body-container-line-1
21.01.2018 Feature Article

Africa, Egypt & Prehistory: Fishing & Farming

Africa, Egypt  Prehistory: Fishing  Farming
21.01.2018 LISTEN

Somewhere in his many works, Basil Davidson once mentioned the trend of some authors to treat Egypt plus the Magreb (= north Africa west of Egypt) as extensions of southwest Asia, not as the most northerly parts of the continent of which they geographically belong to. On the other hand, the position of Egypt in northeast Africa and with Egypt incorporating Sinai that is more strictly of southwest Asia, influences from that direction are inevitable.

However, the fact is that Egypt is part of Africa with the Magreb (= Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania?) to its west and most of the rest of Africa to the south. By the rest of Africa is meant what is called Sub-Saharan/Black Africa by such as John Jackson (Introduction to African Civilisations [many editions]), Cheikh Anta Diop (the African Origin of Civilisation 1984), etc.

The once-verdant Magreb is now more or less the arid Sahara. That there were once mighty lakes plus rivers is proven by satellite and aerial photographs. The lakes are best known in the Greek legends as Lake Triton plus what archaeologists have termed Lake Mega-Chad. All that seems to be left of Triton are the marshy shotts of southern Tunisia and Lake Mega-Chad is now the much reduced Lake Chad. Otherwise, the Aqualithic defined by John Sutton (Journal of African History = JAH 1974; Antiquity 1977) is barely to be seen now most of the lakes are now dried-up playas and the rivers have mainly become the now-dry wadis.

On the northern edge of the Aqualithic/Magreb were/are such sites as Tin Tazarift (Algeria), Sefar (Algeria), Aounaret (Algeria), etc. Here are scenes depicted on rocks involving reed-built boats that were to become standard across the Magreb and Egypt. On the southwest of this same spread is the western edge of Lake Mega- Chad. On this western edge is Dufuna (Nigeria). Here was found a vessel of a type that was standard over most of west plus the rest of Black Africa. This was the dugout-canoe. Both types would have been used for fishing right across the Magreb. The importance of this would be presumably shown by such as the half-fish/half-man deity called Maa and traced right across the Magreb/Sahara by Clyde Winters (Atlantis in Mexico 2005). Also by another figure again at Sefar and this particular piece of rock-art has been labelled the Great Fish-god of Sefar.

Another line of evidence about what the Magreb/Sahara once was is that of migration. It can be assumed that the growing hyper-aridity that is now the hallmark of the Sahara is the major factor in this. The more so given that the name of the Sahara is probably from an Arabic word meaning desert. The origin-myths of several African ethniae speak of those of west Africa harking to the northeast, in east Africa to the northwest and some in Egypt to the west/southwest. If this broadly aims at the middle Sahara, it is unlikely to be very wide of the mark.

It can be expected that between the last of the phases marking the final stage of the Aqualithic and the onset of severe Saharanisation of circa (= ca.) 7000/6500 Before Present (= B.P.), that techniques of dry-land/dry-weather farming had emerged. This has been shown to have been taken as far west as the west Magreb plus Iberia (= Spain & Portugal) by Moustaffa Gadalla (The Essence of Hispania 2004) and far as east as Egypt and India by Roger Blench (The movement of cultivated plants between Africa & India in prehistory online). This again probably indicates a shared midpoint in the Sahara/Magreb.

The absence of rain in Egypt leads to the silt left by the Nile floods being absolutely vital for life in Egypt. This black silt has led to it being said Kemet is an Old-Egyptian word for Black Land (= more or less Eg. on either side of the Nile). Yet Kemet spelt in hieroglyphs followed more meaning people will indicate that Kemet also means the people of there too. The stomping of seeds in the Nile mud by farmers apparently led to one of many ancient terms used of Egypt. This one was of Melampodes (= Black-legs/feet). An ancient Greek playwright described the legs of Aegyptiads (= Egyptians) as black. Unless it is assumed that the scene given of Aegyptiads on a ship came aboard with legs still caked in Nile silt, it will be obvious that Egyptian blacks are being described. The more so given that black-silted legs would conflict with the implied pristine white of the Aegyptiad tunics.

