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The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality
Now in its 30th printing, this classic presents historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt was a black civilization.
N.B
(translation of sections of Antériorité des civilisations négres and Nations nègres et culture)
N.B
(translation of sections of Antériorité des civilisations négres and Nations nègres et culture)
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
416 people are currently reading
6725 people want to read
About the author
Cheikh Anta Diop
27 books370 followersCheikh Anta Diop was an Afrocentric historian, anthropologist, physicist and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture.
Diop's first work translated into English, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, was published in 1974. It gained a much wider audience for his work. He proved that archaeological and anthropological evidence supported his view that Pharaohs were of Negroid origin. Some scholars draw heavily from Diop's groundbreaking work, , while others in the Western academic world do not accept all of Diop's theories. Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research.
Diop showed above all that European archaeologists before and after the decolonization had understated and continued to understate the extent and possibility of Black civilizations.
The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet's discoveries at the site of Kerma shed some light on the theories of Diop. They show close cultural links between Nubia and Ancient Egypt, though the relationship had been acknowledged for years. This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. He suggests that the peoples of the Nile Valley were one regionalized population, sharing a number of genetic and cultural traits.
Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.
His books were largely responsible for, at least, the partial re-orientation of attitudes about the place of African people in history, in scholarly circles around the world.
Diop's first work translated into English, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, was published in 1974. It gained a much wider audience for his work. He proved that archaeological and anthropological evidence supported his view that Pharaohs were of Negroid origin. Some scholars draw heavily from Diop's groundbreaking work, , while others in the Western academic world do not accept all of Diop's theories. Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research.
Diop showed above all that European archaeologists before and after the decolonization had understated and continued to understate the extent and possibility of Black civilizations.
The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet's discoveries at the site of Kerma shed some light on the theories of Diop. They show close cultural links between Nubia and Ancient Egypt, though the relationship had been acknowledged for years. This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. He suggests that the peoples of the Nile Valley were one regionalized population, sharing a number of genetic and cultural traits.
Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.
His books were largely responsible for, at least, the partial re-orientation of attitudes about the place of African people in history, in scholarly circles around the world.
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June 7, 2017
Soundtrack to this review - please listen :-)
The Ancient Egyptians, the founders of the civilisation that built the pyramids and brought writing, geometry, religion and science to the Greeks (and others), were Black, as in 'Negro' as in, they looked more like the Yoruba or the Kikuyu or the Xhosa than any group of Semitic people.* They came from the interior, from Nubia (Sudan) or the drying Western Sahara. Their sacred sites were in Upper Egypt, their true homeland. Their gods were there, and the heads of those gods were painted coal black. The Egyptians made no distinction of colour between themselves and the Nubians or other Black Africans. Herodotus says they were black and had woolly hair. The Bible says it. And where Egyptians travelled North, they ruled: the earliest kings of Elam were Black, as their tomb paintings clearly show. The Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Carthagianians were Black. Speaking of tomb paintings, statuary and so on, well, just take a look, the book has pictures = )
*Why am I struggling to make myself clear? Well, race isn't a thing is it? It's just junk in the mind of the racist, as one friend objected when I started talking about this book. The trouble is, we (as in everyone) are all racist, and the junk in racist minds is exactly what Cheikh Anta Diop (can I call him CAD? Thanks.) is writing back to here. In fact, Egyptology up to 1954 had been part and parcel of the ideology of scientific racism. While CAD is able to cite some 'scholars of good faith' going all the way back to de Volney circa 1785 who observes the (much lightened by mixing) Egyptians and recalls the words of Herodotus, concluding “the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans.”, the majority of the Egyptologists he cites are clearly so deeply sunk in their white-supremacy that they will allow themselves any amount of contradiction, denial and extravagant misinterpretation, and think up any crackpot theory, to avoid accepting the obvious conclusion that THE EGYPTIANS WERE BLACK.
Some of these theories propose that the Egyptians came from the North, which is ridiculous, and others create White races with dark skin. Hence such designations as 'Hamite' 'Nilotic' and so on, proliferate as the white Egyptologists scramble to avoid the belief that the despised and enslaved Negro could be the antecedent and teacher of European culture. CAD believes that there are only three 'races', 'white, black and yellow' and suspects that even the 'yellow' is really just a mix of black and white, like the Semites and other 'Mediterranean' people, and the Egyptians today. Egyptologists had suggested that Indo-Europeans civilized the Egyptians and lightened them, but Egyptian civilisation pre-dates anything in Europe and Mesopotamia, and mixing was very gradual due to the small numbers of whiter peoples coming to Africa, while all the elements of the Egyptian civilisation were in place in the undeniably Black Old Kingdom. The pale folks who came to Egypt before it fell were usually prisoners of war who became slaves (Egyptians could not be enslaved. The country was never a slave economy – numbers were small) or brought into the royal harem.
This isn't a theory of racial superiority of course; the Egyptians' social and cultural sophistication, asserts CAD, was nurtured by their environment and the need for cooperation imposed by the particular agricultural conditions around the Nile. Bounteous nature was unsurprisingly revered. Meanwhile, the Indo-Europeans struggling to survive on the hostile steppes developed the patriarchal family and aggressive, opportunistic lifeways, devoid of respect for nature, which treated them harshly. CAD suggests that the Egyptians persecuted the Jews because of their horror of nomads. I am generally wary of this kind of psychological explanation-by-climate, but in some aspects this speculative description approximates a historical approach. I would like to stand up for nomads against this sedentarist perspective, though not especially to defend the people who became the faithless extractivists of Western Europe (what about Native 'American' nomadic people, famously not faithless extractivists**) One of my problems with the text is the apparently uncritical use of the opposition between 'civilisation' and 'barbarism'. CAD accepts the idea that Black Africa has 'regressed' from the glory days of the pharaohs. I have to object that this is part of racist, colonial ideology.
Nor is this the only aspect of the text which needs further decolonisation. Unforgivably, CAD collaborates in antiblackness as it constructs black female gender. Comments about hair in particular (I would like to know what 'frizzy' is translated from) are entirely misogynoiristic*** and when CAD uses the phrase 'feminine elegance' he is explicitly distinguishing white women from black women
**I don't mean to imply that Native 'Americans' all have nomadic traditions or were all nomadic before the invasion of colonising Europeans – despite my ignorance about the topic I am well aware that the continent had many cities before the white invasion. CAD thinks that Black Africans who crossed the Atlantic had a hand in this urbanising (step pyramids!) but he is only speculating and I need to do further research into the exciting topic of these Atlantic crossings
***the term misogynoir was coined by Moya Bailey
The depth of some Egyptologists' investment in white supremacy provokes some enjoyable dry humour from CAD. In 'Reply to a Critic', he addresses the remarks of one denier, Raymond Mauny on the ethnic mix of later periods “M Mauny knows that if this mix of people were transported to New York City, they would be found in Harlem”
This snark not only indicates the accessibility of this readable and absorbing book, but also points to the reality that racialisation is contextual. As Leena Abiballa (a Sudanese writer) explains in this article Too Black to be Arab, too Arab to be Black "race is a Western fantasy maintained by a daily, violent socio-political choreography.” So, why do I disagree with my friend's comment that "we shouldn't assign racial identities to historic civilizations"? Why am I greeting CAD's project as near-heroic? Context! In, say, Paris, 1954, or London, 2016, a time-travelling group of ancient Egyptians would be called BLACK, and that fact turns the foundation of scientific racism, which is the foundation of this 'Western fantasy' of race, UPSIDE DOWN, which (as Fanon tells us) is what has to be done before it can dissipate into nothingness. So while I find the occasional descent into skull-measuring tedious, I recognise its necessity. What happens now is that nobody talks of the Egyptians as White or Asian, but the conception is not challenged, so people continue to picture them as such and reproduce the idea - it has its own self-sustaining life. That's why whites are cast as Egyptians in movies etc. Now I'm on the lookout for books and other art that presents ancient Egypt as Black. Hollywood antidotes please...
update: it has been suggested to me that Cheikh Anta Diop's theory is 'trapped inside a racist conception'
I would like to avoid facilitating obfuscation, so I want to reply here. Firstly, this is insulting. CAD has replied to the racism of Egyptology, implicit and explicit, ON ITS OWN TERMS. Even on the grounds of the essentialist concept of race it propounds, it is incorrect. I think this is the most effective refutation. CAD has used white man epistemology and essentialism strategically.
I know that in a way, a meaningful way, the objector is right, because in this volume CAD concludes with touching optimism that accurate or authentic objective anthropology will triumph, racism will be over! But yes, a different epistemology is needed. To repeat a much abused revelation:
"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" - Audre Lorde
But knowing that 'race' is not real has not helped much, has it? White supremacy has been making out like a bandit on the back of this valid deconstruction for some time, pretending that since race does not exist, racism (the white concept of racism is one of the master's tools) does not exist either, since Lincoln freed the slaves or whatever, now there's a full meritocracy, level playing field etc:
'that was all in the past, can't we just move on?'
'stop playing the race card!'
Racialisation is contextual, but it does not follow that a person can take off the helmet of their language and culture at a stroke, and end racism thus. History is important, emotionally. Stories have real power.
While I was reading this, I asked some folks this question:
What do you think the ancient Egyptians looked like?
