The ancient Egyptians were
Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilization is to be counted among the
assets of the Black world. Instead of
presenting itself to history as an insolvent debtor, 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 (1974, xiv). (Emphasis added.)
With multi-disciplinary
training in Egyptology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, cultural anthropology,
history, and linguistics, Diop was perhaps uniquely qualified to address the
question (Hilliard, 139). Presenting evidence collected through several decades
of work (Hilliard, 132) Diop argued convincingly that the ancient Egyptians
were unequivocally Black, and that their exclusion from recognition as such was
a function of racially motivated agendas.
Before examining the
evidence on both sides of the issue, a vital clarification is necessary: the
question of what exactly does one defend/challenge in this argument? Am I, in
seeking to defend Diop’s standpoint, guilty of an “inverted racism,”
gratuitously giving more import to the skin color of a people, than to their
contribution to humanity (Brace et al, 130)? Van Sertima, who, to the extent
possible, took over the mantle of research into Egypt’s Black African origins
since Diop’s death, asserted,
Were the Ancient Egyptians
Black or White? is not the ideal way in which such an issue should be posed,
for, unintentional though it may be, it is a trap. It enables those who seek to
undermine the contribution of early Africans to civilization, to appear in this
debate as fair and balanced, blessed with a sweet reasonableness, while I, who
only seek to set the historical record straight, am, by the very wording of the
proposition, encouraged to take stands which, if not racist, are, at the very
least, simplistic and facile (75).
A more honest wording of
the question, according to Van Sertima, would be:
First whether the ancient
Egyptians were predominantly African or Africoid in a physical sense during the
major native dynasties before the late invasions of the Persian, Greek, Roman,
and Arab foreigners. Second, whether—and this is even more important—their
language, their writing, their vision of god and the universe, their concept of
the divine kingship, their ritual ceremonies and practices, their
administrative and architectural symbols and structures, their techno-complex,
were quintessentially African (that is, based essentially upon models and
patterns developed in the continental heartland of Africa) and not (I repeat not) in any major particular, projected from those in Europe or
Asia in that or any previous time (75).
Thus, it is with the
question and one’s reasons for asking it clearly in mind that one may cogently
weight the arguments of both Dr. Diop and of his adversaries.
Dr. Diop presented eleven
categories of evidence at the UNESCO symposium on “The Peopling of Ancient
Egypt” held in Cairo in 1974, to support his argument for a native black
African Egypt, including Ancient Egyptian self-descriptions, divine epithets,
and art; the eyewitness testimony of classical writers who visited Egypt;
physical anthropology data, including evidence from osteological studies, from
the melanin dosage test, and from blood type studies; linguistic and cultural
comparisons between Egyupt and the rest of Africa; and Bible history. This
paper discusses each of these in turn, in light of recent studies in support or
in refutation of them.
Kemetic Self-Descriptions
“Kmt,” or “the Negroes,”
was the single word used by the ancient Egyptians to designate themselves; it
was the strongest term in their language which indicated blackness (Diop, 1978,
27). At the UNESCO symposium, Abdalla, discarding the extremely detailed and
cogent linguistic demonstration provided by Diop [see Linguistic Evidence
below], accepted by nearly all the conference participants, made the wholly
unsubstantiated claim that km did not
mean “black,” and that its derivatives did not refer to the color of individuals
(UNESCO, 39). Sauneron and Obenga, another linguistics expert, provided
additional evidence at the conference to support Diop’s claim (UNESCO, 40).
Further, according to
Hilliard, K-M-T, a name written in MDW NTR (Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics), a
writing system without vowels, meant “The Black Place,” or “place of the
blacks,” and was one of three primary names that native African people in the
northern Nile Valley used to refer to their nation. “Egypt” was the foreign
name given to KMT by the Greeks, nearly two thousand years after the nation was
established. In addition to KMT, two other names that natives used were Ta-Mry
(meaning “The Beloved Land”) and Tawi (meaning “The Two Lands”—Upper and Lower
KMT) (127). It defies logic that a people who were not black would refer to
their land as “place of the blacks,” to themselves as “the Negroes.” This paper
will henceforth use KMT to refer to the area popularly called “Ancient Egypt.”
Kemetic Religious References
The names used by the
inhabitants of KMT in designating their deities pointed once again to the
inescapable fact that they were black. In MDW NTR, Kmwr, meaning the “Great Negro,” was used to designate the God
Osiris. Similarly Set Kmt, meaning “the Black Woman,” was the
designation for the Goddess Isis. In general, km (“the black,” but used only for males) prefixed to the name of a
god, or kmt (“the black,” but used
only for females) prefixed to the name of a goddess, constituted the surname of
that god or goddess (Diop, 1978, 27). The likelihood that a white,
predominantly white, or even mixed KMT would refer to their deities as Black is
as good as that of a Scanandavian or Japanese nation today promulgating images
of a Black Jesus or Buddha.
Kemetic Carvings and Paintings
There is no shortage of
artwork from KMT, from the proto-historic, to the Late Dynastic period, all
lending strong support to the black identity of the Ancient Egyptians.
According to Diop, wherever the autochthonous racial type was represented with
any degree of clearness, it was evidently Negroid (1978, 17). The artwork can
be classified in two broad categories: 1) sculptures and statues, and 2)
paintings and carvings.
Sculptures and statues
have the advantage of three dimensional depiction of facial features and leave
little doubt about the race of the person whose image they reconstruct. Starting
from Narmer, the first king, to the Sphinx and spanning nearly every dynasty
(with the notable exceptions of the low periods) Kemetic statuary recorded the
visual images of unquestionably Black
kings and queens and Black Gods and
Goddesses.
Paintings of KMT
discriminate very clearly in their depictions of the black inhabitants of KMT
and other races. The question of the portrayal in some bas-reliefs of selected
individuals in a dark red color and others in black raised the possibility of a
distinction between the race of the Egyptians and other Africans. But Diop
pointed out that scientifically speaking, no dark red race existed, nor was
there a truly black, Black man in the literal sense of the word; the disparity,
he noted, merely reflects the spectrum of skin color found among black people
(Diop, 1974, 48). Further, stance and symbols, such as the tied hands of a
captive always differentiated foreigners in Kemetic art (Diop, 1978, 17). Paintings
such as the one from the tomb of Ramses III, portraying an Egyptian, a Black
from some other part of Africa, an “Indo-European,” and a Semite, showed with
great certainty that the Egyptains might portray themselves in the manner of
the former two, but never the latter two (Van Sertima, prologue).
Table 1. Depictions of Blacks in Kemetic
Paintings
Time Period Description of Work Comment/Reference
Proto-historic Painting of Lord Tera Neter of Anu were first
inhabitants of
the Negro Anu race KMT
(Diop, 1974, 12)
Dynasty XX Painting depicts Egyptians Shows Egyptians
saw
themselves
as Blacks (Van
Sertima,
prologue)
Dynasty III Stone plate of King Djoser Shows Djoser to
have
typically Negroid features
(Diop, 1974, 14)
Dynasty XII Painting of King Sesostris I Same as above
(Diop, 1974,
18)
Dynasty XII Bas-relief of King Sesostris Black prisoners
were
Holding prisoners by the hair depicted in same manner
as
King Sesostris
Table 2. Black Kings and Queens in
Kemetic Statuary
Time Period King
or Queen Reference
---- The God Osiris Diop,
1974, 11
Dynasty I King Narmer or Menes Diop, 1974,
13
Dynasty IV Cheops Diop, 1974,
15
Dynasty IV Mycerinus and the Goddess
Hathor Diop, 1974, 16
Dynasty V King Sahure Rashidi,
84
Dynasty XI King Mentuhotep I Diop,
1974, 17
Dynasty XII King Nubkaure Amenemhet II Rashidi, 86
Dynasty XII King Nymare Amenemhet III Rashidi, 88
Dynasty XVIII King Nebmare Amenhotep III Rashidi, 90
Dynasty XVIII Queen Tiye Rashidi, 92
Dynasty XVIII King Thutmoses III Diop,
1974, 20
Dynasty XIX King Usermare Ramses II Rashidi, 94
Dynasty XIX King Ramses II Diop,
1974
Dynasty XXV King Taharqa Rashidi,
96
Eyewitness Testimony of Classical Writers
Evidence from classical
Greek and Roman writers contain innumerable references to the blackness of the
Ancient Egyptians (Diop, 1978, 21). Diop mentioned three separate instances on
which Herodotus refers to their race: 1)
in speaking on the origins of the Colchians; 2) in speaking of the origin of
the Nile floods; and 3) in discussing the oracle of Zeus-Amon (UNESCO, 45).