It can be said this is in no wise an intended in-depth study but even just touching on aspects can bring us to another form of agriculture, as emerges from work by such as messrs. Lacroix (Africa in Antiquity 1998), Chami (the Unity of African Ancient History 2006) plus others. What is gleaned from internet studies of the Niger/Congo (= N/C)/Proto-Bantu (= P/B)/Bantu sequence is that it remains controversial. There is some agreement on emergent N/C tongues by ca. 15,000 BCE. Lacroix (ib.) citing Ajayi & Crowder saying the N-C/P-B ancestors came south as growers of yams plus palm-nuts not grains says this shows the Bantu had arrived in the south in the Late Stone Age not the Iron Age. Chami (ib.) summarises skeletal evidence from Bambandyanalo (Sth. Af.), Mapungubwe (Sth. Af.), etc, evidently telling for the same. Graham Campbell-Dunn (The African Origin of Maori 2007) would chronologically be saying much the same when arguing for P-B/Bantu sources for the famous click- sounds of the Khwe/San languages.

In “Genetics, Egypt & History: Interpreting Geographical Patterns of y Chromosome Variation”, Shomarka Keita (JAH 2005) remarked that several experts say the words for barley, wheat, sheep goat, etc, in Old-Egyptian are not from the Sumerian or Semitic tongues of west Asia or from languages of the Indo/European (= I/E) family. It may be significant there are African prototypes in the Nile Valley for the earliest hieroglyphs in Egypt. This will especially have meant that region straddling the present Sudan/Egypt border or what was called Ta-Seti/Kush in the ancient past. It will have to be borne in mind that strictly, Kush/Nubia tends to indicate what today is north Sudan and Ta-Seti to indicate south Egypt.

Livestock: Cats
Roger Blench also figures as co-editor of “The origins & developments of African livestock: Archaeology, genetics & ethnography edd. Blench & MacDonald 2000). Pre-cat forms of mobile rodenticide usually concerned members of Viverridae (= mongoose family) and/or Mustellidae (= weasel family).

In the circumstance of mankind turning from hunting/gathering economies forms of farming, cereals were grown and needed to be stored. These grain-stores attracted rats and/or mice and this in turn, got the attention of cats. Here too lie reasons why the change from the pre-cat rat-catchers. Primarily, cats do not get the blood-lust of mongooses or weasel-types when getting loose among poultry leading to almost complete slaughter of the unlucky birds.

The combination of cat, types of rat plus cereals is said to be proven excavations summarised by Felix Chami (ib.). They are further referred to by messrs. Bourne and Bourne (Felis domesticus: Where & When = Feline History Group Newsletter 2000).

The excavations by Chami plus his colleagues came from small islands off Tanzania and more cats on other small east African islands are shown as “The Cats of Lamu” by Jack Couffer (1997). Couffer (ib.) says they have thin bodies, long legs, large ears, whippy tails, etc. The east African tongues of Erythraic type had call-words of bis/bisat for cats according to Ahmed and Ibrahim Ali (The Black Celts 1991). The east African country now called Ethiopia was once called Abyssinia and Abyssinian is also the breed-name of a cat often shortened to Aby.

More bis/bos-words for cats are also part of west African languages of [olog]bosi in Ijaw, ologbo in Yoruba, ologbi in Igbo/Ibo, nwon-bo in Igala, etc. Bis/bisat also occurs in Uganda and bis/bisat has many variants to as far north as Egypt (inc. the goddess-name of Bas[t]). A portion of Kush was once called Miu/Mau which is held to have been an Egyptian word for cat. The Abyssinian plus Mau cat-breeds are said to be matched in Egyptian artworks, as are the Lamu-type traits listed by Couffer (ib.)

Just how important cats could be comes out from the laws of Hywel Dda (10th c. Welsh) plus the record of life of the Scottish island of Lewis by Martin Martin (18th c. Scot). They show is what can happen when the rat population is not kept down. Cats keeping numbers of rats down could mean the difference between a family surviving such extreme conditions as a drought or severe winter or not doing so.

