The following is based on “Arguments for a Negro Origin”, chapter seven of Cheikh Anta Diop’s “The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” (1974):
Diop says there are two main reasons to believe that Ancient Egypt sprang from black Africa:
- It is what the Egyptians themselves and all ancient writers believed.
- Ancient Egyptian culture had more in common with African cultures than with European ones.
Diop, the Egyptians and the ancient writers all say that the Egyptians either came from the south or were close cousins to those who lived there.
That south has been called different things by different people:
- Nubia (Diop),
- Ethiopia (Herodotus),
- Kush (the Bible), etc.
They all mean the same place. In fact, archaeologists were able to find its capital based on the writings of Herodotus and Diodorus of Sicily: Meroe.
Meroe is along the Nile in what we now call northern Sudan, not far from present-day Ethiopia. It was found to have 80 pyramids.
In Diop’s model the Egyptians came down river from Nubia. When Egypt fell under foreign rule from -500 onwards, Nubia became the centre of African civilization. In time it spread westward across the grasslands south of the Sahara, leading to the West African civilizations of Ghana, Mali, Songhai, etc.
In the white colonialist model of history, all civilization in Africa is due to light-skinned outsiders: Thus Nubia was civilized by the Libyans, of all people, and West Africa by the Arabs.
Ancient Egypt had a culture much more like that of black Africa than Europe. It had things like circumcision, matriarchy and totemism, which are common in Africa but rare in Europe.
By matriarchy Diop means property and leadership passing through the mother’s side of the family rather than the father’s. Even something like queens, therefore, were way more common in Africa than in Europe in ancient times.
Or take circumcision: Muslims and Jews practise it outside of Africa but it does not fit into any broader picture of the world. In Africa it does: both boys and girls had part of their genitals cut off to make them more clearly male and female, unlike the gods. The Jewish (and therefore Muslim) practice seems to come from Africa by way of Egypt.
In religion the Egyptians had many of the same gods as the Nubians and painted them black. Some of the stories of the gods take place in Nubia. All that would be rather odd if their religion came from Asia or Europe.
As to language, Diop noticed that even his native West African language of Wolof has certain features in common with Ancient Egyptian that cannot be accounted for by mere chance. For example, most of the pronouns are the same, the passive voice is formed by u or w and some words are a letter off from the same words in Egyptian: lad/nad (to ask), funa/fula (regular), lah/nah (protect, hide), etc.
See also:
“By matriarchy Diop means power and property passing through the mother’s side of the family rather than the father’s.”
What exactly does Diop mean by power passing from the mother when he speaks of African matriarchy? Is speaking of power from property or power being passed along through some other medium(s)?
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As to language, Diop noticed that even his native West African language of Wolof has certain features in common with Ancient Egyptian that cannot be accounted for by mere chance.
Like I was saying….
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Interesting theory which makes hell of more sense than any babble about white men inventing Egypt or little green men from Mars building pyramids as a cosmological compasses or something that vein. However, if egyptians came from Nubia, which was south of it, why they made war against Nubia for centuries and tried (and sometimes claimed) to conquer it??
It seems that the most obvisous explanation is escaping Diop too. Nobody had to “bring” the civilization from anywhere. I belive that the people all ready living in Nile valley created the civilization themselves during some millenia. For sure, outsiders influenced it, came to the valley and “joined” in it, but why the people of the Nile valley could not have done it themselves? It seems that the very idea is for some reason difficult for almost everybody. Almost every theory of the origins of acient Egypt begins by immigration of outsiders who bring the light to the natives who can not do anything else but sit by the mighty river and pick their noses.
If I remember correctly, Nubia was already gone by 500 BC, at least that is what the BBC seriers claimed. I doubt if Nubia romaned towards the west, perhaps some linguistical influences did, just like english today, but the western Africa had its own civilizations, some perhaps even older than Nubia here, so they did not “need” outsiders, again, to bring anything to them.
When dealing with history, in this case african history, I always find it a bit suspect and amusing that majority of theories and explanations start from the assumption that Outside Civilization brings the goods for savage natives. That is the precise White anglo history theorema where the whites go to the four corners of the earth to release natives from their savagery and ignorance by bringing them Civilization. It simply is not true. In most cases the whites destroyed the local civilizations and cultures and religions, if they found any.
So the need to explain african civlizations by the same basic concept (higher and more civilized Egypt and Nubia bringing the civilization to the rest of Africa) is kind of ironic.
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@bulanik: If I remember correctly, the iroquois indiands had a matrilinear society where the matriarc of the family decided if any of the men of that group go to war etc. The family totem, name etc, followed women. During the war council, the male warriors had to go back and forth to their matriarc to explain the proceedings and ask permission to decide something.
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@bulanik: I’m not absolutely sure, but I remember read from somewhere that since pharaos were divine, they married their own, sister preferably or closest cousin etc. This led in some serious troubles for dynasties and some speculate that it was also the reason of the down fall or many of them.
I do not know how much queens or matriarc posessed in Egypt but we do know that there were women rulers so it can be assumed that they had some power if and when they could get it.
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“As a child I had been told by family that it was African. But the world around me, the books, and films and television, told me otherwise. It all made me unsure, un-confident and disorientated about this claim from childhood.”
