypt were mostly foreigners, not Egyptians (not by virtue of ethnicity nor by virtue of culture). Mithridates is the Greek form of an old Persian name (Mithradatha or gift of Mithra) and if Cleopatra has the daughter of Mithradates in her lineage, I would assume you would be referring to the daughter of Mithradates VI of Pontus. The latter, although of Persian and Macedonian ancestry, claimed his descent from Darius and I doubt he would have called himself Greek.
I wasn't quoting from any particular source because you don't use quotes when you aren't using language from someone else, even if the information you are posting is obviously not from your first hand knowledge and is relying on some source. The fact that Mithridates is a Greek form of a Persian name was well known to me already, which is why I even bothered searching to find out more about this Mithridates that you had identified as one Cleopatra's ancestors. The latter presumably from your own first hand knowledge, since I did not notice any quotes in your original statement. To help you out on these matters, incidentally, you use quotes only when you are using language from someone else. You might use footnotes to cite where you obtain reference information or applicable authorities, but I am not sure people who post on internet message boards often pepper their remarks with footnotes! As for Mithridates of Pontus, the notion that he almost "certainly" would consider himself "Greek" is absurd. He would not. He was of mixed Persian and Macedonian ancestory, but while he might have preferred to emphasis Hellenic culture in light of the areas he ruled, he claimed (whether accurately or not) decent from the Achaemenid emperor, Darius. And no one has claimed Darius is Greek!
Yet he also claimed descent from Alexander the Great. And no one has claimed that Alexander is Persian!
I am not aware that he claimed descent from Alexander the Great. But as I mentioned, he is said to be of mixed Persian and Macedonian decent, descended from one of Alexander's generals. As for Alexander, he was not Persian. But he is often called a philo-Iranian. (His only son, born after Alexander's death, of a Persian princess named Roxana). Alexander believed that the rightful rulers of the world would be of mixed Persian and Macedonian decent and endeavored to create such a master race, ordering his generals to all wed Persian wives for that purpose.
He did, at least according to historians from Roman time as well as contemporaries, and he modeled himself in many ways after Alexander. I am reading a book about him. He was a fascinating character, how he stood up to Rome.
I will defer to you, although if he claimed decent from Alexander, he would be claiming decent from Alexander's only child, Alexander IV, born to princess Roxana. The problem is that Alexander IV was poisoned when he was 13 years old and I doubt he had left any offspring at that age.
I don't think he meant EXCLUSIVELY Iran and China. He was just citing Iran and China as such rare examples. Otherwise, and India and Greece are also two of oldest surviving civilizations.
Well, not always. There have been times, when large empires, during the antiquity and in the medieval era, covered most of what is today the Indian sub continent. But that's not even the point, I thought Iranian Monitor was talking about a civilization/cultural identity with a local geographical relevance for a present day nation. Not necessarily a purely national identity. Now that Mani said it, I think I misunderstood IM. He might have not meant China and Iran exclusively.
Yes he was talking about one continuous cultural identity. India has had multiple different states and peoples on the territory that is India today. While China has gone under foreign rule several times in its history, Mongol or Machu for example, they have either assimilated or been viewed as foreign rulers by a dominate Chinese Han Culture.
How would you define the phrase 'continuous cultural identity'? For example, my username, which also happens to be my first name, means "from the east" , finds mention in the Rig Veda (~1500 BC) where the word the winds blowing over the north western Indian plains/farmlands in the winter from the east ( from the Bay of Bengal). Would that count as an example of continuous cultural identity? In the context of India, there has been assimilation too. I'd say that there are multiple continuous cultural identities. And many of these identities are over lapping.
I find this talk about "identity" rather pointless. What does it even mean? The obvious meaning would be a biological interpretation, which is a popular argument among racists but of course completely detached from reality. Genetic mixing is very much a reality. In fact, every human being today is for example a direct descendant of Confucius. It's true. Not only that, but every person who lived 2000 years ago is either a direct ancestor of everybody today or his line has died out. So I can trace my ancestors to the exact same Persians as can IM, making this a moot point. Another possible meaning would be a cultural interpretation. But culture is in even more flux than biology. For example, Islam is a major (if not THE major) factor in Iranian culture, yet that is something that hasn't existed in Zoroastrian times. But there are lots of small examples also, think about music, how it influences and/or reflects culture and how it changed. Think about philosophy, both European as well as Arab and Persian and how it influenced culture. Finally, there could be a political interpretation, but then there wouldn't be any country left with an ancient identity. China was an exception until the communists came to power. The Roman Empire and its successor Byzantium lasted for 1500 years, the Holy Roman Empire lasted almost 1000 years. One could argue that the British monarchy has lasted for 1000 years, so I guess our British friends have the best case in that regard. But in any case, I find this to be a rather meaningless metric.
It is not about race. Since this is a football forum, I will make a football analogy to help you out. Anybody can be a Manchester United or Real Madrid or Barcelona (etc) fan. But not everybody is. Those who root for these clubs, whatever their race, and who choose to talk about the trophies these clubs have won as if they were their own, are identifying themselves with these clubs. In the context of our discussion, for several thousand years there have been people who have rooted for and identified themselves with IRAN. They were doing this long before nationalism gained any currency in the West, precisely because this kind of identification used to be rather sui generis to Iran and a few other cultures. But it was an important, self perpetuating, and driving force in Iranian history for several millennia. It accounted for the fact that numerous invaders came to Iran, but were either repelled or absorbed. But there was this stubborn insistence to maintain that Iranian identity, even its ingredients were evolving and undergoing change. The relevant historical narrative is one that I covered in some of my earlier post in this thread. I will quote from one post which covers the basics in this regard: