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21.01.2018 Feature Article

Africa & Great Heads Across The World: Why It Cannot Be

Africa  Great Heads Across The World: Why It Cannot Be
21.01.2018 LISTEN

In a series of papers it has been my intention to try to show that our ancestors were rather more in touch across the world by sea than is generally accepted with an emphasis on the African element in this. In them is a constant feature. The feature that most frequently begins the articles is a section on why it isn’t so or it couldn’t be, meaning that my ultimate conclusion is totally a mistake.

Here a beginning is made with the largest of our continents, namely Asia. Stretching cross Asia from China to India are statues of the Buddha ranging widely in size from small figurines to those of enormous size. With the enormous statues will have come heads of equal size, this probably will have become obvious to the Taliban when displaying the kind of tolerance they usually exhibit for religions other than their own fanatical brand of Islam when blowing up the gigantic pair of Buddhas at Bamiyan (Afghanistan).

The style of the hair of most of the Buddhas has prompted much discussion. Suggestions include that what is represented are chakras (= blessings) or some kind of headgear. Among others are chank shells placed on the head. Also that what is shown here is that this some kind of headgear with snails having crawled on to the head of the Buddha to prevent heat affecting him according to Anamka (online). Jainism is taken as either as a part of Buddhism or as closely related to it and according to Jainsamaj site (online) the locks of Jains are the way they look because the hair is pulled out at the roots. The Penny Cyclopedia for Useful Knowledge was published between1833-1843 and tells us this explains the appearance of the hair on the heads of the Buddhas.

Some accounts of the religions beginning in India, Jainism is treated as a sect founded by Jina within Hinduism and/or Buddhism. On an admittedly brief reading, it seems the main differences between Jainism and Buddhism are that Jainism remained almost exclusively an Indian phenomenon, whereas Buddhism spread outside India (& today is hardly known there); Jains never proselytised but Buddhists became probably the first true missionaries; Jains were/are somewhat more ascetic than are Buddhists. Buddhist missionary activity was evidently pacific in nature and certainly more so than the point-of-sword conversions normal for the spread of Islam.

There are others explanations for the appearance of the hair of the Buddha. One of them is that put forward by Sharvasti Dhammika (The Buddha’s Hair online). The use of ghee (clarified butter) for cooking purposes by Indians is well known but that it could be used slicking down the hair is not nearly so famous. According to Dhammika (ib.), this would be responsible the appearance of the hair of Buddha.

If the several reasons just given for the look of the hair of the Buddhas were accepted, this would probably rule out direct African links. More direct at early dates would be the Out-of-Africa (= OOA) movement(s), the last of which are dated to 60,000 BCE. The southern or coastal route has been variously termed the Beachcomber, Oceanic Negro, Strandlooper, Ichthyophagi (= Fish-eaters), etc. Further marking the route are such as the sa-giggi of Sumeria (now mainly south Iraq); east African Kush as ex-Elam or Khuzestan (= Land of Blacks = southwest Persia/Iran); Gedrosia (= Land of Blacks in Greek = Gujarat in northwest India); the ancient Indian term of Varna (coloured; & note the “Coloured”/mixed-race concept of Apartheid Sth. Af.); west African Guinea echoed as the New Guinea as neighbour of Papua (= curly-haired? In Malay); Li-Min (= heads of blacks in Chinese, so parallels sa-giggi in Sumerian & moro in the much later Portuguese), Melanesia (= Islands of Blacks, esp. Fiji); more islands called Melanesia (Islands of Blacks); Blackfellas (an early Victorian label for the Aborigine or Koori of Australia).

What stands out is the mixing of populations en route, as further shown by genetics plus comparison of the Indian caste-system and South African Apartheid. This will mean that allowance has to be made for the appearance of the Buddhas arises from the still extant African-looking groups in India.

A famous sculpture from the period of the Assyrian Empire in western Asia is one from a place called Zinjirli (Turkey). On it are depicted three figures. In “The 6th Napatan Dynasty of Kush” Peggy Brooks-Bertram (in Egypt: Child of Africa ed. Ivan Van Sertima 1984) cites that the appearance of one of them is a mistake according to several very expert opinions.

Another piece of sculpture is carved on a rock near Medina (Saudi Arabia) and appears in photographs shown by Runoko Rashidi plus Wayne Chandler (in ed. Runoko Rashidi & Ivan Van Sertima 19 ). It is called Ishmael in that book. As a carving on rock, it is subject to the vagaries of the dating methods that apply to all rock-art. This in turn makes it difficult to place it in cultural terms.

Perhaps more straightforward would be the heads of the figure named Memnon. According to Martin Bernal (Volume II of Black Athena 1991), there are depictions of Memnon as a Caucasian from Thrace. Memnon enters Greek myth as early as the long epic poem called the Iliad by Homer of the 10th c. BCE (= Before Christian Era) on the reckoning of Bernal (ib.). Homer has Memnon leading soldiers to assist Troy against the invading Greeks.

Later Greek authors have it that that the troops under Memnon came towards Troy in west Anatolia (= most of modern Turkey) from the East. This is emphasised by Eos as the mother of Memnon and identified with Aurora as the rising dawn which further associates him with the rising sun and the east. Yet another name for this goddess as mother of Memnon is Cissia as the capital of Elam in what today is in southwest Persia/Iran. This capital of Elam was not only spelt as Cissia but also Susia, Susa, Shushan, etc. Further is that yet another Greek historian is Herodotus (circa [= ca.] 450 BCE) who refers to Susia as the city of Memnon. Diodorus Siculus (ca. 1st c. BCE Greek) describes Susia as the Memnonian. In this same light is Bernal (ib.) citing King Artaxerxes adding Memnon to his name to help legitimise Persian rule over the former Elam.

Connecting this with Iberia has some archaeological evidence in support. The Iberian Peninsula (= Spain & Portugal) is in the southwest of Europe, so is in the corner of Europe opposite to that of Greece in the Balkan Peninsula in the southeast of Europe. Efforts at trying to associate this with further north in west Europe runs into the difficulty that this brings it into the sphere of what have been called Africa-centred/Afrocentric opinions. This Afrocentric viewpoint has in turn prompted considerable criticism that is frequently extremely vitriolic.

However, that criticism is as nothing when compared with that levied against Afrocentricism when applied to anywhere in the Americas. This is particularly true of this being linked to that civilisation called the mother-culture of Mesoamerica that is the Olmec Culture (ca. 1500/500 BCE) of mainly south Mexico. Leading the charge in this case are two lengthy articles by experienced Americanists.

One of those articles is “They were not here before Columbus: Afrocentric diffusionism” by Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, Gabriel Haslip-Viera & Warren Barbour (Ethnohistory 1997). It very directly echoes the title of the book by Ivan Van Sertima that is “They Came Before Columbus” (1976). The other article is “Robbing Native American Cultures of their Heritage: Van Sertima’s Afrocentricity and the Olmecs” by the same three authors but this time in the order of Haslip-Viera, de Montellano and Barbour (Current Anthropology = C/A 1997) that again levels heavy guns against the school of Van Sertima and his fellow Afrocentrics.

What brings the Olmecs into contention here are the object that are by far their best known artifacts. These are the spheres of basalt that were converted into the famous Colossal or Great Heads. If there are numerous efforts at explaining how the heads of Buddhas take on their present appearance, even more are to be seen as having been applied to these Olmec Great Heads.

This is not be seen as encyclopaedic in any way but among them are those listed in “West Africa & the Atlantic in Antiquity”. Thus (a) errors; (b) fortuitous coincidence (c) intended “baby-faces”; (d) depiction of “were-cats/jaguars” (= shamans turning into jaguars); (e) depiction of congenital diseases; (f) depiction of genetic throwbacks; (g) the spheres of basalt were too hard to sculpt; (h) that the sculptors had to carve in a certain way to avoid fractures; (i) depiction of players with helmets of the ball-game of the Olmec-to-Mayan sequence in Mesoamerica; (j) depiction of deities.

Our trio of authors also very firmly wrote that the epicanthic fold of the eye that characterises the faces of Olmec Great Heads does appear in Africa. Another Olmec Great-Head feature is that of the braided hair of Great Head No. 2 at Tres Zapotes (Mexico) is something else that is not known in Africa according to a categorical statement by these same three writers.

There are studies of Olmec skeletons by Andrej Weircinski (An anthropological study on the origin of the Olmecs 1972) that would do much to confirm an Afrocentric linkage but this is dismissed by Pete Rostum as “Olmec skeletons, no just bad science” (online). The terracotta statuettes of the collection amassed by Alexander Von Wuthenau (Unexpected Faces in Ancient America 1980) would help the corroboration but are dismissed as little more than fakes by messrs. de Montellano, Haslip-Viera and Barbour (ib).

Why It can be: Asia.
It has been seen there are numerous efforts at telling us why the heads of figures sculptures stretching the length of the continent of Asia look they the way do. Undoubtedly, the most impressive are the giant statues of Buddha. Of the “explanations”, one of the least convincing must surely be that of the “volunteer” snails crawling on to the head of sweaty holy men. If anything, this sounds like a joke. We must also wonder at the description of Jains pulling hair out at the roots being matched by those carving the early statues of Buddha. It seems there is some uncertainty as to the actual status of Jainism.

Some of the reasons put forward for the earliest Buddhas looking the way they are have not been touched on. From various online articles about early Buddhism we learn that images of the Buddha were banned by himself in his own lifetime but yes there were images of him were made when he was still alive. Also that these images arose from the interaction of the Greek-ruled parts of northwest India and native tradition leading to the Gandhara style or the images began as the Mathura style and that the Greco/Indian school came to influence the subsequent development of Buddha statues. In short, even the experts do not know how things emerged.

In some histories of religions having begun in India, Jainism is treated as a separate religion founded by someone called Jina. Equally it seems elsewhere, Jainism was regarded as a sect of Hinduism or of Buddhism. The close relationship of Jainism and Buddhism is such that the Jains are to be seen as a particularly ascetic sect that would appear to emerge from an admittedly brief reading of the written comparisons to somewhat contrast with the benign nature of Buddhism. This seems reflected in the look of the statues of Buddha. The spread of the syncretised Buddhist/Hindu faith to the islands of southeast Asia (=ISEA) led to the term of Indianised islands (= Indonesia). A further reflection of this seems to be in the term of Indo-China with the pacific aspects of this missionary activity rather contrasting with the point-of-sword conversions normal for the early spread of Islam.

Some brief reference has been made to the Oceanic Negro and subsequent merging to produce an evolving population but there is good evidence this is not confined to a past of no later than ca. 60,000 BCE. In such sources as William Gillespie (The Land of Sinim: China & the Chinese missions 1854); Alexander Hislop (The Two Babylons 1858) plus others, we find mention of a south Chinese form of Buddha called Wat-Yune who is described both as Negro and linked to dragon-boat racing. The online sites of the Balson Holdings and the Magic Box contain folkloric accounts of giant African canoes reaching as far as Fiji already seen as part of Melanesia meaning Islands of Blacks.

For Gerald Massey (The Book of the Beginnings 1881 & 2007), there are several Egyptian nautical terms spread across the Indian Ocean. There has been a lot of recent discussion about the sea-going vessels called kunlunpo in China and kolandiophuntia in India with an apparent meaning of Ships of the Blacks. By India here is meant the “Greater” India of Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka plus Pakistan. A god with a name has been traced across the Indian Ocean from east Africa to India under the various spellings of Murungu, Mulungu, Murugan across several ethniae of southern Africa and as Murukan/Murugan in India by messrs. Parrinder (Traditional African Religions 1956 ), U. P. & S. Uphadayaya (Dravidian & Negro-African: Ethnic & Linguistic Affinities online).

Both in east Africa and India, he is linked to mountain-tops, as young men, phallus/linga facets, etc. Also given east African sources is Osiris. He is seems have begun as a black log that then evolved over time into the black giant easily best known as an Egyptian deity. To the giant Buddhas can be added those of the Jina names called Bahubali plus that of Hindu Juggernath. The latter is better known by the term of Juggernaut as the term applied to huge lorries and would appear to have begun an aspect of the Hindu deity called Krishna.

Juggernath again began life as a black log and he too became a black giant deity. The African connection is maintained by Krishna that means black/very dark in the Sanskrit language of ancient India. Krishna is a member of the Hindu trinity and another is Shiva. Images of both Krishna plus Shiva range from black to blue-black. The ecstatic state induced by religious ceremonies is well known and so too is the bronze figurine of an African female dancer from Mohenjo-daro (India). We have before us the batuka dance traced by Peter Marsh (Lapita Pottery & the Polynesians online) from Cape Verde in west Africa to Melanesia in the Pacific. Among many other instances are dances of Zulus in southern Africa and those of Fiji compared by Dennis Montgomery (Seashore Man & African Eve 2005).

Despite the apparent survival of large numbers of groups retaining the African phenotype but showing mixed genetics, it will be obvious that a later Africa is also at work here. In similar vein will be recognition that the Africans that were part of the OOA movements may have spread towards Asia but did not take writing with them and with Afrasan languages began in Africa, it should have interest the Afrasan language called Geez (now mainly the sacred language of Ethiopia) was of great help for Henry Rawlinson when translating the trilingual Behistoun (Iran) inscription.

An article by Iraj Bashiri (Shamans or Muslims: Blacks in the Persian Gulf online) shows yet more African influence via the supernatural/spirit-realm. He plumps for the African element arriving there only as late and as slaves but there seems to be no valid why this cannot have been somewhat earlier. This would accord with the close match of the head of a Nuba chief from Kenya shown by Ivan Van Sertima (Early America Revisited 1998) and the Medina head already seen to have been the name of Ishmael.

Another head seen to have given expert opinions some problems was that of one of the figures carved on the Zinjirli stele. According to the Old Testament, Jerusalem was saved from an Assyrian attack because Jehovah sent a plague to decimate the Assyrian army but Henry Aubin (The Rescue of Jerusalem 701 BC: The Alliance of Hebrews & Africans 2002) says the real reason was an Assyrian retreat in from another army. Aubin (ib.) convincingly shows that the army led towards Jerusalem was from Egypt when it was ruled by Pharoahs from Kush (= Nubia = north Sudan). This Kusho/Nubian army was led by Taharquo who according to a variety of Jewish, Greek, Arab, etc, writers had a considerable reputation.