-Bulanik
I was never taught that Egypt was African outside from the fact that it’s a nation in Africa. However, back then up into today, everything from movies to school books told me that the people there were light-skinned, and that there was no other great African civilization that existed.
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I always thought that the lightest skin color of “Egyptian” actors should have been about Yule Brynner’s complexion.
But most of the actors should have been much darker than that.
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Come to think of it, everything I was taught about Egypt was taught in a way that made it seem like it wasn’t a nation within Africa. It was a nation with no association to the rest of the African continent according to the text books and media at the time.
Bulanik,
I understand what you’re saying, and it’s something that I believe should happen now more than ever. Africa’s truest history must be taught to those of African continental descent, and it is difficult when the youth are surrounded by messages that tells them they, their culture, and their origins are inferior to those of European (and in some cases Asian) descendents. Everyday, young black people are told somehow, someway, and somewhere that they are only good for dancing, music, sports, comedy, and crime with no apologies from the majority. So, this is definitely an urgent matter.
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@brothawolf: one thing that came to my mind, which I think is also essential, is to teach the young black generations is that their history, even in USA and definetly in Africa, is the most diverse in the planet. Africa even today is the most diverse continent culturally and even genetically because it is the Home of all humankind. The image that all blacks and africans are one huge lump should be dealt away. Nobody is telling that the english and spanish history are one, so why claim or present that kind of image about the black history still today?
I think it would be healthy for all of us to realise the huge complexity and multiculturality of the African history. I think that approach would open the doors to realise that the monolithic image still presented about africans and Africa is truly false and that there is a great history in that continent to be explored and studied.
We tend to simplify the history for various reasons as in the case of Egypt and lean on the old conventions (the immigrating civilization theorema), instead of looking carefully all the evidence. For me the visit to Egypt was an eye opener in many ways and I came to the conclusion that it has always been the people of that river valley who created that great civilization. Others came, for sure, but the roots and the backbone of the civilization was the local people. Egyptians, africans.
In question of USA history, I think we touched that subject in some other thread, but it is obvious to me that the influence of the blacks has been neatly erased from that, particulary in cultural history. And yet, when one really starts to think about the impact blacks have had on american culture and history, it has been great in many aspects.
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Eh, I agree that Ancient Egypt is certainly ‘African’ and tied to other societies in the Nile Valley region, but lots of Diop’s arguments were weak. He’s no linguist, for example, and Wolof is not related to Ancient Egyptian. The Chadic, Cushitic, and Berber languages are closely related to Ancient Egyptian, NOT Wolof. I recommend reading Christopher Ehret’s history of Africa. Roger Blench has also written about African languages and historical linguistics. Diop, no disrespect to him, was not a linguist.
On Egyptian gods, goddesses, or statues being painted black: That doesn’t really mean anything on its own. Color symbolism in Ancient Egyptian religion associated black with fertility, life. Why should one automatically assume it was an accurate ‘representation’ of someone’s skin color? That’s the problem with some Afrocentrist arguments, there is an irrational attempt or a series of assumptions about art that are not really rooted in reality. It’s like the Olmec heads and their alleged ‘Negroid’ features. Why should they be interpreted as realistic depictions of the human form? Same goes for Ancient Egyptian art, which was full of symbolism.
On religion: Yes, Ancient Egypt and the societies to the South probably had the most in common, shared many gods or goddesses. Some, like Toby Wilkinson, an Egyptologist whose work has created controversy in the past, links the cattle cults of the Nile Valley (Egypt and Nubia) to shared origins from people migrating to the Nile Valley from the Sahara (which was not always a desert). Look up Nabta Playa, which contains evidence of megaliths designed to chart the stars, a sort of Stonehenge site.
Diop’s use of matriarchy here is really matrilineal, not matriarchal. I don’t think things were inherited from one’s mother’s line (or maternal uncle, as was the case among the Akan peoples of Ghana).
“In Diop’s model the Egyptians came down river from Nubia. When Egypt fell under foreign rule from -500 onwards, Nubia became the centre of African civilization. In time it spread westward across the grasslands south of the Sahara, leading to the West African civilizations of Ghana, Mali, Songhai, etc.
In the white colonialist model of history, all civilization in Africa is due to light-skinned outsiders: Thus Nubia was civilized by the Libyans, of all people, and West Africa by the Arabs.”
This is my biggest problem with Diop: His attempt to revive the Hamitic Hypothesis but turning everyone ‘Black.’ There’s no evidence for Nubia spreading cultural influence westward, paving the way for Ghana, Mali, Songhai, etc. The developments of complex societies, long-distance trade, and large kingdoms in West Africa is a result of numerous local factors within West Africa, and then enhanced by the trans-Saharan trade. Ghana existed before the trans-Saharan trade, but the increase of trade with North Africa, Egypt, and the Mediterranean worlds provided an additional impetus for trade and competition for control of trade routes, resources. Nobody has found proof of contact between Meroe and Ghana, so what’s Diop’s point? If he wants to insist that Ancient Egypt was ‘black,’ sure, I’ll concede that point. But if he’s trying to make the claim that the Nile Valley societies were some sort of center of diffusion of ‘civilization’ throughout Africa, there’s just no evidence of that…
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