Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
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perspective. We must also acknowledge that Dr. Hawass, as a deputy minister <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian government, could well be<br />
under pressure from various contemporary sociopolitical sources. It is reasonable, then, to suppose that not all <strong>of</strong> his<br />
commentaries are motivated purely by dispassionate analysis <strong>of</strong> events from four or five thousand years ago but may be<br />
colored in small part by contemporary sociopolitical concerns. Yet the modern <strong>Egypt</strong>ian government has been a leader in<br />
the terribly difficult, indeed Herculean, contemporary efforts to transcend the ages-old rivalry between <strong>Egypt</strong> and Israel as<br />
evidenced for example by the 1979 peace treaty for which <strong>Egypt</strong>ian president Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize.<br />
If in some sense, therefore, there is a subliminal struggle going on among the various currently powerful ethnonationalist<br />
and subnationalist groups in <strong>Egypt</strong> today regarding claims <strong>of</strong> the origin <strong>of</strong> the civilization that built the pyramids, then it<br />
seems that the emerging answer should serve not to inflame but to defuse the situation—because the answer is that the<br />
origins stem not from any <strong>of</strong> these groups but from <strong>Black</strong> Africans. Certainly it was the <strong>Black</strong> Africans <strong>of</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong> who,<br />
over the subsequent ages, melded with a number <strong>of</strong> other colors and ethnicities and thus essentially are today the same<br />
people <strong>of</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong> who should be extremely proud <strong>of</strong> the ancient accomplishments <strong>of</strong> their heritage.<br />
CONSOLIDATING THE EVIDENCE<br />
Other than the visual evidence <strong>of</strong> prehistoric rock art at Uwainat and Gilf Kebir, we will also see here and in chapter 6<br />
that there is even more supporting evidence <strong>of</strong> a <strong>Black</strong> African origin in further analysis <strong>of</strong> the astronomical alignments<br />
at Nabta Playa and other prehistoric sites in the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian Sahara. Meanwhile, in 2002, three decades after Nabta Playa<br />
was discovered, anthropologists Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild published their overall views in the Journal <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Polish Academy <strong>of</strong> Science [Archaeologia Polona] affirming that<br />
[t]he tumuli, calendar, stele alignments and megalithic constructions, all concentrated around western shores <strong>of</strong> the<br />
then already dried ancient Lake Nabta, indicate that this area was an important ceremonial centre in the late and final<br />
Neolithic. <strong>The</strong> complexity <strong>of</strong> the arrangements, and enormous amount <strong>of</strong> closely managed work put into the<br />
construction <strong>of</strong> the megalithic constructions, indicate that the cattle herders <strong>of</strong> the South Western Desert created an<br />
early complex society with the presence <strong>of</strong> a religious and/or political control over human resources for an extended<br />
period <strong>of</strong> time. Common contacts <strong>of</strong> the Desert Dwellers with the Nile Valley inhabitants are indicated by frequent<br />
presence <strong>of</strong> raw material and ceramics originating in the Nile Valley. <strong>The</strong>se contacts <strong>of</strong> cattle pastoralists with<br />
Predynastic, agricultural groups in the Nile Valley may have played an important role in the emergence <strong>of</strong> a<br />
complex, stratified society in the Great River Valley. . . . Physical anthropology <strong>of</strong> rare skeletal remains found in the<br />
late early, middle and late Neolithic suggests racial association <strong>of</strong> the populations with Sub-Saharan or black groups<br />
. . . 44<br />
Other eminent anthropologists were more categorical. In National Geographic News <strong>of</strong> July 2006, this article<br />
appeared:<br />
<strong>The</strong> pharaohs <strong>of</strong> ancient <strong>Egypt</strong> owed their existence to prehistoric climate changes in the eastern Sahara, according to<br />
an exhaustive study <strong>of</strong> archaeological data that bolsters this theory.<br />
Starting at about 8500 B.C., researchers say, broad swaths <strong>of</strong> what are now <strong>Egypt</strong>, Chad, Libya and Sudan<br />
experience a “sudden onset <strong>of</strong> humid conditions.” . . . During this time the prehistoric people <strong>of</strong> the eastern Sahara<br />
followed the rains to keep pace with the most hospitable ecosystems.<br />
But around 5300 B.C. this climate-driven environmental abundance started to decline, and most humans began<br />
leaving the increasingly arid region.<br />
“Around 5,500 to 6,000 years ago the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian Sahara became so dry that nobody could survive there.” Said<br />
Stefan Kröpelin, a geoarchaeologist at the University <strong>of</strong> Cologne in Germany and study co-author. . . .<br />
Among their findings, the researchers provide further evidence that the human exodus from the desert about 5,000<br />
years ago is what laid the foundation for the first pharaoh’s rule . . .<br />
David Phillipson, a pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> African archaeology, directs the Museum <strong>of</strong> Archaeology and Anthropology at<br />
the University <strong>of</strong> Cambridge in England . . .<br />
“As the Sahara dried and became less suited and eventually unsuited to habitation, people ultimately had to move<br />
out, whether it be southward or to the east into the Nile Valley,” Phillipson said.<br />
“And this [study] helps [us] to understand the apparent rather sudden development <strong>of</strong> intensive settlement by