Count Constantin de Volney, who visited and studied in KMT, referred to the
Ancient Egyptians in unequivocal terms: “There a people now forgotten
discovered while others were still barbarians, the elements of the arts and
sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and
religious systems which still govern the universe” (Hilliard, 143-144). Others
such as Aristotle, Lucian, Appolodorus, Aeschylus, Achilles Tatius of
Alexandria, Strabo, Diogenes, Laertius, and Ammianus Marcellinus can be cited
in the same vein (Van Sertima, 78).
Physical Anthropology Data
Diop posed three major
arguments based on the results of physical anthropology data: 1) A Black race
existed in KMT from prehistoric times through the dynastic period; 2) During
the pre-dynastic epoch, the very basis of the Kemetic population was Black; 3)
The criteria employed by anthropologists working in this area have frequently
been prejudicial. An examination of each argument follows in turn.
A Black Race Existed in KMT from Prehistoric Times
Through the Dynastic Period
Diop cited classical
studies done by Fawcett, Falkenburger, Elliot-Smith, Sergei, and Petrie to
support his contention that the existence of a white Egyptian race was ambiguous
at best, and that physical anthropology data, despite its lack of
conclusiveness, pointed to the existence of a black race. He noted both Fawcett
and Falkenburger’s vacillation in identifying their skulls as black or
Germanic/Cro-Magnoid (1978, 15). Osteological evidence from work done by
Lepsius also placed the Egyptians “among the black races.” Similarity between blood
groups of modern day Egyptians and West Africans and their dissimilarity with
those of homogeneous white populations was taken as additional physical
evidence for black origins. Finally, the melanin dosage test, Diop’s own
invention, showed that the royal mummies in the Museum of Man in Paris, had,
without exception, melanin levels consistent with a “black” population (1978,
20).
At odds with Diop’s
position was a study done by Brace, placing pre-Dynastic and Late Dynastic
Egyptians closer to Europeans than to any other ethnographic cluster (140). Brace
further claimed that Nubia “comes close to being excluded from the Late
Dynastic sample from Giza: in Lower KMT (Brace et al 145). Nubia came only a
few percentage points from being excluded from Sub-Saharan Africa as well, but
could not be excluded from modern Europe (Brace, 145). Lastly, data in this
study purportedly showed the people of the Horn of Africa to be craniofacially
less distinct from a spectrum of samples that includes South Asia, the Middle
East, and northwestern Europe than they were to any group in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Brace, 151).
A growing number of
studies employing a broad range of techniques—including morphometric analysis
of crania, cephalometric studies, estimates of stature, genetic analysis of
both non-metric traits and blood groups, and studies of hair—support Diop’s
thesis. Among them:
Morphological studies done
by Morton, Nott, and Gliddon; MacIver and Thomson; Smith, Smith, and Derry;
Guiffrida-Ruggeri; and numerous others, all conceded, to the extent that their early
twentieth century racial mind sets permitted, the existence of the
“Egyptian-with-Negro influence,” “Negroid,” “Austral-Egyptian,” “Brown,”
“Mediterranean,” or “Hamitic” element in varying degrees in the populations
they studied (Keita, 133-34). Morphometric studies yielded results similar to
those obtained from the morphological studies, in that non-Negroid and Negroid
traits, or varying degrees of Negroid traits were observed (Keita, 136).