The first answer I got was about their clothes
This is avoidance of the uncomfortable. I clarified
The second reply (from a knowledgeable person) was that they had 'Asian skin, almond eyes, long hair'
That is racist Egyptology at work.
I said the Egyptians were Black, as in, you know, like Oprah.
The next reply was 'I don't think we should assign race to them, I never thought about it'
That is 'colourblindness' or raceblindness, which is really racism-blindness, isn't it? The last person is quite enlightened, he knows race is not a thing, but it seems to me that it is another way of avoiding an uncomfortable topic.
White Supremacy: "The Egyptians were White, because only Whites could create this advanced civilisation"
Cheikh Anta Diop: "Actually, the Egyptians were Black"
Pomo Covert White Supremacy: "Oh, race isn't a thing anyway"
What happened? The water got hot, so somebody jumped out.
Person 2 also said 'Surely the Egyptologists were not all racist' which is related to the objection 'some old racist books claimed the Egyptians were white'
But this is not over, as person #2's first response indicates. They had 'Asian skin', so they were Asian?
Go to the British Museum's lovely Ancient Egypt website, and see all the gods drawn as pale as I am
As Sara Ahmed says:
This is not over. We should not get over it.
The Ancient Egyptians, the founders of the civilisation that built the pyramids and brought writing, geometry, religion and science to the Greeks (and others), were Black, as in 'Negro' as in, they looked more like the Yoruba or the Kikuyu or the Xhosa than any group of Semitic people.* They came from the interior, from Nubia (Sudan) or the drying Western Sahara. Their sacred sites were in Upper Egypt, their true homeland. Their gods were there, and the heads of those gods were painted coal black. The Egyptians made no distinction of colour between themselves and the Nubians or other Black Africans. Herodotus says they were black and had woolly hair. The Bible says it. And where Egyptians travelled North, they ruled: the earliest kings of Elam were Black, as their tomb paintings clearly show. The Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Carthagianians were Black. Speaking of tomb paintings, statuary and so on, well, just take a look, the book has pictures = )
*Why am I struggling to make myself clear? Well, race isn't a thing is it? It's just junk in the mind of the racist, as one friend objected when I started talking about this book. The trouble is, we (as in everyone) are all racist, and the junk in racist minds is exactly what Cheikh Anta Diop (can I call him CAD? Thanks.) is writing back to here. In fact, Egyptology up to 1954 had been part and parcel of the ideology of scientific racism. While CAD is able to cite some 'scholars of good faith' going all the way back to de Volney circa 1785 who observes the (much lightened by mixing) Egyptians and recalls the words of Herodotus, concluding “the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans.”, the majority of the Egyptologists he cites are clearly so deeply sunk in their white-supremacy that they will allow themselves any amount of contradiction, denial and extravagant misinterpretation, and think up any crackpot theory, to avoid accepting the obvious conclusion that THE EGYPTIANS WERE BLACK.
Some of these theories propose that the Egyptians came from the North, which is ridiculous, and others create White races with dark skin. Hence such designations as 'Hamite' 'Nilotic' and so on, proliferate as the white Egyptologists scramble to avoid the belief that the despised and enslaved Negro could be the antecedent and teacher of European culture. CAD believes that there are only three 'races', 'white, black and yellow' and suspects that even the 'yellow' is really just a mix of black and white, like the Semites and other 'Mediterranean' people, and the Egyptians today. Egyptologists had suggested that Indo-Europeans civilized the Egyptians and lightened them, but Egyptian civilisation pre-dates anything in Europe and Mesopotamia, and mixing was very gradual due to the small numbers of whiter peoples coming to Africa, while all the elements of the Egyptian civilisation were in place in the undeniably Black Old Kingdom. The pale folks who came to Egypt before it fell were usually prisoners of war who became slaves (Egyptians could not be enslaved. The country was never a slave economy – numbers were small) or brought into the royal harem.
This isn't a theory of racial superiority of course; the Egyptians' social and cultural sophistication, asserts CAD, was nurtured by their environment and the need for cooperation imposed by the particular agricultural conditions around the Nile. Bounteous nature was unsurprisingly revered. Meanwhile, the Indo-Europeans struggling to survive on the hostile steppes developed the patriarchal family and aggressive, opportunistic lifeways, devoid of respect for nature, which treated them harshly. CAD suggests that the Egyptians persecuted the Jews because of their horror of nomads. I am generally wary of this kind of psychological explanation-by-climate, but in some aspects this speculative description approximates a historical approach. I would like to stand up for nomads against this sedentarist perspective, though not especially to defend the people who became the faithless extractivists of Western Europe (what about Native 'American' nomadic people, famously not faithless extractivists**) One of my problems with the text is the apparently uncritical use of the opposition between 'civilisation' and 'barbarism'. CAD accepts the idea that Black Africa has 'regressed' from the glory days of the pharaohs. I have to object that this is part of racist, colonial ideology.
Nor is this the only aspect of the text which needs further decolonisation. Unforgivably, CAD collaborates in antiblackness as it constructs black female gender. Comments about hair in particular (I would like to know what 'frizzy' is translated from) are entirely misogynoiristic*** and when CAD uses the phrase 'feminine elegance' he is explicitly distinguishing white women from black women
**I don't mean to imply that Native 'Americans' all have nomadic traditions or were all nomadic before the invasion of colonising Europeans – despite my ignorance about the topic I am well aware that the continent had many cities before the white invasion. CAD thinks that Black Africans who crossed the Atlantic had a hand in this urbanising (step pyramids!) but he is only speculating and I need to do further research into the exciting topic of these Atlantic crossings
***the term misogynoir was coined by Moya Bailey
The depth of some Egyptologists' investment in white supremacy provokes some enjoyable dry humour from CAD. In 'Reply to a Critic', he addresses the remarks of one denier, Raymond Mauny on the ethnic mix of later periods “M Mauny knows that if this mix of people were transported to New York City, they would be found in Harlem”
This snark not only indicates the accessibility of this readable and absorbing book, but also points to the reality that racialisation is contextual. As Leena Abiballa (a Sudanese writer) explains in this article Too Black to be Arab, too Arab to be Black "race is a Western fantasy maintained by a daily, violent socio-political choreography.” So, why do I disagree with my friend's comment that "we shouldn't assign racial identities to historic civilizations"? Why am I greeting CAD's project as near-heroic? Context! In, say, Paris, 1954, or London, 2016, a time-travelling group of ancient Egyptians would be called BLACK, and that fact turns the foundation of scientific racism, which is the foundation of this 'Western fantasy' of race, UPSIDE DOWN, which (as Fanon tells us) is what has to be done before it can dissipate into nothingness. So while I find the occasional descent into skull-measuring tedious, I recognise its necessity. What happens now is that nobody talks of the Egyptians as White or Asian, but the conception is not challenged, so people continue to picture them as such and reproduce the idea - it has its own self-sustaining life. That's why whites are cast as Egyptians in movies etc. Now I'm on the lookout for books and other art that presents ancient Egypt as Black. Hollywood antidotes please...
update: it has been suggested to me that Cheikh Anta Diop's theory is 'trapped inside a racist conception'
I would like to avoid facilitating obfuscation, so I want to reply here. Firstly, this is insulting. CAD has replied to the racism of Egyptology, implicit and explicit, ON ITS OWN TERMS. Even on the grounds of the essentialist concept of race it propounds, it is incorrect. I think this is the most effective refutation. CAD has used white man epistemology and essentialism strategically.
I know that in a way, a meaningful way, the objector is right, because in this volume CAD concludes with touching optimism that accurate or authentic objective anthropology will triumph, racism will be over! But yes, a different epistemology is needed. To repeat a much abused revelation:
"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" - Audre Lorde
But knowing that 'race' is not real has not helped much, has it? White supremacy has been making out like a bandit on the back of this valid deconstruction for some time, pretending that since race does not exist, racism (the white concept of racism is one of the master's tools) does not exist either, since Lincoln freed the slaves or whatever, now there's a full meritocracy, level playing field etc:
'that was all in the past, can't we just move on?'
'stop playing the race card!'
Racialisation is contextual, but it does not follow that a person can take off the helmet of their language and culture at a stroke, and end racism thus. History is important, emotionally. Stories have real power.
While I was reading this, I asked some folks this question:
What do you think the ancient Egyptians looked like?
The first answer I got was about their clothes
This is avoidance of the uncomfortable. I clarified
The second reply (from a knowledgeable person) was that they had 'Asian skin, almond eyes, long hair'
That is racist Egyptology at work.
I said the Egyptians were Black, as in, you know, like Oprah.
The next reply was 'I don't think we should assign race to them, I never thought about it'
That is 'colourblindness' or raceblindness, which is really racism-blindness, isn't it? The last person is quite enlightened, he knows race is not a thing, but it seems to me that it is another way of avoiding an uncomfortable topic.
White Supremacy: "The Egyptians were White, because only Whites could create this advanced civilisation"
Cheikh Anta Diop: "Actually, the Egyptians were Black"
Pomo Covert White Supremacy: "Oh, race isn't a thing anyway"
What happened? The water got hot, so somebody jumped out.
Person 2 also said 'Surely the Egyptologists were not all racist' which is related to the objection 'some old racist books claimed the Egyptians were white'
But this is not over, as person #2's first response indicates. They had 'Asian skin', so they were Asian?