Brooks-Bertram (ib.) describes several ferocious battles in Egypt that actually did rout the Assyrian invaders of Egypt but eventually, the Assyrians defeated the Kushite-led enemy. This victory was so important to the Assyrians that they set up four stelae to record it in different parts of the Assyrian Empire and the Zinjirli stele was one of them. It is also to be observed that the King of Assyria was a god on earth; such a mistake would be an insult to the king and an insult to his god. Given this background, any sculptural mistake would not be tolerated and the sculptor could expect an abrupt termination of his career, with his execution being atonement for any perceived insult.

Arthur Weigall was once a prominent Egyptologist and a prolific writer. He is quoted by from his many works as describing the rule of Egypt by William Dubois (The Negro 1915). Weigall referred to this rule by African Pharoahs from Kush or Nubia as “an epoch of nigger domination”. Somewhat more subtle would have been the time when the rediscovery of Egyptian antiquities led to a reassessment of the status of a people themselves called niggers. The lucky old ancient Egyptians suddenly found themselves raised to the status of darker members of the “Great White Race”. This is also the context of the emergence of the detaching of the Kushites from “the Niggers” and to be placed among the Hamito/Semites, as Negroes just could not be allowed to be or conceived of as participants in any civilisation and certainly not that of the splendid Egypt.

Here is the background of the “mistake” by the Zinjirli sculptor. Yet even here there is a curious lack of consistency. The third figure is that of a Kushite who is then seen as differing from other sculptures that Brooks-Bertram’s experts readily and accurately regard as Kushite Africans and which fall into the same category as our third figure. In any case, recognition that our third figure was a captured son of Taharquo makes this very simple.

Why it can be: Europe
The oldest known man-made artifacts are generally accepted as the African pebble-tools named as Olduwan (Tanzanian) from the excavations in those of the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). This fits with the inhabitants of southern Africa from this time being thought to still be attested by the groups covered by numerous terms but put here under the umbrella label of the Khwe.

Red-ochre paint has been found at Late Olduwan-period caves of southern plus east Africa.. However, easily the best known feature connected with the Khwe human form is what Akiro Kato (Palaeolithic Age: Sticking-out Buttocks online) called the sticking-out buttocks. This is particularly associated with Khwe females with easily the most famous being the so-called Hottentot Venus more properly named Saartje Baartman, as shown by Rachel Holmes (The Hottentot Venus: The Life & Times of Saartje Baartman 2007). Another famous example is Queen Ati, the wife of Perahu (King of Punt acc. to the reliefs of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, Egypt).

What we have seen are called the OOA movements appear to be marked by a residual element that been called the Akkas or Accas in Egypt. On the opposite side of north Africa is Tan-Tan (Morocco). Here is an African site showing an evolved form of the Olduwan Culture called the Aechulian Culture. A find getting a lot of attention here is a specimen of the objects otherwise called Venuses. The Tan-Tan Venus seemingly shares use of red paint with the Khwe-area cave-burials thousands of miles to the south and differentiation of body parts with a Venus from thousands of miles to the east at Berekhat Ram (Israel).

An African origin for the Aechulian and that the Olduwan chopping-tool evolves into Aechulian hand-axe or amygdale. This gives what is technically termed a rostro-carinated or roughly banjo shape and related by Pietro Gaiello (The origin of the decorative arts is in the Aechulian online) to the Venus shape. The same basic shape for tools is traced to Wilcycze (Poland) by Jan Fiedorezekuti et al (Antiquity 2007), the Asturian Culture by Jean Maury (The Asturian in Portugal 1977), Cushendun (Ireland) by Hallam Movius (The Irish Stone Age 1940), etc.

Easily the most famous specimen of these Palaeolithic Venuses is that from Willendorf (Austria). It displays the tightly-coiled curls that became artistic conventions for depicting African hair for thousands of years to come. With Willendorf plus the Balza Rossi (= Red Rocks) sites of north Italy, we are in the later Upper Palaeolithic in Europe. When it is realised that Balza Rossi is but another name for the Grimaldi caves with is near-totally accepted Africoid population, the connection with Africans is maintained.

A superb example of whether the tightly-coiled hair is to be associated with Africans and whether they are always are to be regarded as belonging to so early a period are the descriptions of Memnon. There are images of Buddha (in the Gandhara style) and Memnon (German opinion cited by Bernal ib.) as European/near-European. We have also seen the several Asian placenames evidently relating to Kush plus the mentions of Memnon coming towards Troy from the east (i.e. from Asia), so would rule out my proposed African sources.

Or does it? The confused situation pertaining to Jina and Buddha has been discussed and so we come back to Memnon and Kush. The scribes of Egypt, Assyria, Israel plus Greece had good reason to know where Kush was and they invariably put it south of Egypt. As to the names of Eos, Cissia/Kissia, Aurora, etc, put forward as naming Memnon’s mother, Cheikh Anta Diop (The African Origins of Civilisation 1984) long ago pointed to Cisse as prominent in African names. The more so given that it is borne by famous footballers from west Africa currently playing in Europe. Cisse/Sisse was also the name of the Soninke clan that went on to establish the Wakor/Ghana Empire in west Africa. Sese was also the name of the chief god of the Buganda of east Africa. Moustafa Gadalla (Exiled Egyptians 1999) says sisse means noble in Egyptian.

The occurrence of Memnon as part-naming Agamemnon (= Great Memnon) said by Homer to have led the Greeks against Troy no more proves that Memnon was Greek than does Memnon also part-naming Artaxerxes proves Memnon was Persian. Likewise, the Lung citation (as Bernal ib.) of a few examples showing Memnon as white is compared by Bernal with that of Orpheus as a Greek despite being surrounded by Thracians and being universally recognised as a Thracian.

In any case, the Greek writers consistently describe in a manner recalling the numerous John Moores photographs that “Buddha was Black” (online). The Memnon sculptures showing him as white are few in number, whereas those depicting him as black do so in a manner directly echoing that already seen in Europe from millennia ago. The latter return us to the black skins, thick lips, snub noses, tightly-coiled hair, etc, typical of most Africans and expressed in artistic conventions over millennia.

A major factor for denying an African connection with giant statues in that there is no tradition there of giants in stone. One instance of giants and African stone monuments is that of the Wardai of Kenya. Paul Tablino (Google extract from the Gabra: Camel Nomads of North Kenya 2005) wrote that megalithic graves were so large and wells were dug so deep that they could only have been worked by giants. The small mountain at Jebel Barkal (= Holy Mountain, Sudan) was seen as a giant human wearing an example of what in Egypt was called the Hedjet (= White Crown) in Egypt. That the Hedjet was decidedly Pre-Dynastic in date is clearly proven by incense-burner found at Qustul (Egypt). The association of the Hedjet with Amun presumably indicates the Amun cult began around Jebel Barkal.

Unless the absurd view that Egypt is not part of Africa is followed, the statues of Egypt have also to be taken into consideration. Among them are numerous giant statues of Pharoahs. The head of one is now in the British Museum in London. It was seen as that of Memnon at one time but is now regarded as that of Ramesses II. Another Egyptian head is that of the Great Sphinx at Giza. Here once again is a truly Great Head but one that is out of scale relative to the rest of the monument. Quite apart from the several efforts to backdate the Great Sphinx, this “wrong” size has been suggested that it was not the original. However, our interest has to be the Volney comments, Denon drawings, those of Domingo, the Willard photographs, etc. They all agree the face of the Great is that of an African.

