to 200,000

The African-Egyptian Question: Most of us in the West are familiar with ancient Egyptian civilization and its achievements (e.g. the pyramids) as one of the cradles of [Western] civilization. Yet it is important to remember that Egypt is in Africa and that ancient Kemet (as the ancient Egyptians called their kingdom, a term dating from ca. 3100 BCE) is also the cradle of Black African civilization. A subject of heated contemporary debate is the ethnicity and/or color of the ancient Egyptians, and Africanist scholars like Molefi Kete Asante and Abu S. Abarry observe that "the more [ancient] Egypt is seen as a society of significance to human civilization, the more its [black African] origins are disputed by some white scholars." They claim that racist sentiments have led "revisionist historians of the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, the age of the European slave trade [and European colonization of Africa], …to discredit Africans," "to explain away the African base" of ancient Egypt, "and to accredit all African achievement to the presence of European genes." It is well to note that the ancient Greeks described the way the Egyptians looked to them: "The ancient Greek writers Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Aristotle all testified …that the ancient Egyptians were ‘black-skinned'".

The African-Egyptian Question II: Asante and Abarry are among Africanist scholars who maintain that African "civilization as expressed from the ancient cultures of the Nile Valley [e.g. Egypt/Kemet, Nubia/Kush], have tied together the diverse peoples of the continent and the diaspora* in ways that distinguish Africans from Europeans or Asians"--although one must be careful not "to assume too much commonality" among African cultures and societies, each "unique, having developed its own orientation to the universe and the physical environment in its concepts of religion, science, art, and politics." Nevertheless, in "the practical experiences of African peoples" across the continent today these scholars trace the continuation of "ancient myths and beliefs in resurrection and life, reincarnation, matrilineality [lineage traced through the "mothers"], burial of the dead, the value of children, the ultimate goodness of the earth", as well as reverence for the ancestors believed part of the living human community—a worldview integrating past and future into the present.

[* Diaspora can be defined as the global community of Africans and peoples of African descent living outside of Africa.]

The Problem of Sources: Modern scholars must confront 2 major problems when trying to establish the ancient sources of African traditions: (1) loss of sources due to human or natural intervention (e.g., destroyed by invading armies or carried off to Western museums and private collections); and (2) undeciphered documents (e.g., the Merotic texts of ancient Meroe, which probably pre-dates ancient Kemet (Egypt), remain undeciphered).

ca. 2300- 2100

Heliopolis Creation Narrative of the Kemetic priests of On, and the Memphite Declaration of the Deities (carved on a granite slab carving at the order of Nubian King Shabaka, ca. 710 BCE, recopied from earlier papyrus version), are the earliest written human accounts of creation. In the Memphis theology, the deity Ptah unites "heart and tongue" to create all "through utterance"—the spoken word. Creation narratives are found throughout Africa passed down through centuries and generations through oral traditions.

SACRED WRITING: "Ancient Africans believed that the deity Dhehuti invented writing…. Dhehuti, who became the Greek Hermes, was associated with wisdom and knowledge. Writing brought with it so much power and influence that the ancient Africans reserved the knowledge and skill for priests and kings. Mystery and magic surrounded the development of the art, because few people could appreciate the strange markings on papyrus": "Although only a small portion of the population was literate, a great proportion of objects from Egypt are covered with writing,"according to UChicago's Oriental Institute. Later, throughout the continent, many traditional African cultures developed "secret societies, actually societies of secrets,…with their own scripts" (e.g., the Vai, Bambara, Benin, Bakongo, Peul, and Akan). "As symbol systems for sacred occasions, these scripts are often under the control of specially trained and consecrated priests"

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WRITING & LITERATURE: "’Papyrus’ is the Greek word for the plant material on which ancient Egyptians did much of their writing, and is the origin for the word "paper". Ancient Egyptian papyri reveal contributions in geometry, algebra, medicine, physics, chemistry, surgery, and astronomy. Employing three writing systems (hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts), ancient Egyptians also contributed the technique and art of writing, some of which is evidenced on pyramid walls. Creative literature included poems, plays, and narratives, as well as the oldest religious and ethical texts which include the "Pyramid Texts" and the "Declarations of Virtues." Greek philosophy, as well as many of the basic tenets of the major world religions, were pre-configured in ancient Egyptian civilization," which early Greek philosophers would later acknowledge the debt that they owed to " Egyptian knowledge systems in which they were educated" (Mukere). However, itt was not until the 19^th century, and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, that scholars were able to decipher the ancient Kemetic writings on stone and papyrus. The Rosetta Stone now stands in the British Museum, London.

MA'AT: the African ethical principles collectively embracing the values of truth, harmony, justice, reciprocity and cosmological order. Kemetic texts "paint a powerful portrait of ancient Egyptian moral and ethical standards. Central to the ancient Egyptian ethos is the concept of Ma’at" (Mukere). Ma’at was the ancient Egyptian goddess who personified "truth" and "justice," and "is identified by a feather against which She weighs each person's soul in her hall of judgment. Egyptian priests would draw the feather of Ma'at on their tongues in green dye to give their words truth and creative power". The "ethical principles of Ma’at" shape "the key idea in the traditional African approach to life," recurring "in most African societies as the influence of right and righteousness, justice and harmony, balance, respect, and human dignity," according to Asante and Abarry (59). Most traditional African religions perpetuate the "fundamental principles of harmony between humans, humans and the environment, and humans and the spirit world"

From the Carnegie Museum of Natural History:
"Of all the deities, the goddess Maat was the most important in perpetuating the status quo. The Egyptians believed that when the gods formed the land of Egypt out of chaos, Maat was created to embody truth, justice, and the basic orderly arrangement of the world. Maat personified the perfect state of the god-created world, and all that people had to do in order to live and prosper in the world was to honor and preserve Maat. On a national level, it was the king's responsibility to preserve Maat through daily offerings given at the temples. On an individual level, the goal of every Egyptian was to lead a honorable life that would allow entrance into the afterlife after death."

Early in their history, the Bantu split into two major linguistic branches—the Eastern and Western Bantu. The Eastern Bantu migrated through present-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique, down to South Africa. The Western Bantu moved into what is now Angola, Namibia, and northwestern Botswana. Today, among the Bantu language groups, the most widely spoken Bantu-derived language is Arab-influenced Swahili, which is used as a lingua franca (a language used in common by different peoples to facilitate commerce and trade) by up to 50 million speakers on the eastern coast of Africa. Ethnic groups descended from the Bantu include the Shona, the Xhosa, the Kikuyu, and the Zulu, of the Eastern Bantu language branch; and the Herero and Tonga peoples, of the Western Bantu language branch.