Go to the British Museum's lovely Ancient Egypt website, and see all the gods drawn as pale as I am
As Sara Ahmed says:
This is not over. We should not get over it.
December 29, 2013
This book is full of information and facts exposing white washing of origins of Carthage, Egypt, etc. Every person of African descent should read this book. African history needs to be claimed back and told from the perspective of the African. It is a definitive work without a doubt
Highly recommended reading
Highly recommended reading
July 29, 2012
if there is a bible of african history this is genesis
September 3, 2016
The author argues that the ancient Egyptians (Anu) were Negroes. Their gods Osiris and Isis were depicted as black. A bas-relief from the 18th Dynasty (16th century BC) depicts the order of races known to the Egyptians: Egyptians, Nahasi (Blacks), Namou (Asian), and Tamhou (tattooed whites). The Egyptians and Nahasi were different shades of reddish-brown.
The leading Egyptologists of the 19th century argued against the Negro origin of Egyptians, and their theories of a white Egyptian race won out regardless of the evidence.
The Phoenicians and the elite of Carthage were also Negroes. The Phoenician traders brought white women from Greece to Egypt for the Pharaoh.
Eventually the whites came to dominate; because of mixing of the populations, the Arabs, Jews, Italians, Spanish, and French have Negro blood.
Some cultural practices originating with the early Negro civilizations included totemism, circumcision and excision, and matriarchy.
The leading Egyptologists of the 19th century argued against the Negro origin of Egyptians, and their theories of a white Egyptian race won out regardless of the evidence.
The Phoenicians and the elite of Carthage were also Negroes. The Phoenician traders brought white women from Greece to Egypt for the Pharaoh.
Eventually the whites came to dominate; because of mixing of the populations, the Arabs, Jews, Italians, Spanish, and French have Negro blood.
Some cultural practices originating with the early Negro civilizations included totemism, circumcision and excision, and matriarchy.
June 19, 2011
Let's just say Elizabeth Taylor was not accurately cast as Cleopatra.
May 30, 2013
This highly technical and scholarly book is fast becoming a classic in the study of ancient African history.
The book is actually an English translation of large parts of two of Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop’s works in French: “Nations Negres et Culture” and “Anteriorite des Civilizations Negres”.
The late Mercer Cook (French Professor Emeritus, Howard University) did a marvelous job translating the complex historical facts, themes and ideas of one of the world’s greatest scholars.
Diop boldly states his position in the Preface( p.XIV) : “1. Ancient Egypt was a Negro Civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until historians dare connect it with the history of Egypt……….The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilization is to be counted among the assets of the Black world… the Black world is the very initiator of the “western” civilization flaunted before our eyes today. Pythagorean mathematics, the theory of the four elements of Thales of Miletus, Epicurean materialism, Platonic idealism, Judaism Islam, and modern science are rooted in Egyptian cosmology and science. One needs only to meditate on Osiris , the redeemer-god who sacrifices himself, dies, and is resurrected to save mankind, a figure essentially identifiable with Christ. A visitor to Thebes in the Valley of the Kings can view the Moslem inferno in detail (in the tomb of Seti I, of the Nineteenth Dynasty), 1700 years before the Koran. Osiris at the tribunal of the dead is indeed the “lord” of the revealed religions, sitting enthroned on Judgment Day, and we know that certain Biblical passages are practically copies of Egyptian moral texts. ”
The book is well documented and illustrated with many rare photographs of ancient Egyptian antiquities.
The book is divided into 13 chapters, followed by a Conclusion and Notes.
Chapter I: What were the Egyptian?
Chapter II: Birth of The Negro Myth
Chapter III: The Modern Falsification of History
Chapter IV: Could Egyptian Civilization Have Originated in The Delta?
Chapter V: Could Egyptian Civilization Be of Asian Origin?
Chapter VI: The Egyptian Race As Seen and Treated By Anthropologists
Chapter VII: Arguments Supporting A Negro Origin
Chapter VIII: Arguments Opposing A Negro Origin
Chapter IX: Peopling Of Africa From The Nile Valley
Chapter X: Political And Social Evolution of Ancient Egypt
Chapter XI: Contribution of Ethiopia-Nubia And Egypt
Chapter XII: Reply To A Critic
Chapter XIII: Early History of Humanity: Evolution Of The Black World
Dr. Diop points out that western scholars and so-called “Africanist” view African cultures, history and peoples from the outside. Being an outsider definitely has its limitations.
European scholars attempted to find totemism among European peoples in an effort to support the position that the ancient Egyptians were ancient Whites. Western scholars were faced with a dilemma when no examples of totemism could be found among whites.
On p.134, Diops mentions the fact that totemism has never been found in Indo-European populations and it is well documented that Greeks scuffed at the attention that ancient Egyptians paid to certain plants and animals. Diop continues:" ….it was impossible to deny that the “taboo” character of certain animals and plants in Egypt corresponds to totemism as it exists throughout Black Africa. By contrast such “taboos” were alien to the Greeks and other Indo-European populations unaware of totemism".
This is how Dr. Diop describes the response to this fact by his Eurocentric critics: “ The debate finally drifted into philosophical abstraction: concrete ethnographical data were transformed into cogitation, into a problem of logic, into pure contemplation that no fact could henceforth disturb by implication”.
What Diop did not say is perhaps even more important.
Diop was born in Senegal and his first language was Wolof.
As a child Diop spent many years studying the history of the Wolof peoples with many of the most erudite members of the Mourides, such as Mbacke Bousso who was a cousin and disciple of the great Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba.
Diop was steeped in the study of African cultures, African Islamic history, Islamic history, the sciences and philosophy.
Diop taste for serious study started with his childhood studies with the Mourides who value learning and have a long tradition of scholarship. He also spoke several African and European languages.
The young Diop must have been surprised when he slowly understood that ancient Egyptian was closely related to his mother tongue. In the book Diop writes about these close linguistic relationships between Wolof and ancient Egyptian.
The Wolof name “Diop” is a Clan name as well as a personal name. The totem of the Diop Clan is a peacock (Upupa epops).
The people belonging to the Diop clan sometimes wore a totemic hairstyle indicating their totem. The head was shaved leaving only a patch of hair on top imitating the peacock. This same bird with a patch of feathers on top of its head has a hieroglyphic symbol in ancient Egyptian with the phonetic value of “db”. (d….b)
See Gardiner’s Sign List G22, Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar 3rd edition, Oxford, Griffith Institute, 1976, p. 469.
In Wolof “Diop” is written “Joob”.
For Diop, and many other African scholars totemism is more than a mere concept-it is a living reality- they have totems!
In the book Diop goes into considerable detail about totemism.
So it’s even safe to say that the name “Diop” can be traced back to early Egyptian Nile Valley culture. And we know that totemism is alive almost everywhere in Black Africa even today.
We must remember that the overwhelmingly settler populations of modern Egypt had nothing to do with ancient Pharaonic civilizations that we all admire. Modern Egypt is populated by descendants of Arab invaders,Persians, Greeks, Turks,Syrians and many others.
Diop writes that at the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him)the Koran tells us that "When Muhammad was born, Arabia was a Negro colony with Mecca as its capital. The Koran refers to the army of 40,000 men sent by the king of Ethiopia to crush an Arab revolt. One corps of that army consisted of warriors mounted on elephants." p.151. It is facts such as this that causes many euro-centric scholars to "drift into abstractions".
Dr. Diop stakes out his positions very clearly. In discussing the classification of the language of ancient Egypt he writes: “ It is as easy to prove the profound unity of Egyptian and Negro languages as it is difficult to support-much less prove –the kinship of Egyptian, Indo-European, and Semitic tongues.” Diop follows his assertions with support and documentation.
So far no one has ever come forth with any evidence to the contrary.
Diop debunks the usual nonsense saying that the Nubians were always painted one color and the Egyptians were painted another. There are illustrations showing black and brown Nubians and others showing brown and black Egyptians. Any one really familiar with ancient Egyptian art would know this.
We see white and Semitic captives carved on the rocks in the Sinai. There are also “the people of the North” (Libyans) shown as prisoners.
Usually only Nubian captives are shown, and the attempt is made to suggest that the ancient people of Kemit(Egypt) and Nubia hated each other and racial hostility is at the bottom of the conflicts, wars and quarrels.
Are the wars, conflicts and quarrels among the English, Irish, Welsh and Scots based on racial hostility? What about the Poles and the Germans?
Diop continues to calmly and forcefully state his views on the origin of ancient Egypt: “To assign Egyptian civilization an Asiatic or any foreign origin whatsoever, we must be able to demonstrate the prior existence of a cradle of civilization outside of Egypt. However, we can not overemphasize the fact that this basic, indispensable condition has never been met………….the date 4241 B.C. (4236 after a slight correction of the first calculations), when the calendar was definitely in use in Egypt…. Thus, it is in Egypt that we encounter with mathematical certainty, humanity’s most ancient historical date. What do we find in Mesopotamia? Nothing susceptible of being dated with certainty. Mesopotamia was still building with sun-dried bricks made of clay that rain transformed into a mass of mud.” p.100.