On the far side of Africa and way to the south is Wemingizimu Umlindi. The name is fully a Bantu one and is the Bantu name for what is otherwise called Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town Harbour (South Africa). In several of my other papers, the suggestion that the Bantu were probably in parts of southern Africa long before convention allows them to be and that this includes the Table Bay/Harbour region of western South Africa. Umlindi’s main claim to be here is that he too represents a myth of a giant turned to stone.

Expression of this as heads occur as such as the title of Great Head as a title of the former rulers of Edoland/Benin (Nigeria), Zuma Rock at Abuja (Nigeria), Blo Degbo at Paynestown (near Monrovia, Liberia), etc. There are good photographs of the face at Zuma Rock posted on Wikipedia articles dealing with Abuja plus Zuma. Carl Christian (History of the Gold Coast & Ashantee 1895) showed migrants coming by sea to what is now Ghana were turned to and involved giants. Rather less distinct is the face seen at Blo Degbo shown by Kenneth Best (Cultural Policy in Liberia 1974 & online).

By far the best known specimen of an African giant in stone is Atlas. From Umlindi in western South Africa to Atlas in Morocco, share giants being turned to stone, this occurring via the agency of a female, being observable from the sea. In Umlindi was so turned by a goddess and Atlas was turned by Perseus pointing the head of the female named Medusa towards Atlas. Thus, the whole of the west African coast facing the Atlantic Ocean itself once called Oceanicus Aethipicus/Ethiopicus (= Sea of the Africans) is covered by such myths.

The scene involving Atlas, Perseus and Medusa would be later than that of Atlas plus Hercules that involved Hercules stealing the golden apples of the Hesperides. The Hesperides, Atlantides, Pleaides, etc, appear to be differing generic names for islands. The Hesperides has been severally seen as the Balearics off east Iberia, islands off northwest Africa (= Canaries), now-gone islands off west Iberia. Juno was closely linked with one of the islands making up what is now called the Canary Islands but also with one of the islands making up what was called Hesperia put off the west coast of Iberia. That this makes for confusion is hardly helped by the fact that the Gardens of the Hesperides were variously placed in “Libya” (= more or less the Magreb minus Egypt) or west Iberia.

Having just seen myths about giants stretch the entire length of Atlantic-west Africa, we now find yet another such myth takes us to the Atlantic-facing coasts of west Iberia. Here most of the Classical accounts have put Erytheia and see it as the place where Heracles/Hercules fought a giant called Geryon and cut off his head. Other Greco/Roman or Classical writers regard Hercules and Geryon battled at Tartessos (= southwest Iberia). Parades involving Gigantes (= giants) plus Cabezos (= Great Heads) appear widely in the Iberian Peninsula (= Spain & Portugal) and are given African sources by such as Graham Campbell-Dunn (The African Origins of Classical Civilisations 2005).

The cult of the severed head is widespread in Iron Age/Celtic Europe and from Tartessos (in west Andalusia) in the south to the Galician/Basques parts of the northwest in the north are easily the most the most Celticised parts of Iberia. Also in Galicia is Corunna with the nearby ancient Brigantion. The cut-off head of Geryon was buried under the Pharos (= lighthouse) at Brigantion according to Corunna tradition cited by the Wikipedia entry on Corunna. Here too the Basques stretching from northwest Iberia into southwest France have legends about giants that they label as Gentiliaks and/or Mauriaks. Gentiliaks clearly indicates gentiles in the obvious sense of outsiders and as to where these outsiders may be from seems shown by Mauriak. This is simply a version of the Mauri/Moors originating in and naming Mauritania, Mauretania (n.b. slight difference in spelling) in northwest Africa.

Taking this even further north on the coasts of Atlantic-facing Europe is a fight-scene recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th c. British). Here the Spanish Giant was killed and decapitated by the British “King” Arthur somewhere in Armorica/Brittany or Normandy in the northwest of what anciently was called Gaul but is now mainly the northwest of France.

Across the English Channel from Finisterre (= Land’s End) in Armorica or Brittany is the Land’s End district of Penwith in Cornwall (= southwest Britain/England). This Cornish Land’s End has had various names over the millennia. One of them is Belerion or Bolerion. This attests a giant named Beler/Boler. To my knowledge, Cornish folklore does not have too many myths about beheaded giants but to be borne in mind is that another resident of Land’s End was Jack the Giantkiller. Beheading giants was his speciality.

Ireland abounds with tales about giants called Fomoire Afraicc (= Fomoire from Africa) and Fomoire (= From the Sea). More myths about giants in Ireland are those turned to rock according to Daniel Donovan (Sketches in Carbury, County Cork: antiquities, history, legends & topography 1876). Among Fomoire kings were Tethba (of Mag Mor = Great Plain = Ireland) plus Balar (of Ire.). Monica Vasquez (Myth & Ritual between Ireland & Galicia online) has shown Lebor Gabala is genuine Celtic tradition. It tells of Lugh slaying and beheading Balar/Balor (his grandfather) who was buried at Carn Ui Neit (= Cairn of the Grandson of Neit [= Net, the Iberian war-god]) at Mizen Head (Cork).

Nor are myths about individuals turned to stone confined to rock-faces or mountains, as shown by those attaching to many of the Insular (= Brito-Irish) stone rings. Easily the most famous of these stone rings is a circle in west Britain with an African linkage shown by folklore noted by the British writer named Geoffrey of Monmouth. Whereas the Iberian connection for Celts in west Britain is shown by Tacitus (1st c. CE Roman) with this confirmed for Irish Celts by several Irish texts, most notably Lebor Gabala (= Book of Conquests) or Lebor Gabala Erenn (= Book of the Conquests of Ireland).

That most famous of British stone circles is of course, Stonehenge (Wiltshire), linked by Geoffrey to a story of Africans bringing stones to the British Isles and which eventually were set up on Salisbury Plain as Stonehenge. What is sometimes called the Scottish Stonehenge is the circle at Callanais or Callanish (on the island of Lewis). Gerald Massey (A Book of the Beginnings 2007) linked Stonehenge to “Ship of the World” myths, as did John Toland (17th c. Irish) with Callanais in the 17th c. Brian Sykes (Blood of the Isles 2007) shows that an African genetic strain at Stornoway (chief town of Lewis). Lewis folklore refers to Africans taking ship for points north and came to construct Callanais.

Africans called Fomoire and that kings of their line came via Iberia to Ireland and the Africo/Iberian linkage has some confirmation. Celts emerging in “Scythia” (= east Eur. for the first Greeks) then coming west across Europe according to Timagenes (1st c. BCE) compared in the Wikipedia entry on LG with the Gaels spreading to Ireland. They entered the Balkans, Anatolia and became mercenaries in Egypt. The Egyptian sojourn is followed by progress via Gaitulia (= Goethluigne) then Iberia plus Ireland according to Roderick O’Flaherty’s Ogygia (1693) plus LG respectively. It should be borne in mind that Gaitulia/Goethluigne above would be rather wider in Africa than the Algeria/Morocco generally accepted.