Howells’ (1973) global
study of 17 cranial series showed that the late dynastic Giza series from
northern KMT clustered with tropical Africans or northern Europeans depending
on the technique used (Keita, 137). In Brauer’s (1976, 1980) work, no discrete
major clustering of Nile Valley series apart from more tropical Africans
occurred; other African groups appeared in primary clusters with various Nile
valley groups (Keita, 137).
Three non-metric studies
supported the Diop thesis: 1) Berry and Berry (1972) found that the Egyptian
series examined were more similar overall to other African series than to
European or Near Eastern series (Keita, 139); 2) Berry et al (1967) showed that
numerous Egyptian series from different regions and epochs usually had greater
affinity to one another than to Sudanese, Palestinian, and West African series
(Keita, 139); in the same study, Egyptian crania evaluated in a Near Eastern versus
African context had affinity with the Africans (Keita, 139); 3) Strouhal and
Jungwirth (1979) showed great overlap of southern Nile Valley crania with more
southerly Africans in the frequency of numerous non-metric traits (Keita, 139).
Paoli (1972) found
dynastic mummies to have ABO frequencies most like those of the northern
Haratin, a group believed to be largely descended from the ancient Saharans. (Keita,
140).
Robins and Schute (1983,
1986) noted a Negroid ratio in a sample of New Kingdom dynastic remains (Keita,
140). Robins and Schute (1983) examined the physical proportions of New Kingdom
Pharaohs including those of the 18th dynasty (Amenhotep I, II, II,
Ahmose, Thutmose I, II, III, IV, Smenkhkare, and Tutankhamen) and 19th
dynasty (Merneptah, Rameses II, Sati I and II, and Siptah) found all the
Pharaonic values to lie much closer to the Negro curve than to the white curve.
Also since the estimation of stature took into account limb proportions, the
data from the studies of stature in New Kingdom Egyptians indicated that they
possessed the same adaptations as Africans in tropical climates (Crawford, 66).
An x-ray profile of the
mummy of King Thutmose IV (Dynasty XVIII) showed facial prognathism, a feature
generally not found in Caucasoid populations (Van Sertima, 74). Recently, an
examination of 11 Egyptian mummies revealed two of them to have carpal fusion,
a disease almost unknown among Europeans and which is considered an African
disease (Van Sertima, 78).
During the pre-dynastic epoch,
the very basis of the Kemetic population was Black.
Since the studies done by
both Fawcett and Falkenburger included pre-dynastic specimens, and both
conceded to varying degrees the existence of blacks in KMT very early on, the
degree of their convergence showed, according to Diop, that the basis of the
Egyptian population was black in the pre-Dynastic epoch (1978, 16).
Here again, the single
dissenting opinion came from Brace, who opined that the Egyptians, based on
craniofacial morphology, had nothing whatsoever in common with Sub-Saharan
Africans, and that the data provided no support for the claim of a “strong
Negroid element” in pre-Dynastic KMT (145).
Diop’s claims were
substantiated by a number of studies:
Pre-Dynastic Badarian
crania, termed as the basic defining “Egyptian” morphology, was found by
multiple teams of researchers to be fundamentally “Negroid” (Keita, 134-135). A
morphometric study done by Petit-Maine and Dutour (1987) suggested that early
southern Egyptian series shared crania metric patterns with early Saharans
deemed to be “Negroid” (Keita, 138).
Metric studies cited by
Keita suggested a broad biological affinity of early and southern Nile Valley
peoples with other more southerly Africans. Even more striking, metric analyses
clearly suggested that at least southern “Egyptian” groups were a part of
indigenous Holocene Saharo-tropical African variation (Keita, 138).