It is at precisely these points that Euro centric scholars rush to seek refuge in complex and erudite abstractions and endless speculations:
maybe the Sumerians gave the ancient Africans the “idea” of writing or maybe the Mesopotamians somehow “kick started “ ancient Egyptian civilization…what is a "negro"...anyway they were not "true negroes", they were not "black", they were reddish brown colored not "black", what do you mean by "black", but all black Africans are not the same color...ok, ok... perhaps they were mixed, perhaps they were a Mediterranean race or "Hamitic" or even Hamitic negroes.... or Nilotic negroes....perhaps Kushitic negroes..what about east African negroes as opposed to West African blacks, why all the emphasis on race, there is no such thing as "race"...race is a modern concept, yes...but they were white, no....well perhaps 1/3 black, 1/3 Asian and 1/3 white, yes , an ancient "fusion" of peoples, no...well what exactly do you mean by "black", "Negro" and " African"... ...and on and on and on....
Every one knows what a European white person is, or what an Asian person is-but NO ONE seems to know exactly what a black African person is .
As Diop says somewhere in the book we must look for the "negro" with a magnifying glass !! LOL
The book thoroughly deals with this issue with a subtle humor that is missing in the English translation.
In this book, Diop has challenged the western intellectual tradition. Piece by piece, Diop has begun to remove the layers of speculation, misinformation, deliberate falsehoods and European nationalisms that have distorted the writing of world history for the last four or five hundred years.
The writing of the history of Africa and the history of the world has not been the same since Cheikh Anta Diop.
For Diop and many others, the ancient Egyptians were as African as were the Nubians or the peoples of Yam, Wa Wat, Kau, Temeh, Mazoi, or Irthet. Or for that mater, as African as the Yoruba or the Kalenjin or the Mande or Nuer or the Asante or Peul are today!
Diop’s work is no easy read.
One must struggle through sometimes dense, specialized and complex scholarly jargon translated from the original French. Something is always lost in translations; in this case a certain “edge” and "focus" seems to be missing.
This is another book that will take quiet awhile to “finish.” Perhaps a survey course in Egyptology would be a great prerequisite for this book. In my opinion it will be well worth the effort!
The book is actually an English translation of large parts of two of Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop’s works in French: “Nations Negres et Culture” and “Anteriorite des Civilizations Negres”.
The late Mercer Cook (French Professor Emeritus, Howard University) did a marvelous job translating the complex historical facts, themes and ideas of one of the world’s greatest scholars.
Diop boldly states his position in the Preface( p.XIV) : “1. Ancient Egypt was a Negro Civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until historians dare connect it with the history of Egypt……….The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilization is to be counted among the assets of the Black world… the Black world is the very initiator of the “western” civilization flaunted before our eyes today. Pythagorean mathematics, the theory of the four elements of Thales of Miletus, Epicurean materialism, Platonic idealism, Judaism Islam, and modern science are rooted in Egyptian cosmology and science. One needs only to meditate on Osiris , the redeemer-god who sacrifices himself, dies, and is resurrected to save mankind, a figure essentially identifiable with Christ. A visitor to Thebes in the Valley of the Kings can view the Moslem inferno in detail (in the tomb of Seti I, of the Nineteenth Dynasty), 1700 years before the Koran. Osiris at the tribunal of the dead is indeed the “lord” of the revealed religions, sitting enthroned on Judgment Day, and we know that certain Biblical passages are practically copies of Egyptian moral texts. ”
The book is well documented and illustrated with many rare photographs of ancient Egyptian antiquities.
The book is divided into 13 chapters, followed by a Conclusion and Notes.
Chapter I: What were the Egyptian?
Chapter II: Birth of The Negro Myth
Chapter III: The Modern Falsification of History
Chapter IV: Could Egyptian Civilization Have Originated in The Delta?
Chapter V: Could Egyptian Civilization Be of Asian Origin?
Chapter VI: The Egyptian Race As Seen and Treated By Anthropologists
Chapter VII: Arguments Supporting A Negro Origin
Chapter VIII: Arguments Opposing A Negro Origin
Chapter IX: Peopling Of Africa From The Nile Valley
Chapter X: Political And Social Evolution of Ancient Egypt
Chapter XI: Contribution of Ethiopia-Nubia And Egypt
Chapter XII: Reply To A Critic
Chapter XIII: Early History of Humanity: Evolution Of The Black World
Dr. Diop points out that western scholars and so-called “Africanist” view African cultures, history and peoples from the outside. Being an outsider definitely has its limitations.
European scholars attempted to find totemism among European peoples in an effort to support the position that the ancient Egyptians were ancient Whites. Western scholars were faced with a dilemma when no examples of totemism could be found among whites.
On p.134, Diops mentions the fact that totemism has never been found in Indo-European populations and it is well documented that Greeks scuffed at the attention that ancient Egyptians paid to certain plants and animals. Diop continues:" ….it was impossible to deny that the “taboo” character of certain animals and plants in Egypt corresponds to totemism as it exists throughout Black Africa. By contrast such “taboos” were alien to the Greeks and other Indo-European populations unaware of totemism".
This is how Dr. Diop describes the response to this fact by his Eurocentric critics: “ The debate finally drifted into philosophical abstraction: concrete ethnographical data were transformed into cogitation, into a problem of logic, into pure contemplation that no fact could henceforth disturb by implication”.
What Diop did not say is perhaps even more important.
Diop was born in Senegal and his first language was Wolof.
As a child Diop spent many years studying the history of the Wolof peoples with many of the most erudite members of the Mourides, such as Mbacke Bousso who was a cousin and disciple of the great Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba.
Diop was steeped in the study of African cultures, African Islamic history, Islamic history, the sciences and philosophy.
Diop taste for serious study started with his childhood studies with the Mourides who value learning and have a long tradition of scholarship. He also spoke several African and European languages.
The young Diop must have been surprised when he slowly understood that ancient Egyptian was closely related to his mother tongue. In the book Diop writes about these close linguistic relationships between Wolof and ancient Egyptian.
The Wolof name “Diop” is a Clan name as well as a personal name. The totem of the Diop Clan is a peacock (Upupa epops).
The people belonging to the Diop clan sometimes wore a totemic hairstyle indicating their totem. The head was shaved leaving only a patch of hair on top imitating the peacock. This same bird with a patch of feathers on top of its head has a hieroglyphic symbol in ancient Egyptian with the phonetic value of “db”. (d….b)
See Gardiner’s Sign List G22, Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar 3rd edition, Oxford, Griffith Institute, 1976, p. 469.
In Wolof “Diop” is written “Joob”.
For Diop, and many other African scholars totemism is more than a mere concept-it is a living reality- they have totems!
In the book Diop goes into considerable detail about totemism.
So it’s even safe to say that the name “Diop” can be traced back to early Egyptian Nile Valley culture. And we know that totemism is alive almost everywhere in Black Africa even today.
We must remember that the overwhelmingly settler populations of modern Egypt had nothing to do with ancient Pharaonic civilizations that we all admire. Modern Egypt is populated by descendants of Arab invaders,Persians, Greeks, Turks,Syrians and many others.
Diop writes that at the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him)the Koran tells us that "When Muhammad was born, Arabia was a Negro colony with Mecca as its capital. The Koran refers to the army of 40,000 men sent by the king of Ethiopia to crush an Arab revolt. One corps of that army consisted of warriors mounted on elephants." p.151. It is facts such as this that causes many euro-centric scholars to "drift into abstractions".
Dr. Diop stakes out his positions very clearly. In discussing the classification of the language of ancient Egypt he writes: “ It is as easy to prove the profound unity of Egyptian and Negro languages as it is difficult to support-much less prove –the kinship of Egyptian, Indo-European, and Semitic tongues.” Diop follows his assertions with support and documentation.
So far no one has ever come forth with any evidence to the contrary.
Diop debunks the usual nonsense saying that the Nubians were always painted one color and the Egyptians were painted another. There are illustrations showing black and brown Nubians and others showing brown and black Egyptians. Any one really familiar with ancient Egyptian art would know this.
We see white and Semitic captives carved on the rocks in the Sinai. There are also “the people of the North” (Libyans) shown as prisoners.
Usually only Nubian captives are shown, and the attempt is made to suggest that the ancient people of Kemit(Egypt) and Nubia hated each other and racial hostility is at the bottom of the conflicts, wars and quarrels.
Are the wars, conflicts and quarrels among the English, Irish, Welsh and Scots based on racial hostility? What about the Poles and the Germans?
Diop continues to calmly and forcefully state his views on the origin of ancient Egypt: “To assign Egyptian civilization an Asiatic or any foreign origin whatsoever, we must be able to demonstrate the prior existence of a cradle of civilization outside of Egypt. However, we can not overemphasize the fact that this basic, indispensable condition has never been met………….the date 4241 B.C. (4236 after a slight correction of the first calculations), when the calendar was definitely in use in Egypt…. Thus, it is in Egypt that we encounter with mathematical certainty, humanity’s most ancient historical date. What do we find in Mesopotamia? Nothing susceptible of being dated with certainty. Mesopotamia was still building with sun-dried bricks made of clay that rain transformed into a mass of mud.” p.100.