Livestock: Dogs
Domestication of dogs long preceded that of cats. The more so if those wanting to take this back to the so-called Undifferentiated/Pariah/ur (=German for beginning) stage of ca. 50,000 B.P. are correct. Cats are proven by Excavations at Shillourokambos (Cyprus) at ca. 9500 B.P.; Ateokremnos (Cyprus) at ca. 9000; Jericho (Israel) at ca. 9000 (?) B.P.; possibly Hacilar (Anatolia = most of modern Turkey) ca. 7500/7000 B.P.

Another possible hint of the great age of canine domestication may be the close association of the early breed called Afranis with the above-noted people called the Khwe used here as an umbrella term for groups otherwise variously called San, Bushmen, Boskopoids, Capoids plus any number of other terms. They are not only the oldest of extant strand of humanity but are probably the oldest of hunter/gatherers.

At the ur-stage, the early hunters accompanied by dogs probably had not just a greater range of prey but it may even that the presence of a dog meant the difference between going home with a meal and not doing so. The events of the change from mainly hunting/gathering to mainly farming activities were very briefly mentioned a little above but it leads to the cliché that the dog is the hunter’s friend as the cat is the farmer’s friend. Given how farmers exploit the herding instincts of dogs, this is not entirely true but the sentiment can be readily understood.

However, domestication of dog and cat may be more similar than we might think. The dog-name of Basenji may incorporate the bas/bis/bos syllable seen for the cat right across Africa. Moreover, Basenji meaning “the dog of the village” in the Azande language of Sudan is matched by the term of Pariah in India and closely resembles the semi-symbiosis of cats also at Azande villages.

Dogs plus cats in semi-tamed state around the same village must have been exciting at times, as witness what is said by the excavator of Chanhu-daro (Pakistan). He found a clay-brick with the footprints dog chasing cat that he said shows the cat won the race. Mildred Kirk (The Everlasting Cat 1975) shows the Greeks of ca. 2500 B.P. so little understood the cat that cats were treated as small dogs.

A Wikipedia (online) article shows 14 modern breeds with the spritz/pricked-up ears of the wolf/wolf-like ancestor of most modern canine breeds. They include the Afranis plus Basenji breeds. The Basenji is sometimes called the Congo Hound and it remains possible the head of this dog provided the model for the head of the Egyptian god of the Underworld named Anubis.

On the other hand, Anubis is more frequently held to have the head of a jackal, more specifically that of the black-headed jackal. Even this maintains the African connection as this jackal is mainly of the Western (= Egyptian Desert) plus Eastern (= Kushite or Nubian) Deserts. Yet Anubis is also linked to what the Egyptians called Sopdet but which as Sirius is also the Dog Star. For some, Anubis is Sirius A and Isis is Sirius B. When Socrates (via his pupil named Plato) referred to what is generally thought to be Anubis, they refer the dog not the jackal of Egypt. In passing, we can observe there are also claims that that Anubis as the dog/jackal-headed guardian of the dead is also the model for the Great Sphinx as Guardian of dead Pharoahs.

It may be that it is worthy of attention that the dogs used by Egyptians for herding sheep have been the subject of comparison with sheepdogs well beyond Egypt. This most mainly means the bearded collie. It may be significant that between the breeds in Egypt and Europe stands the Magreb. Also notable is Winters (ib.) citing opinion that speakers of Proto-Mande languages came from the Magreb to west Africa and brought herd-dogs with them.

Livestock: Pigs
In “A history of pigs in Africa”, Roger Blench (Blench & MacDonald ib.) cites the tendency to attribute most of the earliest raising of pigs in much of Africa to the first Europeans in Africa, namely the Portuguese. According to Blench (ib.), there is a weighty case against the Portuguese having introduced pig-raising to Africa.

Blench (ib.) cites Pre-Blench writers for an African domestication of African pigs. Where pigs are dominant, elaborate rites are known. Probably, the best known are those of the Austronesians of mainly Mainland plus Island Southeast Asia (= ISEA) and the non-Austronesians of Papua/New Guinea. They are as complex as anything to do with horses in Kazakhstan/Mongolia or with cattle of the Pastoral Neolithic (=PN) of east Africa. Messrs. Murdoch (as Blench) and Blench (ib.) observe that ritual to do with pigs in east Africa indicate what is called cultural embedding has early dates attached to pig-raising in east Africa.