More signs of Africans in Ireland would be those Geoffrey says brought stones from Africa. The mythology has it that they were set up at Killare (= the Curragh? Kildare?) in Ireland. If the African giants called Fomoire had links via Balar at Mizen Head (west Cork) to Tory Island (Donegal) extend the length of the west coast of Ireland, they are far from being the only members of the Pre-Celtic pantheon that are relevant for us here.

Serge Plaza et al (Joining the Pillars of Hercules: mtDNA sequences show multidirectional flow in the Western Mediterranean online) shows a west African genetic strain bypassing Morocco but reaching Iberia. Such peninsular regions as Erytheia opposite Gadir (= Gades in Latin/Cadiz in Eng.); Galicia; Brittany/Normandy; Cornwall/Devon; west Munster (= s/west Ire.) are marked by dangerous seas plus cut-off heads. In papers of this series, Irish links for all but the first are shown. In the case of the giants at Land’s End in Cornwall plus at Mizen Head in west Munster, they are Beler/Balar-names marking the most southwesterly points of Britain and Ireland respectively.

Another such figure of the Pre-Celtic/Pre-Gaelic gods is Crom. He is closely associated with the largest Irish stone circle known in Irish as Rothana Cruimm Dubh (= Wheel/Ring of Black Crom). The name of Crom also attaches to another Irish stone circle, this time the Killycluggin (Cavan) circle. It is situated on Mag Slecht (= Plain of Prostrations) from the King, Queen plus people of Ireland prostrating themselves at this circle so important that the figure of no less than St. Patrick was invoked in the myth of it having been as having destroyed. Its Irish name was Crom Cruach (= Mound on the Hill) or Cenn Cruach (= Head of Crom). Clearly the head of Balar as one of the Africans called Fomoire connects with that of Black Crom.

Why it can be: the Americas
Whatever was said above about controversy regarding African traits taken outside African by Africans, it is as nothing compared with that pertaining to anything said about Africa-centred/Afrocentricism being applied to the Pre-Colombian Americas. However, there is a close similarity of Afrocentricism when applied to Egypt and that to the Americas.

Leading the charge against the African presence in Egypt is Mary Lefkowitz (Black Athena Revisited co-ed. with Guy Rogers1996; Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentricism became an excuse to teach myth as history 1997, etc). Both sides of the argument level the charge of racism against each other and in the case of Emily Vermeule (in Lefkowitz/Rogers ib.), the vitriol is raised to a high degree. Vermeule (ib.) was commenting on a 12th-Dynasty Pharoah bringing back the body of a dead Kushite king tied to the stem of his ship. She rhetorically asked is this normal for supposedly related peoples?

Peter Clayton (The Chronicles of the Pharoahs 1997) refers to seven Palestinians that were brought to Egypt tied to the ship of another 12th-Dynasty Pharoah. If a single dead Kushite can be stated to dismiss Kushite Africans being in Egypt, what then do seven dead Palestinians say about the relationship of Syro/Palestine and Egypt? In short, this is absurd. Rendering this even more so is that Egypt and Palestine as neighbours is mirrored by Egypt and Kush in Sudan and the dead Palestinians no more rules out Palestinians in Egypt than does a dead Kushite denies Kushite Africans being in Egypt.

A number of “reasons” were seen to have been suggested by some very expert opinions as to why the heads of what above were seen as an Africa-to-Asia sequence have the look they have. However, they are as nothing when looking at the “explanations” for the facial traits of the Olmec Great Heads. Something else that can probably be factored in here is a basic disbelief in the seaworthiness of African canoes by most authorities.

Some authorities have traced claimed Indian influences in Africa to as far as Senegal and that so many do appear not to have overland compeers, leads to suggestions they came by sea. In “Ancient India, West Africa & the Sea”, mention has been made to a seeming Indian raft-like type on the far side of the Atlantic from Africa and is capable of covering overseas distances equalling the shorter Atlantic routes between Africa and the Americas. A map by Fra Mauro (15th c.) shows a later Indian vessel as also reaching “The Green Isles” (Cape Verde Islands), so matches that re-created from a sculpture at Burobudur in Indonesia (= Indianised islands).

“The Canoes of Oceania 1936-8” by Alfred Haddon and James Hornell (1936-8) is still the standard work on the Austronesian-to-Polynesian sequence of canoes in the Pacific Ocean. This is despite many others contributing to the subject. Messrs. Haddon & Hornell (ib.) look for the western Pacific as having been settled by raft then canoe. Something like this raft-first/canoe-next taking Austronesians across the Indian Ocean arises from Pliny describing rati (= rafts) there. Also belonging here Austronesian traits fitting much the above-seen Indian pattern and the Indonesian ship called the Burobudur has also reached Ghana in west Africa.

The earliest traits said to have been brought by sea from the Indian Ocean to Atlantic-facing Africa belong a period when it seems rafts were in use. This means acceptance that these vessels were capable of circumnavigating ocean to ocean round the southernmost tip of Africa and what are regarded as especially dangerous seas that includes what was called the Skeleton Coast from the bleached bones of shipwrecked crews. These sea-craft are absolutely in no whit superior to the dugout-canoe standard in west Africa yet have not attracted anything like the opprobrium attaching to suggested African Pre-Columbian crossings of the Atlantic.

At the time of this being written, the earliest known water-craft of anywhere on the African continent is the dugout-canoe from Dufuna (Nigeria) on the apparent western edge of a once much greater Lake Chad itself prompting suggestions of large fleets of boats before the region dried out to become the Sahara. We may be sure that during the brief German rule in Southwest Africa (= Namibia), there was little regard for the natives that had been massacred to make way for would-be colonists. Therefore, it comes as a surprise just who the Germans chose for the ship-to-shore ferrying of these would-be settlers through the dangerous swell.

This is the swell that is on the Namibian shores that include the stretch seen to have been named the Skeleton Coast because it was so treacherous. The crews chosen for ship-to-shore duties were west Africans who had gained their expertise and experience in their dugout-canoes. This means Africans were ferrying the precious cargo of settlers through the dangerous swell to the colony of Swakopmund (Namibia) according to the Wikipedia article about Swakopmund.

Copper from Namibia (?), Angola plus the Congo seemingly was carried in the canoes of the Mahongwe/Mapongwe of Gabon up to Nigeria and Ghana (?). The Mahongwe were very proud of their canoe-building and gained the praise of a captain of the Royal Navy named Thomas Boteler (The Narrative of a Voyage to Africa & Arabia 1835). He wrote Mahongwe canoes were built for “speed, symmetry & solidity”. Richard Burton (Two Months in Gorilla-land & the Cataracts of the Congo 1876) followed this and was sufficiently impressed to suppose Mahongwe canoes could have crossed the Atlantic. Robert Smith (Journal of African History 1970) wrote of the return from Nigeria to Gabon going against prevailing currents yet this was being done in west African canoes.

The British also used west Africans to communicate with their inland depots through what we have seen as dangerous waters, especially Nigeria plus Ghana. The French did likewise on the coast of what was Dahomey/is now the Republic of Benin. James Hornell (Mariner’s Mirror 1928) described the monstrous fish brought home by the Krio/Kru people of mainly Liberia that were evidently normal events occurring in dugout-canoes. Michael Bradley (Dawn Voyage: The Black African Discovery of America 1991) cited Pacheco Pereira (16th c. Portuguese) saying west Africans were fishing up to “100 leagues” (= ca. 300 miles) out into the Atlantic. This approximates to from Senegal to the Cape Verde Islands. Wikipedia on “The History of the Cape Verde Islands says several Senegalese groups fished in the Cape Verdes.