It is at precisely these points that Euro centric scholars rush to seek refuge in complex and erudite abstractions and endless speculations:
maybe the Sumerians gave the ancient Africans the “idea” of writing or maybe the Mesopotamians somehow “kick started “ ancient Egyptian civilization…what is a "negro"...anyway they were not "true negroes", they were not "black", they were reddish brown colored not "black", what do you mean by "black", but all black Africans are not the same color...ok, ok... perhaps they were mixed, perhaps they were a Mediterranean race or "Hamitic" or even Hamitic negroes.... or Nilotic negroes....perhaps Kushitic negroes..what about east African negroes as opposed to West African blacks, why all the emphasis on race, there is no such thing as "race"...race is a modern concept, yes...but they were white, no....well perhaps 1/3 black, 1/3 Asian and 1/3 white, yes , an ancient "fusion" of peoples, no...well what exactly do you mean by "black", "Negro" and " African"... ...and on and on and on....
Every one knows what a European white person is, or what an Asian person is-but NO ONE seems to know exactly what a black African person is .
As Diop says somewhere in the book we must look for the "negro" with a magnifying glass !! LOL
The book thoroughly deals with this issue with a subtle humor that is missing in the English translation.
In this book, Diop has challenged the western intellectual tradition. Piece by piece, Diop has begun to remove the layers of speculation, misinformation, deliberate falsehoods and European nationalisms that have distorted the writing of world history for the last four or five hundred years.
The writing of the history of Africa and the history of the world has not been the same since Cheikh Anta Diop.
For Diop and many others, the ancient Egyptians were as African as were the Nubians or the peoples of Yam, Wa Wat, Kau, Temeh, Mazoi, or Irthet. Or for that mater, as African as the Yoruba or the Kalenjin or the Mande or Nuer or the Asante or Peul are today!
Diop’s work is no easy read.
One must struggle through sometimes dense, specialized and complex scholarly jargon translated from the original French. Something is always lost in translations; in this case a certain “edge” and "focus" seems to be missing.
This is another book that will take quiet awhile to “finish.” Perhaps a survey course in Egyptology would be a great prerequisite for this book. In my opinion it will be well worth the effort!
September 4, 2008
this is one of the textbooks for an Intro to African American Studies class i'm taking. it's a little tough to read at times, but i think that's because i was overwhelmed at the amount of information Diop provided to counter claims made by historians. i'm looking forward to checking out some of the sources Diop cited in his arguments. there's so much history that we don't know...so much that has been denied, disrespected, and removed in relation to Africa. this book serves as a good foundation to begin to question myths about the real roles of African cultures, including Egypt, in the development of civilization.
June 7, 2021
This monumental work covers pre-history, the many migrations that peopled the continent, and the overwhelming evidence that Egypt was a Negro society that influenced so-called Western civilization. From an almost negritudian perspective, Diop reclaims history for the Africans as a vehicle to reclaim the present and the future from the whitewashing of “scholarship” and the academy. I would pair this really well with Chancellor Williams’ The Destruction of Black Civilization and Martin Bernal’s The Black Athena!
January 25, 2013
Where should I start?
This book reformed my way of thinking about Egyptians and their portrayal in Euro-centric history. In a nutshell: through supreme intellectual prowess, slyness and meticulous scientific research, he shot every lie about Egyptians being white to hell.
A must read.
http://www.saltygurl.com
This book reformed my way of thinking about Egyptians and their portrayal in Euro-centric history. In a nutshell: through supreme intellectual prowess, slyness and meticulous scientific research, he shot every lie about Egyptians being white to hell.
A must read.
http://www.saltygurl.com
February 7, 2008
A somewhat misguided attempt to reverse colonialist denigration of sub-Saharan African capabilities. Egyptians have a wide range of variation, and range from Mediterranean to sub-Saharan African morphological characteristics. This doesn't mean all Egyptians were exclusively African in origin or that any modern people has a direct tie or claim to this ancient one.
May 11, 2022
“Ancient Egypt was a Negro civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history Egypt.” This statement, asserted almost immediately (in the preface, no less), sets the tone for this classic piece of Afrocentric historical scholarship from the Senegalese great, Cheikh Anta Diop. Diop traces the musings of Ancient Greek historians, biblical accounts, archaeological findings, historical connections, and linguistic connections in his quest to definitively prove that the “Ancient Egyptians were Negroes.” I should say at the outset that while Diop’s pursuit is admirable, the plot sometimes gets lost in a cloud of race science (i.e. skull measurements). Instead of trying to funnel the identity of ancient Egyptians into crude modern classifications of race—created by the same white supremacist colonizers Diop is seeking to combat—I think the project would have been better served by simply emphasizing and reiterating the African Indigeneity of the Egyptians.
Nevertheless, Diop does a tremendous job highlighting the historical, cultural, linguistic, and socio-organizational connections between Ancient Egypt and the rest of “Black Africa,” in support of his thesis of an Indigenous African foundation to ancient Egypt. It is important to note that Diop’s thesis isn’t just that Egypt was a Black civilization, its that the Nile Valley—including the various Nubian peoples and civilizations, as well as Egypt— is the origin of civilization in Africa and Eurasia. Placed alongside the settled view that Southeast Africa is the “cradle of humanity,” Diop’s thesis is audacious and consequential. If Diop’s work is to be accepted, it would firmly situate Black peoples, cultures, and societies at the foundation of human history. In defense of this claim, Diop spends much time dismantling the various proffered non-Black origins of Ancient Egypt. Ultimately, Diop is attempting to rewrite the history of Egypt, not just for purposes of accuracy, but for purposes of revolutionary decolonization. This aim is understood when Diop stated, “Egyptology will stand on solid ground only when it unequivocally officially recognizes its Negro-African foundation,” as well as his explicit overtures to Black people to “reclaim” Egyptian history as their own.
One interesting and reoccurring thread in Diop’s historical retelling is how “Black” Egyptians reserved enslavement / forced labor for its “white” Eurasian adversaries. This latter group would eventually up their level of organizational force, sowing the demise and destruction of Black Egypt, and eventually completely reverse the global racial hierarchy. This view lends to a different understanding of the nature of modern global anti-Blackness. In effect, if Diop’s historical analysis is to be accepted, the record of human civilizational history is essentially a continuous, unceasing race war between “Black” Indigenous Africans and “white” Europeans and Asians. This is likely a difficult conclusion for people to accept.
While the bulk of the book seeks to persuade the audience—particularly a Black audience—of the “Negro” ancestry of the Ancient Egyptians, I thought the most compelling and useful portion of the book was the chronological retelling of Ancient Egyptian history. In doing so, Diop illuminates certain themes. First, Diop repeatedly stresses how every time Egypt was under attack from foreign invaders from Europe or Asia, the Indigenous Egyptian ruling class retreated southward toward Upper Egypt and Nubia for refuge. This indicated the close ties these groups had, despite the existence of warfare and colonization between the parties (a factual reality I think Diop should have given more attention to). Second, Diop extensively detailed the differences in social organization between Ancient Egypt and Greco-Roman society. Despite the clear influence that the former had on the latter (which Diop also details), Diop makes clear that due to differences in natural environment, the Europeans of Greece developed a warlike culture and slave society rooted in plundering, while the Egyptians were much more collaborative. While there are elements of truth to this, I think Diop underestimates the extent of Egypt’s own imperialist and colonial endeavors. Nevertheless, Diop stressed the point that unlike Greece, Egypt’s economy was not dependent on a permanent slave labor class. Ultimately, I was also fascinated by Diop’s explanation as to why Greece bastardized aspects of Egyptian culture, again, focusing on the differences and impact of the “Eurasian” natural environment.
No matter what you believe about the identity of the Ancient Egyptians and the origin of human civilization, this is a vital book to the canon on these topics.
Nevertheless, Diop does a tremendous job highlighting the historical, cultural, linguistic, and socio-organizational connections between Ancient Egypt and the rest of “Black Africa,” in support of his thesis of an Indigenous African foundation to ancient Egypt. It is important to note that Diop’s thesis isn’t just that Egypt was a Black civilization, its that the Nile Valley—including the various Nubian peoples and civilizations, as well as Egypt— is the origin of civilization in Africa and Eurasia. Placed alongside the settled view that Southeast Africa is the “cradle of humanity,” Diop’s thesis is audacious and consequential. If Diop’s work is to be accepted, it would firmly situate Black peoples, cultures, and societies at the foundation of human history. In defense of this claim, Diop spends much time dismantling the various proffered non-Black origins of Ancient Egypt. Ultimately, Diop is attempting to rewrite the history of Egypt, not just for purposes of accuracy, but for purposes of revolutionary decolonization. This aim is understood when Diop stated, “Egyptology will stand on solid ground only when it unequivocally officially recognizes its Negro-African foundation,” as well as his explicit overtures to Black people to “reclaim” Egyptian history as their own.
One interesting and reoccurring thread in Diop’s historical retelling is how “Black” Egyptians reserved enslavement / forced labor for its “white” Eurasian adversaries. This latter group would eventually up their level of organizational force, sowing the demise and destruction of Black Egypt, and eventually completely reverse the global racial hierarchy. This view lends to a different understanding of the nature of modern global anti-Blackness. In effect, if Diop’s historical analysis is to be accepted, the record of human civilizational history is essentially a continuous, unceasing race war between “Black” Indigenous Africans and “white” Europeans and Asians. This is likely a difficult conclusion for people to accept.