The Alis (ib.) plus Blench (ib.) observe pigs were used for treading seeds into soil almost as natural ploughs was known in east Africa plus Egypt. Somewhat exceptional is the claim by Lyall Watson that in Uganda pigs practiced what might almost be termed as proto-agriculture. He describes pigs eating plants down to a level that enables them to regrow. Watson (The Whole Hog 2005) says this is deliberate.

It seems the black pigs of east Africa came via the Nuba of Sudan, the savannah of north-central Africa to west African countries of Nigeria, Ghana plus Senegambia (= Senegal & Gambia), etc, and the Alis (ib.) state the Erythraean (= east African) door(fa) became the Magrebi ter/ter-ter calling pigs to food.

From the research by Blench, there are some surprises. The distances between ISEA and the Marquesas Islands in the Pacific and between the Marquesas as the theorised start-point of migration to such as New Zealand, Hawaii plus Easter Island can be immense. Apparently, the Austronesian-speaking Polynesians settled on the Marquesas islands took pigs with them to Hawaii. This shows transport of pigs by sea over long distances was not a problem and yet the Austronesians migrating west of ISEA do not appear to have brought pigs with them to Madagascar and the pigs kept by their Malagasy descendants originate in the African bush-pig.

Blench (ib.) also wrote that there is a raft of west African words to do with pigs completely unrelated to any Portuguese terminology and he springs a surprise. That surprise is to do with pigs in Senegambia. Blench (ib.) adds that these Senegambian pigs connect with those of the Canary Islands. This may yet have a bearing on recent research about African genes that are lacking in Morocco but occurring in Iberia in prehistory not slave-tied times. It may be pertinent that also in Iberia are yet more black pigs giving ham of such quality that it was extolled by Classical writers.

The pigs plus herding methods were compared by Blench from Egypt to Iberia. Marie Parsons (Pigs in Ancient Egypt online) points to Egyptian pig-rearing on what might be called an industrial scale. According to Egyptian texts, vast numbers of pigs were kept by Pharoahs, temples, nobles, etc. This is despite a supposed religious tabu against the eating of pork in ancient Egypt.

There may have been relatively little knowledge in ancient Egypt of prophylactic or preventative medicine but simple observation of the often fatal results of eating a certain type that goes off quickly in hot climates would have led to certain conclusions. Those conclusions given a religious veneer could be where the anti-pork bans still followed by Judaism, Islam plus Ethiopian Christianity today.

Egyptian myth has it that the Nile perch ate the penis of the dismembered Osiris that had been thrown into the Nile. This led to the banning of the eating of fish but there were whole Nile-based communities whose way of living by the catching plus selling of fish. The priests of Egypt were the upholders of Egyptian religion yet they too were seen to be among the groups that kept not just herds of pigs but large herds of pigs. There are few greater marks of the Egyptian belief-system than that of the Pyramids but well within the sight of them are the villages of the workers that built them. Excavations of them, have yielded pig-bones to the archaeologists. Clearly, someone was eating all that pig-meat.

Livestock: Sheep & Goat
The conventional wisdom long had it that the Neolithic of west Asia is the point of origin of the first farmers of west Europe. This has increasingly challenged since the 1960s. There is no valid reason why this same questioning should not equally apply to Africa.

Alfred Muzzolini (in Blench & MacDonald ib.) adverts to words in the Erythraic tongues of Omotic plus Cushitic type to do with sheep that match the 11,000/12,000 B.P. put forward for sheep/goat-raising in the Near East. In similar vein are words in languages of the Nilo/Saharan group by ca. 9000 B.P. This is part of a detailed argument for the domestication of Saharan wild sheep independently of what was happening elsewhere.

When philologists want to express words that they say once existed, describe them as ghost-words and prefix them with an asterisk or star. Roger Blench (in The Archaeology of Africa ed. Thurstan Shaw et al) gives an example in *bhodi. This was traced in the form of ba in several west African tongues by Winters (ib.).