Ruffer (1920) noticed an
overlap in the presence of numerous anomalies in pre-Dynastic Egyptian and
Nubian teeth. The presence of fourth molar variants in these populations was
also significant (though always rare). Fourth molar variants seem to be more
common in southerly African populations than in Europeans (Keita, 141).
Trinkhaus (1981) study of
limb ratios placed the pre-Dynastic Egyptian values near those of tropical
Africans, not Mediterranean Europeans (Keita, 140). Also Warren (1897) observed
that these ratios for early Naqada Egyptians were similar to those of “Negroes”
(Keita, 140). Robins and Shute (1983, 1986) evaluated pre-Dynastic and Dynastic
limb ratios and found the former to be “supernegroid” (Crawford, 66).
Criteria Employed by Anthropologists Working in this Area
have Frequently been Prejudicial
Diop, noting Fawcett and
Falkenburger’s vacillation between identifying their skulls as black or
Germanic/ Cro-Magnoid, remarked on the elasticity of the criteria used in the
physiological tests of the day (1978, 15). Additionally, Diop noted problems
arising from oversimplification, remarking that there were at least two different
variants of the black race—the straight-haired, represented in Africa by the
Nubians, among others; and the kinky-haired blacks of the Equatorial region—not
just one stereotypical Negro as previously assumed by many researchers (1978,
17).
According to Crawford, the
misreading and misinterpretation of the skeletal evidence has been the greatest
stumbling block to an acceptance of the African origins of the ancient Egyptian
and to an appreciation of the persistence and predominance of the African type
during the critical formative dynasties of KMT (58). It is difficult for many
to understand how the so-called “true Negro” does not even represent the
majority of African types on the continent (Crawford, 58). Most skeletal
studies have focused on the form or fiction of one variant of indigenous
African (Crawford, 58). Crawford identified at least six African variants (elongated,
Nilotic, classical, Pygmy, Bushman, and other localized variants) [For detailed
discussion on the various types, see Crawford, 58]. Some of these variants have
elements of their facial appearance that is characteristic of other races. This
must be the case, since all races evolved from an African prototype and it was
necessary that this type possess the potential to express multiple traits which
could then be modified by the environment (Crawford, 58).
Typology assumes races can
be characterized and distinguished by mutually exclusive features that are stable
through time. Researchers who have used a cluster of specific traits for
defining a race encounter the problem of marked heterogeneity within the race
for the presumed defining traits. African populations display a great deal of
variation in the expression of “diagnostically Negroid” traits (Crawford, 60).
Stereotypically mulatto
hair found preserved on a Badarian skull once again exhibits the tremendous
phenotypic variation possible within various Negroid types, all autochthonous
to Africa. Badarians, the earliest pre-Dynastic Egyptians, were, most
historians now agree, fundamentally Negroid. Thus the presence of mulatto hair
on a Negroid skull dispels some of the notions about a fixed or invariable Negro
stereotype (Keita, 140).
Perhaps the best example
of elasticity of criteria, faulted by Diop, is that found in the Brace study.
Brace selected a set of 24 variables (such as nasal height, basion prosthion,
and bizygomatic breadth) from a measurement battery originally used to sort for
anthropological classification of inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago,
while conceding that the precision of the measurement battery, when applied to
groups other than the original one for which it was designed, was questionable
(Brace, 132). Using this battery of measurements, he attempted to find
differences in non-adaptive inherited traits between populations, and used this
as a measurement of elapsed time since they shared a common ancestor. Then
using Euclidean Distance dendrograms, he arrived at the conclusions enumerated
above. Since the variables measured appear to be arbitrary chosen, it is not at
all clear whether the outcome of the same study, employing a different
measurement battery, would have yielded significantly different results. In
fact, two subsequent metric studies showed that this may indeed have been the
case, (Keita, 137).