Bradley (ib.) also reported on his tests in water-tanks on models of west African water-craft. Before he went to sea in the Ra vessels, Thor Heyerdahl (The Ra Voyages 1971) also undertook water-tank tests for papyrus/reed-vessels that were pooh-poohed because such vessels would sink when going to sea. The failure of Ra I plus that of Abora built for Dominique Gorlitz reported in many papers filing on an attempted west/east crossing of the Atlantic hardly helps the case of sea-going papyrus vessels. However, Ra II was successfully taken across the Atlantic and Eratosthenes (3rd c. BCE Egypto/Greek) long ago showed that Egyptian river-craft of papyrus were more than capable of surviving long-distance voyages on the Indian Ocean, so were not just sea-going but also ocean-going.

If the Dufuna dugout-canoe is correctly said to be of African mahogany and stands as a standard timber for the earliest African canoes, the replacement of it by what became the standard timber for most west African canoes has significance. Roger Blench (The intertwined history of the silk-cotton & baobab online) shows the replacement was the silk-cotton (= Ceiba). This would all be set aside on such as the claimed African fear of the sea, a lack of seaworthy vessels, efforts at reaching the Cape Verde Islands would be swept back to the shore, the sheer distance that Columbus says ruled out west Africans getting to the Americas before his day.

The Columbus comment about the distance is routinely trotted out but what is not so routinely followed is something else mentioned by Columbus. Homer (10th c? BCE Greek) saying Atlas “knew the depths of the sea” matches Al-Umari (14th c. Syrian) saying the Returned Captain reporting on an “undersea stream” (= somewhere nr. the South Equatorial Current?). We also have seen that Africans went hundreds of miles out to sea to fish, went even further between Senegal and the Cape Verdes. The Columbus comment not so often seen is that canoes going west of the Cape Verdes fully laden with goods to trade and only the open Atlantic in front of them. On the far side of the Atlantic, Columbus reported blacks in canoes were trading.

This was in the Caribbean islands and in Mesoamerica, the Mayan god of trade was Ekchuah evidently the Black One and depicted as black. Making this rather less theoretical is the voyage of Hannes Lindemann (Alone at Sea 1958). Despite not getting the kind of attention that the Brendan plus Ra voyages have achieved, Lindemann (ib.) successfully took a west African dugout-canoe over the Atlantic. He did so single-handed faster than did Amerigo de Vespucci over the same distance in a European ship in full rig. Relevant here is that the American silkwood became that of Africa. Jack Forbes (The American Discovery of Eur. 2007) shows Amerinds reached Europe but does not do so for Africa. This means the silkwood was brought to Africa by west Africans where it was a standard timber for canoes. This is added to the Malian Captain that al-Umari says found his way to home port.

Something written by Plato (5th/4th c. BCE) may connect with something said by Columbus. Catherine Acholonu (in the Before Adam series) compares the phrase in the Igbo/Ibo language of Nigeria of orichalu nkume (= precious stone/metal) with the alloys of various metals that Plato called orichalcum. Much wider in west Africa is the alloyed metal going under several spellings that is usually settled on guanin that sounds very like what was described by Plato. There is no belief here in the Atlantis myth but Plato’s alloy in Atlantic parts is interesting. The more so given the guanin mix of 18 parts gold, six of silver plus eight of copper was not confined to Atlantic-facing Africa but was matched in the Caribbean where Columbus recorded black traders, as proven by spearheads Columbus sent to Spain for analysis.

Something else that was widely traded in west Africa was the “Guinea” cloth called almaizor. Those wanting to emphasise Columbus on the distance between Atlantic-west Africa and the Caribbean islands and use it to dismiss Pre-Columbian Africans in the Americas rarely mention the “Guinea” cloth. It is not just Christopher Columbus who commented on almaizor. Among others was Hernan Cortez, Ferdinand Columbus. To comparisons of Mande masiti/masiri/masirili (= breach-cloth) and Mexican maxtli (same meaning) is added the identical use of this fabric for style, design and purpose. Further is the recorded use of strips of cloth in the way we now use strips of paper called cheques, banknotes, etc, in west Africa and Mexico.

Harold Lawrence (in African Presence in Early America ed. Ivan Van Sertima 1999) further cited Samuel Morrison & Mauricio Obregon (The Caribbean as Columbus saw it 1964) saying this shows west Africans and Indians “trading round the backside of the world” (whatever that is supposed to mean). When it comes to the distance between west Africa and Mesoamerica, Columbus is far from being the only past author writing in one place something contradicted elsewhere by the same writer but then the distance emphasised and how difficult the route is usually by writers that do not entertain a possible African presence in Mesoamerica under any circumstance.

When it is recalled just how many reasons have been put forward as to why there just were no Pre-Columbian west Africans in the Americas and can be added to. This comes mainly with what we might call the C/A-trio of messrs. Barbour, de Montellano plus Haslip-Viera (ib.). The extra reasons include braided hair lacking in Africa, no epicanthic fold of the eye known in Africa, Afrocentricism is very much of Black Americans, there was no concept of Great Heads in Africa, etc.

The traits listed in the first section of this article attest something also said of proposed African faces in Asia. This was especially true of the smallest figure depicted on the Zinjirli stele as an African because of a sculptural mistake but who turns out to be young son of Taharquo/Taharka and was a Kushite African. Our above-noted list of traits leading to dismissal of Pre-Columbians in Africans was also seen to include “errors” in the case of the Great Heads of the Olmec Culture of mainly the region of Mesoamerica now called south Mexico.

Staying with the Olmec Great Heads, the number of traits held to attest there were no Africans in Pre-Columbian Mexico actually outnumber those held to rule out the African presence in Pre-Buddhist/Buddhist Asia. What is to realised is that so many “explanations” are the clearest testimony that the “experts” are applying “informed speculation” to the subject. In short, use of guesswork and that they really do not know. The only really unifying factor in all this is that absolutely and under no circumstances is it to be allowed that Africans were ever in the Pre-Columbian Americas. In tandem with this is that Africans were only ever there as slaves and that this is Post-Columbian.

There are growing numbers of writers telling us that Indians or Chinese or Polynesians were responsible for the great civilisations of the Amerinds (= Native Americans = American Indians). This being so, it is surely legitimate to wonder why it is only west Africans that are deemed to be “Robbing Native Americans of their Heritage” in Pre-Hispanic/Pre-Columbian times.

As to the form of the Olmec Great Heads, one suggestion is that they result from “errors”. If so, they remained a remarkably consistent feature of the sculpture of the Olmecs. Here we also recall another sculpture that we saw was the subject of having been a sculptural mistake that (surprise, surprise) removes any need to consider any African connection as part of views there was no African influence on Asian sculpture that includes the giant Buddhas. Bringing this right back to our theme here is that the figure concerned turns out to be a younger son of an African Pharoah of the Kushite 26th Dynasty named Taharka/Taharquo.