Marianne Berghaus-Gerst (in Blench & MacDonald ib.) wrote that Magrebi sheep were the economic mainstay of Ancient Kush/Nubia. Having also seen the opinions cited by Keita (ib.) say the earliest words for goat, sheep, wheat, barley, etc, in ancient Egyptian are not from any language of Asia or Europe. Also that ovicaprines in north Africa west of Egypt can be seen as having been domesticated earlier before those of Egypt, the suggested background of transmission from the Magreb/Sahara becomes very interesting and now it seemingly includes Kush/Sudan plus Egypt.

Sheep and goats were seen to have been domesticated in the Near East at dates matching for what has been suggested for parts of Africa. This includes the west Asian sites in Iran plus Mesopotamia. Samuel Zurinsky (The Semites & Egypt online) points up the movement in and out of Egypt by shepherds between Sinai and somewhere called Goshen. The region that the Old Testament names as Goshen is generally placed in northeast Egypt. This probably means somewhere on the eastern of the Delta formed by the River Nile.

The sheepmen of Kush have been mentioned already and it was among them that Toby Wilkinson sought the “Genesis of the Pharoahs” (2003) that included what have been called Dynasties 00 plus 0. Flinders Petrie (The Making of Egypt 1939) added a Kushite/Nubian origin for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 12th plus 25th Dynasties. Wilkinson (ib.) has pointed out that each time, these Pharoahs not only turned their backs on what had been their place of origin but in some cases proved to be especially violent towards their original homeland.

Livestock: Donkeys
What might deemed as reinforcing what such as Zurinsky (ib.) has been cited as saying would be excavation of certain Pre-Dynastic settlements in Egypt. This most notably means those of the Buto/Maadi or Maadi/Buto Culture. As part of what was revealed were a particular house-type, copper (in ingots), bones of donkey, etc.

Buto was close to the Mediterranean coast of Egypt at the mouth of the Sebennytic arm of the Nile that gave good connections to both the Mediterranean plus other branches of the Nile itself the great highway of ancient Egypt. The houses at Buto and Maadi are of semi-subterranean form that has been compared with those of the Ghassul/Beersheba Culture of Palestine.

Maadi lay in the Wadi a-Tih on the routes from the copper-mines in the Sinai plus Wadi Ataqa but various online sites also state that trace-analysis prove there was also copper from Tell Feinan (Jordan). Other finds at Maadi included bones of donkey plus that variety of vetch called chickling long known as a favourite foodstuff of donkeys. This may tell for visions of trains of asses carrying copper in the manner of the much later Karum (= cartel) of Kultepe (= Kanes, Turkey) transporting copper from Anatolia/Turkey into Assyria.

Alternatively, a combination of sea plus land routes might be relevant. The maritime part chimes with the Eastern/Dynastic Race views recently revived in books by David Rohl plus contributors to the Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forum (= UMDF) writing under the UMDF-names of “Marduk” and “Essan”. They refer to Mesopotamian ships and Marduk/Essan state that aboard one of these U-framed ships were three figures. They were the Mesopotamian gods named Enki, Enlil plus a form of sphinx and all have the same face that may take us to the face of the Great Sphinx at Giza (Egypt) to complete the link.

This then would be the origin of the donkey in east Africa with a subsequent diffusion into the rest of Africa. Unfortunately for this theory, there is what is said by messrs. Blench (The history & spread of donkeys in Africa online; A history of donkeys, asses & mules in Blench/MacDonald ib), Fournier (as Hecht), Hecht (online), etc.

In particular there is Jeff Hecht reporting on the Fournier research testing donkey DNA in more than 50 countries. This established that “Donkey domestication began in east Africa”. This meant the specific domestication of Equus asinus somaliensis (= Somali wild ass) plus Equus asinus africanus (= Nubian wild ass).

The donkey may play a useful role in determining where Punt was. Punt is the place that Egypt saw as the homeland of its gods and people. A fuller discussion is in “Egypt & the Sea in Antiquity”, there it is seen there are two main claimants for being Punt. One is some part of west Arabia (esp. the Yemen) and the other is east Africa between Eritrea and the Horn of Africa (Somalia).