The apparent
methodological weakness of Brace’s method was nowhere more clear than when he
attempted to sever Nubia from KMT and from Sub-Saharan Africa, but not from
modern Europe. In this case, cultural and anthropological data were enough to
nullify his sophistry (e.g., architectural, archeological, as well as written
evidence from MDW NTR showing the extraordinary role Nubia played in KMT, first
as its creator—the Nubians initiated the first Pharaonic dynasty, Ta-Seti—later
as its unifier and conqueror in the Eighth Century B.C., and throughout as its
cultural preserve) (Brooks-Bertram, 150). Unfortunately, supporting data are
not always available when such methodologically-weak studies target other less
well-explored areas.
Finally, using appropriate
comparative groups and statistical methods, “Hamitic” populations could be
shown to be related to other African populations, and not to Caucasoids from
Europe or Asia. Modern populations considered to be “Hamitic” (e.g., some
Ethiopians) have been shown genetically to cluster with other Africoid variants
and not racial groups or populations outside of Africa (Crawford, 60).
Linguistic Comparisons with the Rest of Africa
Diop painstakingly
elucidated the similarities between the West African language of Wolof and
ancient Egyptian. Egyptian expressed the past tense by the same morpheme, n, as Wolof; it had a suffixal
conjugation which reappeared verbatim in Wolof; most pronouns were identical to
those in Wolof. The two pronoun suffixes, ef
and es, had the same meaning in
Wolof; demonstratives were the same in both languages; the passive voice was
expressed by the same morpheme, u or w, in both languages. Replacement of n in Egyptian by l in Wolof was sufficient to transform an Egyptian word into a
Wolof word with the same meaning. All of these linguistic factors pointed to
Egyptian origins in a Black Africa (Diop, 1974, 155).
Cultural Comparisons with the Rest of Africa/Bible
History
Diop cited innumerable
cultural traits common in present-day Black Africa and also espoused by the
ancient Egyptians: circumcision, totemism, kingship, matriarchy, cosmogony, and
social organization (1974, 134). Biblical references, casting the Egyptians as
among the sons of Ham all incorporate the term “black,” used with great
reverence (Diop, 1978, 27).
Race cannot be Excluded as a Defining Characteristic
without the Sacrifice of Intellectual Integrity:
Time Trame and History of Devaluing, Detracting from,
and Refusal to Credit Black Contribution Predicate the Necessity of Preservation
of Race in Case of KMT
A recent Washington Post
article, citing “differences that don’t correspond to racial categories;” that
no physical feature, or even combination of features, distinguishes any race;
and that arguments can be made for as many as 37 different “races,” concludes
that, “Races don’t really exist, at least not outside our imaginations”
(Rensberger, 3). Brace, in a similar vein, contents that dispensing of the
matter of race is requisite to the resolution of the question of the
“biological relations of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley” (130).
Based on current knowledge
of international travel during the pre-Dynastic and Dynastic period, mating
between members of different racial or ethnic groups was severely constrained
by geographical realities. Further, it can be postulated that in accordance
with the somewhat insular cultural views of the time, cross-cultural marriages
had not yet attained a high level of acceptability, again limiting racial
interbreeding. Both of these factors probably contributed to a high degree of
“racial purity,” placing race on a different plane than today, and making it
entirely possibly that Nile Valley Blacks were, in Diop’s words, “ethnically homogeneous
and negroid.” (1978,15)
Even discounting the
historical significance of a Black African KMT, and relying solely on modern
scientific techniques derived from advances in the fields of genetics and
molecular biology, the results point unwaveringly to the existence of a
distinct Black African population, which included the Ancient Egyptians.