If the Olmecs are the “mother”-culture of Mesoamerica, it means some of the traits of the Olmec-to-later sequence championed by Douglas Peck (Yucatan: Prehistory to the Great Maya Revolt 2005; Origin & Diffusion of Maya Civilisation 2007) plus others are difficult to date. This mainly means the Maya but can also denote the Izapan Culture. The series of carved stones at Izapa (Mex.) are its best known feature and the most famous of these is No 5. The scene is of events aboard a vessel, as shown by conjoined spirals that are an international convention showing rolling waves. The other major feature is a form of the Tree of Life generally identified as the Ceiba already seen to have good African links (again via sea-craft).

Just how hard it is to date the origin of particular myths was just seen. The Tree of Life is one example. Clyde Winters (Atlantis in Mexico 2005) regarded that carved on Izapa No.5 further depicted 12 roots plus seven branches. Winters (ib.) related the roots to the 12 roads through the sea referred to by Diego de Landa (16th c. Spanish) and the seven branches to ships said by Ixtloxchitl (18th c. Mexican) to have landed crews at Panotla (Mexico). They have been related to Kukulkan (= the Flying-snake god of the Maya).

The explanation of Olmec Great Heads as were-cats/jaguars takes us to the Winters (ib.) sub-division of Izapa-5 into two cult-scenes. One he saw as that of an amatigi (cult-leader) initiating a new member into a Malian-type nama-tigi (= humano/feline cult). The amatigi holds a writing-stylus and seems to attest the tightly-coiled already noted as a worldwide convention for portraying Africans. The other cult-scene was seen as that of an initiate coming into a nama-tigi (= humano/avian cult) again echoing that of the Mande in Mali. Frederick Wicker (Egypt & the Mountains of the Moon 1991) sought an origin in nest-like/twig stiffeners for the long conical “hats”/crowns that Diop (ib.) traced across Africa from Kush/Egypt to Mali and Winters (ib.) to the head of the nama-tigi on Izapa-5.

Among other reasons put forward for the look of the Olmec Great Heads are that being of basalt, they were too difficult to sculpt and/or were carved in the way they were to avoid fractures. Great Heads at Ixmal (Mex.) plus Chalcatzingo (Mex.) are set in a wall and part of rock-art respectively, so their look will not owe anything to the needs attendant on carving freestanding statues. In any case, there the figurines in the collection of Alexander Von Wuthenau (Unexpected Faces in Ancient America 1980) would appear to confirm the African affinities of the Great Heads were it not that our C/A trio dismiss them a fakes. My own comments on this are in “West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity” (online) and see below too.

Other suggestions are that the Great Heads are but the helmeted heads of Olmec ball-game players and there cannot have been any west African connection because the Great-Head concept is unknown in Africa. In a series of online pictorial comparisons, Winters shows the faces of the Great Heads and those of other local Amerind carvings are unalike. Nor are Great-Head faces and those of Amerinds near the Olmec heartland very similar to each other. There is unlikely to be studies in one volume on the ball-game more thorough than “The Sport of Life & Death: The Mesoamerican Ball-game ed. Michael Whittington 2001). Its dozens of images attest players wearing helmets but there is very little similarity to the helmets of the Olmec Great Heads but Winters plus others confirm there are good matches on many counts shown by depictions of Kushite military of early 1st millennium BCE.

This fully answers whether the Great-Head concept is known in Africa, unless Egypt is treated as not being part of the continent it is part of. Africa provides the enormous statues Egyptian Pharoahs; the giants turned to stone at Jebel Barkal, Umlindi (= Table Mountain), Atlas, etc. Elsewhere in Africa, there are the heads of a statue once held to be Memnon but is Ramesses II; a head felt to be too small relative to the rest of the Great Sphinx, so may show it is multi-period; heads of prisoners-of-war carved on panels at Tanis (Eg.); the heads only on rock-faces at Abuja (Nig.) and Paynestown (Lib.).

Another of the added reasons of why an African presence just cannot have been in Pre-Hispanic/Pre-Columbian Americas was that this is based on claims made by American blacks. It seems this ignores something that goes back to the early days of the unearthing of Great Heads. The first was reported by Jose Melgar in the later 19th c. but undoubtedly the most influential from these pioneering days was Matthew Stirling mainly during the 1940s. Neither Melgar nor Stirling was in any way Black Americans yet both claimed the heads they were describing were those of African Negroes. Stirling had an interesting career having done fieldwork in southeast Asia before specialising in that of around the Gulf of Mexico.

This will mean that Stirling would have been in a very good position to recognise any Asian traits shown by the Olmec Great Heads whether as direct from any part of Asia or from the pioneering ancestors also having come from Asia. Yet as said, he regarded some Great Heads as showing Negro affinities.

Among other reasons put forward as to why the Great Heads could not portray Africans is the absence of braided hair in Africa. This comes directly from the C/A trio. It surely ill behoves Americanists to be so strident about Afrocentric “errors” being so wrong when on a path that includes past methods of dating from the depth of bird-dung to ridicule of Stirling when he said (a) the Olmecs antedated the Maya; (b) some Olmec Great Heads look African. Such writers as the author of Egyptian Type, Egyptian Hues (online), Ewoki Kenyatta (Locks online), Ivan Van Sertima (Early America Revisited ib.), etc, show it as both very ancient and widespread in Africa. Van Sertima (ib.) is among those bringing the Great Head that is Tres Zapotes 2 with its obvious braided locks to our attention.

What the C/A trio further deem to be another Afrocentric mistake is to emphasise the epicanthic fold of the eye giving what has been called the Chinese or slitty fold of the eye occurring on some Great Heads. This is because our three experts state very clearly, the epicanthic fold does not appear in Africa. Yellowish skin plus epicanthic fold were once held to attest “Chinese” influence on the Khwe groups of across southern Africa. Related people(s) named the Accas/Akkas in Egypt would have prompted the similar views noted by Eugen Strouhal (Journal of African History 1973). If the Accas existed, more probable is that they represent remnants of OOA movements. Evan Hadingham (Ancient Chinese Explorers online) notes the eye-fold in islands off Kenya and Van Sertima (1992 & 1998) cites messrs. Meek, Seligman and Evans-Pritchard saying the same of Sudan across Africa to Nigeria.

Something else that was said by our trio of expert Americanists is lacking in Africa is braided locks. Such writers as the author of Egyptian Types, Egyptian Hues (online), Ewoki Kenyatta (Locks online), Ivan Van Sertima Early America Revisited ib.), etc, attest braided hair are both ancient and widespread in Africa. Van Sertima (ib.) plus others draw our attention to the braided locks of the Olmec Great Head labelled Tres Zapotes (Mexico 2).

It seems that messrs Barbour, Haslip-Viera plus de Montellano are experienced and respected Americanists, so with them being so assiduous in spotting the deemed “errors” certain things emerge out of this. One is (a) that they can make such basic assumptions that are mistaken; (b) that such howling clangers do not appear to have prompted much in the way of adverse criticism from their esteemed colleagues.