Of about the same date as the wild ass domesticated as the donkey in east Africa was the domestication of the dromedary (= single-humped camel) in the Arabian Peninsula. Also broadly coeval are such as tomb-reliefs that are the most cited Punt-related scenes at Deir el-Bahari (Egypt) and the Biblical description of famous visit by the Queen of Sheba to Israel. One very prominent aspect of both about which there is little written is the beast of burden. The beast of burden in any of the accounts relating to Punt is the donkey but the Bible tells of “Sheba” combine with reports to do with the trade along the “incense-route” of west Arabia leading northwards was camel-based.

Presumably, this is fully in keeping with the ass-eared Set. He is yet another of the animal-headed deities so important in Egyptian mythology. His main symbol seems to have been the pig but according to Ian Saunders (online) he was also “ass-eared & red-haired” Set. Ass-eared figures are known as far apart as Anatolia and Ireland. The proposed origin seems confirmed by Wilkinson (ib.) saying the sources of Set lie in the Kushite/Nubian Desert. This means the domestication of donkeys in east Africa fits with the southern ancestry just shown for the ass-eared Set.

Somewhat further west are the much-discussed “chariot/cart-routes” of the mid plus west Sahara. They especially attest chariots too light for carriage of heavy goods, so other animals are suggested for pre-camel days. Edward Bovill (The Golden Trade of the Moors 1976) argued for ox-trains and cites opinion that cattle are often more drought-tough than is often thought. Another possibility is the donkey just seen to have been domesticated in desert settings, the more so given that Charles Seligman (Egypt & Negro Africa 1936) could refer to ass-trains still leaving Siwa (west Egypt) for points Saharan .

Livestock: Horses
Of all the members of Equidae, it is the horse that gets most attention but the donkey was undoubtedly much more useful for the “man in the street” in Egypt. Domestication of the horse probably occurred somewhere on the vast plains between Mongolia/Kazakhstan in the east and Ukraine/Russia in the west with a probable emphasis on the eastern end. This is a long way from any part of Africa but as to when the horse reached Africa, this surprise, surprise, is mired in controversy.

A good example of the controversy may be the Buhen (Egypt) horse-burial that if of ca. 4500 B.P. would be the oldest of anywhere in Africa, as thought by Walter Emery (as cited by Bernal in). On the other hand, the burial of a horse at Buhen may be as late as the rule as that of the desert-dwellers from northwest of Egypt called the Hyksos.

Libyan desert-dwellers attempted conquest(s) of Egypt from the west. A notable example was that of Libyco/Berbers allied with groups called “Sea-Peoples”. Muzzolini (ib.) felt the repulse of combined Libyans plus Sea-Peoples did not materially affect the rest of the Magreb but of interest may be certain types of defences. Starting before the dispersal of the Sea-Peoples across the Mediterranean, this may structures to as far west as the Iberian coast. In parallel, the ksour (plural of kour) of the Tichitt Culture are also earlier than the repulse but ksour (= walled village) seemingly increase in a growing but unwanted notice by the Libyco/Berber horsemen turning their attention westwards.

Just what it was that that attracting this unwanted attention may also be what was providing the resources for the ksour-building. Commerce could be an answer but this is long before the accepted date for trans-Saharan trade and the chariots carved on Saharan supposedly showing the routes attest a vehicle far too light for carriage of heavy goods. However, such chariots may well indicate warriors providing protection for the merchant/traders.

The Saharan “chariot”-routes have two main runs. The most easterly has two sub-routes leading from Garama (= the Garamantian capital = Djerma/Jerma, Libya) and Tidamensi (= Ghadames = Cydamus, Libya) and on becoming one, led to Awgdouast (= Tegdouast, Mali) and the River Niger. The most western of these so-called chariot/cart-routes again bifurcates with one arm close to the Atlas foothills, another close to the River Lixos (now the Oued/Wadi Dra/Draa, Morocco) and when merged, lead towards Timbuctoo (Mali) and the Niger again.