While the bulk of the book seeks to persuade the audience—particularly a Black audience—of the “Negro” ancestry of the Ancient Egyptians, I thought the most compelling and useful portion of the book was the chronological retelling of Ancient Egyptian history. In doing so, Diop illuminates certain themes. First, Diop repeatedly stresses how every time Egypt was under attack from foreign invaders from Europe or Asia, the Indigenous Egyptian ruling class retreated southward toward Upper Egypt and Nubia for refuge. This indicated the close ties these groups had, despite the existence of warfare and colonization between the parties (a factual reality I think Diop should have given more attention to). Second, Diop extensively detailed the differences in social organization between Ancient Egypt and Greco-Roman society. Despite the clear influence that the former had on the latter (which Diop also details), Diop makes clear that due to differences in natural environment, the Europeans of Greece developed a warlike culture and slave society rooted in plundering, while the Egyptians were much more collaborative. While there are elements of truth to this, I think Diop underestimates the extent of Egypt’s own imperialist and colonial endeavors. Nevertheless, Diop stressed the point that unlike Greece, Egypt’s economy was not dependent on a permanent slave labor class. Ultimately, I was also fascinated by Diop’s explanation as to why Greece bastardized aspects of Egyptian culture, again, focusing on the differences and impact of the “Eurasian” natural environment.
No matter what you believe about the identity of the Ancient Egyptians and the origin of human civilization, this is a vital book to the canon on these topics.
August 14, 2010
Cheikh Anta Diop has to be one of the great African Thinkers of the twentieth century. From the time he published his thesis in 1954, he has consistently challenged western ideas on Africa and its relationship to Ancient Egypt.
“The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” represents his definitive work on early African Civilization and the origins of the Ancient Egyptians.
Definitely a must read for anyone interested in African History.
“The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” represents his definitive work on early African Civilization and the origins of the Ancient Egyptians.
Definitely a must read for anyone interested in African History.
September 21, 2017
This book was eye opening. The historical evidence and analysis convincingly indicated that ancient Egypt has black origins. The author addresses the extent to which this history has been manipulated and whitewashed by western historians and archaeologists. His tone comes across as angry at times but his facts and analyses are impeccable. Anyone interested in black/African history should read this book.
January 30, 2021
Very well written, informative and factual about the white washing of Egyptian civilisation throughout centuries. Still baffled there is a need of a study to present/remind the fact that white civilisation is not the cradle of civilisation nor mankind...
July 7, 2012
very afrocentric and at times there is a hint of exaggeration in its claims but still a useful book with some fascinating points
July 16, 2014
One the best sources of research for anyone interested in refuting the predominate position that Africa contributed little to the world.
July 13, 2009
great book, was very revelatory to me, started reading this book when i was 21 and it gave me a vast perspective on reading literature of all sorts. Sometimes it's interesting to go back and look at those book just to how much influence such reading has on you...
peace and light
ap
peace and light
ap
November 29, 2023
I was drawn to this book because it was referenced in Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism. Really fascinating material packed within these pages. Diop critically examines the origins of civilization by arguing the cultural unity between Black Africa and Egypt. In doing so, he demolishes long-held beliefs that humans originated from a white race. Through a succinct examination of ancient history and cultures, and a thorough review of anthropological finds/ data, Diop makes a compelling case for the origin of humanity.
White washed history is so prominent, and its implications in society are becoming evident today. Diop shatters the myths and the faux history being pushed by colonizers and white scholars. This work is important due to the ongoing race wars and dehumanizing treatment by white supremacists and their institutions/ laws, disproportionately affecting Blacks and other people of color.
This is great supplemental reading if you’re studying ancient African or Egyptian history. I consider this another essential read in the decolonization process, so add this to your lists!
White washed history is so prominent, and its implications in society are becoming evident today. Diop shatters the myths and the faux history being pushed by colonizers and white scholars. This work is important due to the ongoing race wars and dehumanizing treatment by white supremacists and their institutions/ laws, disproportionately affecting Blacks and other people of color.
This is great supplemental reading if you’re studying ancient African or Egyptian history. I consider this another essential read in the decolonization process, so add this to your lists!
August 20, 2015
race is a socio political and economic tool not a biological or genetic 1. we have to come to the conclusion that history is a document that was not father or fostered by our incumbent controllers of power. no worries it's more dramatic than in the place considered to be historically inept and that is the African continent. this book is the original challenge to Eurocentric history it attacks and points out the fundamental premises fornicating what we consider to be true about ancient history. for its time it was pushing boundaries. I would recommend reading this book to anyone who's often wondered why we protrait ancient peoples the way we do in television film and movies.
February 15, 2021
The African origin of civilisation is a master peace! it tells many tough truth to swallow. The book help any person to understand better the human history, how the modern society became what it is. This book is a must for all informed world citizen mainly afrincan people. It's a consent western people stalled african legacy. On this book Chekh Anta Diop made a colossal work to establish the historic truth. The book is full of reference so that you don't need to go by the author words even though Diop demonstrated to be an extraordinary researcher. It's a great book for every on from young white people to old black people.
April 7, 2023
Jag tror man hade uppskattat den betydligt mer med lite mer förkunskap
May 28, 2020
What is this garbage book? Utter crap is the answer. Not only have DNA tests from every corner proven ancient egypt to be Middle Eastern looking, but the thesis is pseudo-historical and racist. It's trapped in a conception that leads inevitably to a conclusion that black people are superior which is racist obviously. Most modern Egyptians are almost 100 percent Egyptian genetically, but the term Arab is misleading. Arab is a cultural identity rather than ethnic. Modern Egyptians looked exactly like the ancients because there never was mass colonisation of egypt apart from maybe in the Delta valley. Overall this book is just as bad as something like Mein Kampf because it proliferates racist pseudo-historical beliefs that blacks are superior and that whites are just barbaric people who stripped blacks of their rightful land. This is a perfect example as to why Afrocentrists are morons who need to self reflect maybe and use their brains for once.
May 17, 2020
A must have book for every African American household. This was not an easy read but I am so glad I saw this one through until the end. I will be referencing this book for years to come.
https://bibliophileonabudget.wordpres...
https://bibliophileonabudget.wordpres...
January 22, 2022
This read is a re-read after forty years. It still rings true. It premise is that residents of the African continent had a great deal of input to the gains attributed to Ancient Greek and Roman culture. This thought was much more controversial than now. There is more archeological evidence about.
June 29, 2025
A MERGING OF TWO OF THE FAMED SCHOLAR’S BOOKS
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) was a historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who was involved in the freedom and nationalization movements in Africa.
The Translator’s Preface to this 1974 book explains, “To introduce Cheikh Anta Diop to English-speaking readers, we present, with the author’s consent, ten chapters from his first published volume: Nations nègres et culture (1954), and three from his latest work: Antériorité des civilisations nègres: mythe ou vérité historique? (1967) For purposes of continuity and accessibility, this selection excludes most of the more technical discussions, especially the linguistic and grammatical passages, but nonetheless should give the reader a general idea of … the ‘Historical Method and Conception of Cheikh Anta Diop.’”