However, very adverse criticism has been levelled at messrs Weircinski and Balabanova. They stand united on grounds of rocking the academic boat. This has prompted accusations of bad science. Svetlana Balabanova was accused not just of bad science but of faking results plus other adverse comments. As a police forensic scientist working in the German legal system providing crucial evidence, it can be expected that Balabanova’s bad science leads to appeals against conviction plus claims for compensation for wrongful conviction. The fact that this has not happened and is not happening speaks for itself. Weircinski’s work being ignored by the C/A trio plus his name on scientific papers alongside those of other scientists must surely indicate that he too was not such a duff scientist after all.

The Von Wuthenau figurines have also prompted the Ethnohistory trio to claim more fakery. To their not apparently not mentioning the Wiercinski studies (even if only to dismiss them), we add a further non-mention of the payment for thermoluminescence dates (=T/L-dates) to establish authenticity of the Von Wuthenau terracottas. This means there is no reference to the fact that Von Wuthenau plus staff of the Stevenhagen Museum (Mex.) paid for these T/L-tests. On the assumption they are fakes, this tells for several more German idiots that include Von Wuthenau and his umpteen years of collecting during which he had accumulated absolutely no expertise.

Moreover, the putative forgers will have needed to have acquired considerable expertise that ranges from the general to the particular. Of the particular would be the close parallels of the head of a young Yoruba women and a Von Wuthenau terracotta for headscarf, hoop earrings, facial markings, etc. Another example also from Nigeria would be the comparison how very peculiarly the eyes of some Igbo menhirs from the Cross River area of Nigeria made by Acholonu (ib.) with those of certain of the Von Wuthenau figurines. Nor can it be accepted that any analogous traits of the Great Heads and the figurines are just coincidence.

Not only do Olmec Great Heads plus the Von Wuthenau figurines share the African affinities but so too do some of the Olmec skeletons looked at by Weircinski. He revealed such traits the Early Olmec were ca. 15%, this reduced in the Late Olmec to ca. 5%. This is just what would be expected over the course of the years. Nor can it can it be that the Great Heads on take on their look because they are stone that turned black over time. Not only this not explain the flat noses, thick lips plus Negro-like hair that are classically artistic conventions expressing the African image worldwide, it provides absolutely no reason why African looks feature in much later times in mainly the same region.

The mural art seen to include images at Ixmal plus Chalcatzingo have added a scene at Cerro de Piedra (Mex.). Here a scene is of what seems to be an Amerind chief facing a Negro captive. The Negro seems once to have the hair that is common to most Africans and the scene seems to pictorially anticipate that of much later times further south reported by Vasco Balboa (as Van Sertima 1976) of blacks taken prisoner by Amerinds of what today is Panama. As to images in the region interpreted as of African appearance because of they had turned black in the course of time, this overlooks those of Ekchuah plus those on the walls of the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza (Mex.) that are black because they are painted black.

To what has been said about the African look of Olmec Great Heads not having the appearance because of the difficulties in converting a sphere of basalt into an Olmec Great are added not just those of mural art but also that the African image is fully repeated by the figurines collected by Von Wuthenau. Moreover, black giants figure in Mexican folktales of apparently Pre-Conquest date according to Nicholas Leon (cited by Van Sertima 1976). Moreover, the Weircinski report on skeletons from the Olmec site of Tlatilco (Mex.) as part of his more general study confirmed by research on Tlatilco skulls by Vargas Guadarrama (as Jordan in Van Sertima 1992).

Moreover, black giants figure in Mexican folktales according to Nicholas Leon (cited in by Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus 1976). More of the same is shown by Raymond Girard (online) in “The Esotericism of the Popol Vuh” (= The Book of Counsel = The Holy Book of the Quiche Maya”.

Not only does Keith Jordan (in African Presence in Early America ed. Van Sertima ib.) cite the work by messrs. Weircinski and Guadarrama on Olmec skeletons plus skulls respectively but also adds that to Tlatilco skeletal evidence are photographs of more figurines also found in the Tlatilco excavations shown by Van Sertima (1976). Jordan makes the surely valid comment that where skulls, skeletons more generally plus figurines combining at the same site to attest Africans as a minority makes it difficult to escape the conclusion they confirm Africans there.

Why?
Yet another inevitable conclusion seems to be not so much the way they were depicted so widely but why Africans were depicted so internationally. In most past religions deities appear to have been depicted as looming much larger than their human counterparts, especially when shown artistically. Expressions of this were seen to include statues of Buddha. It should be said not images of Buddha are statues and some are heads plus shoulders only. To these busts only are added that full representation can range from figurines to enormous statues but of all sizes, the African features are still manifest.

As “Africa underlies Egypt, so Egypt underlies Greece & Greece underlies Europe” is a constant theme of many authors. The transmission of this from Africa via Egypt to the Balkan Peninsula in southeast Europe and the islands of the east Mediterranean and especially affects the east Mediterranean islands of Cyprus plus Crete. Wendy Logue (Africans in Minoan & Theran Wall Paintings online) is among those feeling that at least the artistic evidence shows African Blacks were fully integrated into the social/religious set-up on the Aegean islands.

To what has been said about gigantic statues plus giant heads only in Africa is added the hints of body-length face-masks that expressed as full size indicate the concept of massive giants. The probable African origin of more face-masks but this time in Iberia were touched on above and appear to be integral parts of probably originally religious parades. They were seen to include Gigantes (= giants) and Cabezos (= Great Heads) and this mix of giants plus giant heads and the African connection was seen to continue in different ways alongside the Atlantic seaboard of west-facing Europe west facing Britain plus Ireland. Here they attest not just such ceremonial sites as stone rings but also decapitated giants appear to mark prominent landmarks visible from the sea.

Black Africa further figures in the spread of mythology to Egypt then Europe. Somewhere in his voluminous writings, the mythologist named Joseph Campbell was defined “folklore as the mythology of the common man”. Transmission of myth/folklore or any other intellectual “empires of the mind” frequently leave little in the way of archaeological traces. However, we can observe Anne Christie (Magic of the Pharoahs 2007) cited the Egyptian text called “Se-Osiris & the Sealed Letter” showing Ethiopians (= Africans) as part of the Egyptian Mystery System. Flora Lugard (A Tropical dependency 1906) says an analogous movement of Malian “Magicians” or religious in west Africa to Egypt is noted by the authors of the Tarikh es-Sudan (= The 16th c. History of the Sudan).

That magico/religious elements could be regarded as having covered thousands of miles of desert brings us to a comment made by Frederick Peterson (Prehistoric Mexico 1961) about “Magicians” crossing thousands of miles of seas. Lugard (ib.) was seen to attest that from west Africa across the trackless Saharan sands and Peterson (ib.) that from west Africa across the equally trackless Atlantic Ocean. It was already said that it is hard to know just when a particular myth first occurs but it seems introduction of African rites was being shown the Izapa-5 stele and continuation may also be shown elsewhere.

Some signs of continuation seemingly appear at the Temple of the Warriors where after a battle, presumed black allies of the Amerind victors are doing the sacrifices of the losers. Messrs. Morris, Charlot & Morris (The Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza 1931) describe the heads of those doing the sacrifices as Ethiopian. Here we can observe that from the first rediscovery of an Olmec Great Head to the heads of those doing the sacrifices at Chichen Itza the description by non-Africans is Ethiopians itself from one of the ancient Greek labels for Africans.

Here then is the context of the Africans abroad, namely in the role of the spread of what were originally African religio/cultic activities.

Harry Bourne (2010)
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