Studies calculating the degree of relatedness between world populations based
on genetic similarities for certain protein reveal that present day African
populations with markedly different physical traits emerge as a group distinct
from other world populations (Crawford, 55-56). Sanchez-Mazas et al (1986) show
Senegalese from sub-Saharan West Africa and Ethiopians from the Horn of Africa
forming a distinct grouping. This study examined genetic similarities in five
blood group and HLA systems between 14 populations. Similarly, Nei (1978) shows
West Africans from Ghana and Bantu Africans from Southeastern Africa emerging
together, again distinct from the other European, Asian, and American
populations. These relationships were based on gene frequency data for 11
protein and blood group genes and compared 12 populations for which this data
was available. Cavalli-Sforza et al (1988) presented a study of gene
frequencies for 120 alleles (genetic variations of a particular trait) in 42
World populations. Africans, including Mbuti pygmies, West Africans,
Ethiopians, Bantu speakers, Bushmen, and Nilo-Saharan speakers, formed a
cluster (Africoid) distinct from all other world populations. They also show
that all these African populations speak languages from African linguistic
families (Crawford, 56).
Conclusions
Off the categories of
evidence produced by Dr. Diop in support of his thesis, that the people of KMT
were of racially, culturally, and linguistically black origin, the following
categories were accepted without challenge: the melanin dosage test results,
blood group evidence, eyewitness testimony from classical writers, Kemetic
self-descriptions, Kemetic divine epithets, Bible history, culture data, and
linguistic affinity.
In art work of KMT, the
only valid questions pertained to possibly conflicting meanings of black or red
color used to portray varying racial types in paintings found in some tombs.
This however, was insignificant next to the voluminous carvings, statues, and
statuettes spanning from the pre-Dynastic to late dynastic period all
portraying unambiguously Negroid features.
The greatest conflict
arose in some of the physical anthropology data, but this was primarily due to
conflicting definitions of race (i.e., whether or not a black race could be
said to exist distinct from other races either now or in the past) and then to
lack of awareness of (or in some cases, deliberate lack of attention to) the
great variation in indigenous African types, of which at least six were
identified and unsagacious or prejudiced selection of criteria in some of the
studies. Once these hurdles were overcome, however, the results of the studies
overwhelmingly confirmed Dr. Diop’s thesis.
Notes
Brace, C. Loring et al.,
“Clines and Clusters Versus Race: A Test in Ancient Egypt and the Case of a
Death on the Nile.” Black Athena
Revisited, Edited by Mary Lefkowitz. Chapel Hill: Univeristy of North
Carolina Press, 1996, 129-62.
Brooks-Bertram, Peggy A.,
“The Sixth Napatan Dynasty of Kush.” Egypt,
Child of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of
African Civilizations, 1994, 149-86.
Crawford, Keith W., “The
Racial Identity of Ancient Egyptian Populations Based on the Analysis of
Physical Remains.” Egypt, Child of Africa.
Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of African Civilizations,
1994, 55-74.
Diop, Cheikh Anta, The African Origin of Civilization—Myth or
Reality. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1974.
Diop, Cheikh Anta, “Origin
of the Ancient Egyptians,” The General
History of Africa—Studies and Documents, No. 1, Paris: UNESCO, 1978, 15-32.
Hilliard III, Asa G.,
“Bringing Maat, Destroying Isfet: The African and African Diasporan Presence in
the Study of Ancient KMT.” Egypt, Child
of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of African
Civilizations, 1994, 127-147.
Keita, S.O.Y., “Studies
and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships.” History of Africa
20, 1993, 129-54.
Rensberger, Boyce, “Forget
the Old Labels. Here’s a New Way to Look at Race.” The Washington Post, Nov 16, 1994, 1.
Van Sertima, Ivan, “Egypt
is in Africa But was Ancient Egypt African?” Egypt, Child of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick:
Journal of African Civilizations, 1994: 75-79.
---- “Annex to Chapter 1:
Report of the Symposium on ‘The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering
of the Meroitic Script.’” The General
History of Africa—Studies and Documents, No. 1. Edited by G. Mokhtar.
Paris: UNESCO, 1978, 33-57.
©1997 By Nadrat Siddique