In his own 1973 Preface to the book, Diop states, “Our investigations have convinced us that the West has not been calm enough and objective enough to teach us our history correctly, without crude falsifications… 1. Ancient Egypt was a Negro civilization. The history of Black Africa … cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt… 2. Anthropologically and culturally speaking, the Semitic world was born during protohistoric times from the mixture of white-skinned and black-skinned people in western Asia… 3. The triumph of the monogenetic thesis of humanity… compels one to admit that all races descended from the Black race… Once the perspectives accepted until now by official science have been reversed, the history of humanity will become clear and the history of Africa can be written.” (Pg. xiv-xvi)
He says of the fifteenth century in Africa, “technical development was less stressed than in Europe. Although the Negro had been the first to discover iron, he had built no cannon; the secret of gunpowder was known only to the Egyptian priests, who used it solely for religious purposes at rites…” (Pg. 24)
After explaining several racist theories, he suggests, “This climate of alienation finally deeply affected the personality of the Negro, especially the educated Black who had had an opportunity to become conscious of world opinion about him and his people. It often happens that the Negro intellectual loses confidence in his own validity of the evidence presented in this book, it will not be astonishing if some of us are still unable to believe that Blacks really played the earliest civilizing role in the world.” (Pg. 25)
He argues, “The problem of the most monstrous falsification in the history of humanity by modern historians could not have been posed better than [Count Constantin de] Volney did. No one could have been abler than he to render justice to the black race by recognizing its role as mankind’s pioneer guide on the road to civilization. His conclusions should have ruled out the subsequent invention of a hypothetical white Pharaonic race that allegedly imported Egyptian civilization from Asia at the start of the historical period. In fact, that hypothesis is difficult to reconcile with the reality of the Sphinx, which is the image of a Pharaoh having the head of a black. That image there for all to see; it can hardly be discounted as an atypical document, nor relegated to the storeroom of a museum to remove it from the dangerous meditation of those susceptible of accepting factual evidence.” (Pg. 43)
He explains, “It is typical for the Egyptians to be represented in a color officially called ‘dark red.’ Scientifically speaking, there really is no dark red race. The term was launched only to create confusion. There is no really black man in the exact sense of the world. The Negro’s color in actual fact verges on brown; but… it varies from region to region… Consequently, it is very hard to capture the Negro’s color in painting, and one settles for approximations… On Egyptian bas-reliefs, it is impossible to find a single painting which depicts Egyptians in a color different from those of… Negro peoples… If Egyptians were White, then… so many others in Africa are also Whites. Thus we reach the absurd conclusion that Blacks are basically Whites.” (Pg. 48-49)
He points out, “it is important to distinguish between what can be deduced from a strict examination of historical documents and what is claimed over and beyond those documents---contrary to their testimony. To assign Egyptian civilization an Asiatic or any foreign origin whatsoever, we must be able to demonstrate the prior existence of a cradle of civilization outside of Egypt. However, we cannot overemphasize the fact that this basic, indispensable condition has never been met.” (Pg. 100)
He notes, “When one studies the civilization that developed in the Mediterranean basin, it seems impossible to exaggerate the essential role played by Negroes and Negroids at a time when European races were still uncivilized.” (Pg. 119) Discussing Islam, he states, “the entire Arab people, including the Prophet, is mixed with Negro blood. All educated Arabs are conscious of that fact.” (Pg. 127)
He explains, “I call ‘Negro’ a human being whose skin is black; especially when he has frizzy hair. All who accept this definition will recognize that, according to Herodotus, who saw the Egyptians as plainly as the reader is now seeing this book, circumcision is of Egyptian and Ethiopian origin, and the Egyptians and Ethiopians were none other than Negroes inhabiting different regions.” (Pg. 136) Later, he adds, “Egyptians themselves---who should surely be better qualified than anyone to speak of their origin---recognize without ambiguity that their ancestors came from Nubia and the heart of Africa.” (Pg. 150)
He argues, “Why did so many creative aptitudes appear only when there was contact with Blacks, never in the original cradle of the Eurasian steppes? Why did those populations not create civilizations at home before migrating? If the modern world disappeared, once could easily detect… that this was the focal point from which modern civilization had spread over the earth. Nothing similar can be found in the Eurasian plains. If we refer to the most remote Antiquity, the evidence forces us to start from the Black countries to explain the phenomena of civilization.” (Pg. 152)
He acknowledges, “If Blacks created Egyptian civilization, how can we explain their present decline? That question makes no sense, for we could say as much about the Fellahs and Copts, who are supposed to be the direct descendants of the Egyptians and who, today, are at the same backward stage as other Blacks, if not more so. Nevertheless, this does not excuse us from explaining how the technical, scientific, and religious civilization of Egypt was transformed as it adjusted to new conditions in the rest of Africa.” (Pg. 156)
He points out, “When contact was made a second time between Europe and Black Africa, via the Atlantic, it was above all else the far-ranging navies and the firearms available in Europe, thanks to the continued technical progress in the Northern Mediterranean, that gave Europe its superiority. They enabled it to dominate the continent and to falsify the Negro’s personality. That is how things still stand, and that is what has caused the subsequent alteration of history concerning the origin of Egyptian civilization.” (Pg. 163)
He states, “If modern civilization should disappear today, but leave libraries untouched, survivors could open almost any book and perceive immediately that persons living south of the Sahara are called ‘Blacks.’ The term ‘Black Africa’ would suffice to indicate the habitat of the Black race. Nothing similar is found in Egyptian texts. Whenever the Egyptians use the word ‘Black’ (khem), it is to designate themselves or their country: Kemit, land of the Blacks.” (Pg. 168)
He recounts, “661 B.C…. marked the decline of Black political supremacy in Antiquity and in history. Egypt gradually fell under foreign domination, without ever having known a republican form of government, or secular philosophy, throughout three millennia of cyclical evolution.” (Pg. 221)
He summarizes, “the Black is clearly capable of creating technique. He is the very one who first created it at a time when all the white races, steeped in barbarism, were barely fit for civilization. When we say that the ancestors of the Blacks, who today live mainly in Black Africa, were the first to invent mathematics, astronomy, the calendar, sciences in general, arts, religion, agriculture, social origin, medicine, writing, technique, architecture; that they were the first to erect buildings out of 6 million tons of stone (the Great Pyramid) as architects and engineers---not simply as unskilled laborers; that they built the immense temple of Karnak… when we say that we are merely expressing the plain unvarnished truth that no one today can refute by arguments worthy of the name.” (Pg. 234-235)
He says, “I emphasized that Egyptian civilization did not indicate any racial superiority, but was almost the result of a geographical accident. It was the special character of the Nile Valley that conditioned the politico-social evolution of the peoples who migrated there… All other peoples, Blacks or Whites, who were subjected to less stringent living conditions requiring a less formal collective action, attained civilization later than the Egyptians. Accordingly, why should it be surprising that certain Blacks and certain Whites became civilized while others were in barbarism? Peoples placed in more favorable conditions are civilized earlier than others, whatever their color, independently of ethnic identity, and that is all. We have never invoked any peculiar genius or special aptitudes of the Black race to explain why it was the first to attain civilization.” (Pg. 252)
He concludes, “The condensation of our work that you have just read has by no means exhausted the subject; it is merely a progress report, prepared on the basis of documents available to us at the time. It is also an indication of the direction in which future generations of Black African scholars must continue calmly to work, for salvation lies at the end of that effort. Our various publications are rough outlines, successive stops in a scientific attempt to get closer and closer to the facts analyzed. It is therefore understandable why we never rewrite a work once it has been published. We prefer to pass along to the following stage with a new publication. Meanwhile we never fail to reply to the body of criticism addressed to us, without concealing all the difficulties raised by our adversaries… If, by scientific knowledge, we can eliminate all forms of the frustrations (cultural and others) which victimize peoples, the sincere rapprochement of mankind to create a true humanity will be fostered. May this volume contribute to that lofty objective!” (Pg. 276-277)
This book should be considered “must reading” for anyone seriously studying African history and culture.
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) was a historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who was involved in the freedom and nationalization movements in Africa.
The Translator’s Preface to this 1974 book explains, “To introduce Cheikh Anta Diop to English-speaking readers, we present, with the author’s consent, ten chapters from his first published volume: Nations nègres et culture (1954), and three from his latest work: Antériorité des civilisations nègres: mythe ou vérité historique? (1967) For purposes of continuity and accessibility, this selection excludes most of the more technical discussions, especially the linguistic and grammatical passages, but nonetheless should give the reader a general idea of … the ‘Historical Method and Conception of Cheikh Anta Diop.’”
In his own 1973 Preface to the book, Diop states, “Our investigations have convinced us that the West has not been calm enough and objective enough to teach us our history correctly, without crude falsifications… 1. Ancient Egypt was a Negro civilization. The history of Black Africa … cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt… 2. Anthropologically and culturally speaking, the Semitic world was born during protohistoric times from the mixture of white-skinned and black-skinned people in western Asia… 3. The triumph of the monogenetic thesis of humanity… compels one to admit that all races descended from the Black race… Once the perspectives accepted until now by official science have been reversed, the history of humanity will become clear and the history of Africa can be written.” (Pg. xiv-xvi)
He says of the fifteenth century in Africa, “technical development was less stressed than in Europe. Although the Negro had been the first to discover iron, he had built no cannon; the secret of gunpowder was known only to the Egyptian priests, who used it solely for religious purposes at rites…” (Pg. 24)
After explaining several racist theories, he suggests, “This climate of alienation finally deeply affected the personality of the Negro, especially the educated Black who had had an opportunity to become conscious of world opinion about him and his people. It often happens that the Negro intellectual loses confidence in his own validity of the evidence presented in this book, it will not be astonishing if some of us are still unable to believe that Blacks really played the earliest civilizing role in the world.” (Pg. 25)
He argues, “The problem of the most monstrous falsification in the history of humanity by modern historians could not have been posed better than [Count Constantin de] Volney did. No one could have been abler than he to render justice to the black race by recognizing its role as mankind’s pioneer guide on the road to civilization. His conclusions should have ruled out the subsequent invention of a hypothetical white Pharaonic race that allegedly imported Egyptian civilization from Asia at the start of the historical period. In fact, that hypothesis is difficult to reconcile with the reality of the Sphinx, which is the image of a Pharaoh having the head of a black. That image there for all to see; it can hardly be discounted as an atypical document, nor relegated to the storeroom of a museum to remove it from the dangerous meditation of those susceptible of accepting factual evidence.” (Pg. 43)
