Ancient Egypt in Africa

by David O'Connor, Andrew Reid

The discipline of Egyptology has been criticised for being too insular,with little awareness of the development of archaeologies elsewhere. It has remained theoretically underdeveloped. For example the role of Ancient Egypt within Africa has rarely been considered jointly by Egyptologists and Africanists. Egypt's own view of itself has been neglected; views of it in the ancient past, in more recent times and today have remained underexposed. Encounters with Ancient Egypt is a series of eight books which addresses these issues. The books interrelate, inform and illuminate one another and will appeal to a wide market including academics, students and the general public interested in Archaeology, Egyptology, Anthropology, Architecture, Design and History. Geographically, Egypt is clearly on the African continent, yet Ancient Egypt is routinely regarded as a non-African cultural form. The significance of Ancient Egypt for the rest of Africa is a hotly debated issue with complex ramifications. This book considers how Ancient Egypt was dislocated from Africa, drawing on a wide range of sources. It examines key issues such as the evidence for actual contacts between Egypt and other early African cultures, and how influential, or not, Egypt was on them. Some scholars argue that to its north Egypt's influence on Mediterranean civilization was downplayed by western scholarship. Further afield, on the African continent perceptions of Ancient Egypt were coloured by biblical sources, emphasizing the persecution of the Israelites. An extensive selection of fresh insights are provided, several focusing on cultural interactions between Egypt and Nubia from 1000 BCE to 500 CE, developing a nuanced picture of these interactions and describing the limitations of an 'Egyptological' approach to them.

Genres: Egyptology, Egypt, Nonfiction

236 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[DAJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The relationship of ancient Egypt with the rest of Africa is a very touchy subject, because it long ago became tied to modern racism and identity politics. The Encounters with Ancient Egypt series is about how people perceive Egypt as much as anything else. Therefore, this book covers the Black Athena controversy and Cheikh Anta Diop's claims about Egypt, as well as the awful bias of 19th-century scholars. The book thus illustrates how many ideological pitfalls there are in examining the relationship between ancient Egypt and Africa. As Andrew Reid puts it, "In rejecting Egyptian and general northern influences on sub-Saharan Africa, Africanists would appear to be confirming that Ancient Egypt was in Africa, but not of Africa. Conversely, those who propose African connections for Ancient Egypt would appear to side with the view that sub-Saharan Africa was incapable of its own development and sat inert over 5,000 years without being able to create political change." Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The question isn't impossible to tackle, though, and the book does cover a good deal of what we do know and points out several areas for future study. My only major complaint is that these chapters tend to be written in abstract, theoretical terms, making them more difficult to read than they need to be. David Wengrow discusses the Neolithic society that once occupied most of Egypt and Sudan, a distant but direct forerunner of ancient Egyptian and ancient Nubian civilization. Michael Rowlands compares beliefs about sacred powers and chiefship among modern Central African peoples with similar ideas in ancient Egypt, raising the real possibility of a connection between the two. However, Reid's chapter on proposed similarities between Egypt and the Great Lakes region of Africa—very few of which have been substantiated—shows the danger of trying to compare cultures that are so distant in space and time. The last three chapters look at different periods in Nubian history and its close and complex relationship with Egypt to the north.