He explains, “It is typical for the Egyptians to be represented in a color officially called ‘dark red.’ Scientifically speaking, there really is no dark red race. The term was launched only to create confusion. There is no really black man in the exact sense of the world. The Negro’s color in actual fact verges on brown; but… it varies from region to region… Consequently, it is very hard to capture the Negro’s color in painting, and one settles for approximations… On Egyptian bas-reliefs, it is impossible to find a single painting which depicts Egyptians in a color different from those of… Negro peoples… If Egyptians were White, then… so many others in Africa are also Whites. Thus we reach the absurd conclusion that Blacks are basically Whites.” (Pg. 48-49)
He points out, “it is important to distinguish between what can be deduced from a strict examination of historical documents and what is claimed over and beyond those documents---contrary to their testimony. To assign Egyptian civilization an Asiatic or any foreign origin whatsoever, we must be able to demonstrate the prior existence of a cradle of civilization outside of Egypt. However, we cannot overemphasize the fact that this basic, indispensable condition has never been met.” (Pg. 100)
He notes, “When one studies the civilization that developed in the Mediterranean basin, it seems impossible to exaggerate the essential role played by Negroes and Negroids at a time when European races were still uncivilized.” (Pg. 119) Discussing Islam, he states, “the entire Arab people, including the Prophet, is mixed with Negro blood. All educated Arabs are conscious of that fact.” (Pg. 127)
He explains, “I call ‘Negro’ a human being whose skin is black; especially when he has frizzy hair. All who accept this definition will recognize that, according to Herodotus, who saw the Egyptians as plainly as the reader is now seeing this book, circumcision is of Egyptian and Ethiopian origin, and the Egyptians and Ethiopians were none other than Negroes inhabiting different regions.” (Pg. 136) Later, he adds, “Egyptians themselves---who should surely be better qualified than anyone to speak of their origin---recognize without ambiguity that their ancestors came from Nubia and the heart of Africa.” (Pg. 150)
He argues, “Why did so many creative aptitudes appear only when there was contact with Blacks, never in the original cradle of the Eurasian steppes? Why did those populations not create civilizations at home before migrating? If the modern world disappeared, once could easily detect… that this was the focal point from which modern civilization had spread over the earth. Nothing similar can be found in the Eurasian plains. If we refer to the most remote Antiquity, the evidence forces us to start from the Black countries to explain the phenomena of civilization.” (Pg. 152)
He acknowledges, “If Blacks created Egyptian civilization, how can we explain their present decline? That question makes no sense, for we could say as much about the Fellahs and Copts, who are supposed to be the direct descendants of the Egyptians and who, today, are at the same backward stage as other Blacks, if not more so. Nevertheless, this does not excuse us from explaining how the technical, scientific, and religious civilization of Egypt was transformed as it adjusted to new conditions in the rest of Africa.” (Pg. 156)
He points out, “When contact was made a second time between Europe and Black Africa, via the Atlantic, it was above all else the far-ranging navies and the firearms available in Europe, thanks to the continued technical progress in the Northern Mediterranean, that gave Europe its superiority. They enabled it to dominate the continent and to falsify the Negro’s personality. That is how things still stand, and that is what has caused the subsequent alteration of history concerning the origin of Egyptian civilization.” (Pg. 163)
He states, “If modern civilization should disappear today, but leave libraries untouched, survivors could open almost any book and perceive immediately that persons living south of the Sahara are called ‘Blacks.’ The term ‘Black Africa’ would suffice to indicate the habitat of the Black race. Nothing similar is found in Egyptian texts. Whenever the Egyptians use the word ‘Black’ (khem), it is to designate themselves or their country: Kemit, land of the Blacks.” (Pg. 168)
He recounts, “661 B.C…. marked the decline of Black political supremacy in Antiquity and in history. Egypt gradually fell under foreign domination, without ever having known a republican form of government, or secular philosophy, throughout three millennia of cyclical evolution.” (Pg. 221)
He summarizes, “the Black is clearly capable of creating technique. He is the very one who first created it at a time when all the white races, steeped in barbarism, were barely fit for civilization. When we say that the ancestors of the Blacks, who today live mainly in Black Africa, were the first to invent mathematics, astronomy, the calendar, sciences in general, arts, religion, agriculture, social origin, medicine, writing, technique, architecture; that they were the first to erect buildings out of 6 million tons of stone (the Great Pyramid) as architects and engineers---not simply as unskilled laborers; that they built the immense temple of Karnak… when we say that we are merely expressing the plain unvarnished truth that no one today can refute by arguments worthy of the name.” (Pg. 234-235)
He says, “I emphasized that Egyptian civilization did not indicate any racial superiority, but was almost the result of a geographical accident. It was the special character of the Nile Valley that conditioned the politico-social evolution of the peoples who migrated there… All other peoples, Blacks or Whites, who were subjected to less stringent living conditions requiring a less formal collective action, attained civilization later than the Egyptians. Accordingly, why should it be surprising that certain Blacks and certain Whites became civilized while others were in barbarism? Peoples placed in more favorable conditions are civilized earlier than others, whatever their color, independently of ethnic identity, and that is all. We have never invoked any peculiar genius or special aptitudes of the Black race to explain why it was the first to attain civilization.” (Pg. 252)
He concludes, “The condensation of our work that you have just read has by no means exhausted the subject; it is merely a progress report, prepared on the basis of documents available to us at the time. It is also an indication of the direction in which future generations of Black African scholars must continue calmly to work, for salvation lies at the end of that effort. Our various publications are rough outlines, successive stops in a scientific attempt to get closer and closer to the facts analyzed. It is therefore understandable why we never rewrite a work once it has been published. We prefer to pass along to the following stage with a new publication. Meanwhile we never fail to reply to the body of criticism addressed to us, without concealing all the difficulties raised by our adversaries… If, by scientific knowledge, we can eliminate all forms of the frustrations (cultural and others) which victimize peoples, the sincere rapprochement of mankind to create a true humanity will be fostered. May this volume contribute to that lofty objective!” (Pg. 276-277)
This book should be considered “must reading” for anyone seriously studying African history and culture.
October 27, 2021
Fabulous book, a few minor arguments need much stronger explanations but I didn’t bookmark specifics since I was on audio. Great if you’re interested in Africana Studies historiography.
June 14, 2014
What struck me as most interesting were the claims of ancient Egypt springing from black Africa versus the claims that it could not have sprung from black Africa. Diop lays out two primary reasons as to why ancient Egypt likely sprung from black Africa. The more convincing reason was that ancient Egyptians as well as ancient writers in general believed that it did. Egyptians and ancient writers wrote that Egyptians originated from “the south”, or were at least related to those from the south.
The south, as they referred to it, is what is now northern Sudan.
According to colonialist history, all of Africa had been civilized by lighter skinned outlanders. West Africans, in their vision, were civilized by Arabs and Nubia by the Libyans. In Diop’s model, the Egyptians traveled from Nubia, down the river. After Egypt was subjugated, Nubia became the epicenter of African civilization. The ancients themselves vastly believed that Egyptians came from the Ethiopians, or a close cousin to the Ethiopians, yet Europeans in the nineteenth century distanced Egypt from the rest of Africa. The Europeans turned toward North Africa or Asia for the origins of civilization in Egypt. They regarded blacks that were found in Ancient Egypt as slaves. It’s as though the Europeans in the nineteenth century intentionally ignored the culture of Ancient Egypt as a convenient way to pretend as though its origins surely came from elsewhere, and not from black Africa. The Ancient Egyptians practiced circumcision and had matriarchy, which are scarce throughout European history. Diop even noted that the language of the Ancient Egyptians bears similarities to West African languages. The reasons why Europeans refused to nurture notions of Ancient Egypt springing from black Africa appear to be intrinsically racist - they wanted to believe as though blacks lacked the ability to form a civilization as advanced as Ancient Egypt on their own. This notion, of course, is not rooted in actuality, but instead in racism, contempt, and a eurocentric sense of superiority. Europe was ostensibly less advanced than Africa in the fourteenth century - and any accounts from outsiders (Arabs, Portuguese) point to Africans being generally just people. Europe’s development of ships and weaponry in the sixteenth century may have given Europeans a sense of superiority over blacks, as these advancements made it possible for them to enslave Africans and treat them as subhumans. Europeans construed their material upper hand as meaning that they were also more superior in terms of morality, societal behaviors and in basically every other way.
The south, as they referred to it, is what is now northern Sudan.
According to colonialist history, all of Africa had been civilized by lighter skinned outlanders. West Africans, in their vision, were civilized by Arabs and Nubia by the Libyans. In Diop’s model, the Egyptians traveled from Nubia, down the river. After Egypt was subjugated, Nubia became the epicenter of African civilization. The ancients themselves vastly believed that Egyptians came from the Ethiopians, or a close cousin to the Ethiopians, yet Europeans in the nineteenth century distanced Egypt from the rest of Africa. The Europeans turned toward North Africa or Asia for the origins of civilization in Egypt. They regarded blacks that were found in Ancient Egypt as slaves. It’s as though the Europeans in the nineteenth century intentionally ignored the culture of Ancient Egypt as a convenient way to pretend as though its origins surely came from elsewhere, and not from black Africa. The Ancient Egyptians practiced circumcision and had matriarchy, which are scarce throughout European history. Diop even noted that the language of the Ancient Egyptians bears similarities to West African languages. The reasons why Europeans refused to nurture notions of Ancient Egypt springing from black Africa appear to be intrinsically racist - they wanted to believe as though blacks lacked the ability to form a civilization as advanced as Ancient Egypt on their own. This notion, of course, is not rooted in actuality, but instead in racism, contempt, and a eurocentric sense of superiority. Europe was ostensibly less advanced than Africa in the fourteenth century - and any accounts from outsiders (Arabs, Portuguese) point to Africans being generally just people. Europe’s development of ships and weaponry in the sixteenth century may have given Europeans a sense of superiority over blacks, as these advancements made it possible for them to enslave Africans and treat them as subhumans. Europeans construed their material upper hand as meaning that they were also more superior in terms of morality, societal behaviors and in basically every other way.
December 21, 2016
An excellent and thorough proof that the Ancient Egyptians were, in fact, black. I'd like to say that this debate has since been settled, but given the number of movies who cast white actors and actresses to play ancient Egyptians and the number of books that depict them with light skin, this is an ongoing battle.
February 22, 2009
My Hannibal obsession continues...
February 23, 2009
Excellent! Excellent!
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