Given that the best-known motif of the Saharan chariots is the “flying-gallop” that also occurs in the Aegeo/Greek art of Creto/Mycenaean type of the Late Bronze Age on the Aegean islands and the Greek mainland, it may be this was transmitted. This is the assumption behind the flying-gallop occurring as part of Saharan rock-art but the date of the Saharan flying-gallop is also put forward to as late as ca. 2500 B.P. Yet African examples of the flying-gallop are not confined to the Sahara or only to horses. The quadriga (= 4-horse chariot) may also be a factor here. Herodotus (ca. 2450 B.P. Greek) says the quadriga was introduced from the Sahara to Greece but if so, the date must be near that of the transmission of the flying-gallop motif, as it is mentioned by Homer dated by Bernal (ib.) to 3000 B.P.

From what is said by Herodotus about the Garamantes plus other Saharan ethniae, the Saharans were expert charioteers but so too were the Kushites. The abstract of the Bokonyi article on “Two horse skeletons from the Kurru cemetery in northern Sudan” shows two horses that were much larger than most others and Bokonyi (ib.) felt they were part of the team that drew the chariot of the king of Kush. We also know that Kushite horses were sent to the king of Assyria. Aubin (ib.) wrote that this was not only a magnificent gift but also that this had military significance

If messrs. Stecchini (article re. Hanno online) and Lacroix (ib.) are correct, a high standard of horse-breeding is also attested in west Africa. Livio Stecchini (ib.) was of the opinion that something attracted the attention of Phoenico/Punics, whether from Phoenicia (= Lebanon), from those settled at Carthage (= Puni in Latin). This especially means what are the Carthaginians for most but just seen as Punics for the Romans as led by Hanno of Carthage to what Stecchini (ib.) described as the great culture of Benin (Nigeria).

The reference to the Hypodromos Aethiopiae (= Racecourse of the Africans?) by Ptolemy (ca. 2000-1900 B.P.) was felt by Lacroix to relate to indicate what it was that attracted Phoenico/Punic attention. Lacroix (ib.) linked the “Racecourse” to the horse-breeding that Olfert Dapper (16th c. Dutch) wrote was of a high standard in southern Nigeria that on this basis was earlier than any European arrivals.

An aspect of slavery not often touched on is prior selectivity because of certain skills. Several hundreds of miles from any part of west Africa, the English/British knew the value of ridding Ireland of the anti-English bards and the griots were the main keepers of west African traditions and if the griot/djeli of a region was enslaved with him went the oral-history of his community. West African slaves with an expertise in rice-growing plus ironworking were the basis of those spheres in the Americas till the 19th c. Spanish records tell of Balboa having ships built by west African slaves on Pacific coasts. Closing this section is Hugh Thomas (The Slave Trade 2006) saying that yet another sphere of west African expertise is that of skilled horsemen.

Livestock: Cattle
There are now several dates for the early domestication of cattle put forward that cover much Africa. They include the Lukenya Hills by Charles Nelson (in a New York Times cited by Van Sertima in Blacks in Science 1993); Bir Kiseiba (Egypt), Nabta Playa (Egypt) by messrs Wendorf and Schild; sites in the mid-Magreb/Sahara by Muzzolini (ib.); sites in west Africa (esp. Mali).

The fact that they would lead to conclusions about separate domestication has prompted criticism. The Lukenya dates are thought to be much too early and may be unrelated to the Pastoral Neolithic (= PN) of east Africa. Those for the Bir Kiseiba/Nabta Playa plus related sites in deep southwest Egypt prompt questions about how the cattle were fed and watered when severe desertification was already underway? The Muzzolini theories relating to independent domestication of the Saharan auroch (= Bos mauritanicus) for it to become a strain of African the Sahara have come under severe criticism by Fekri Hassan (as in the same volume). The removal of these arguments tends to leave the Malian dates curiously isolated.

On the other, the Lukenya dates can be squared with traits of the PN that will be seen in other parts of East Africa. Frederick Wicker (Egypt and the Mountains of the Moon 1991) is one those showing the Ankole cattle of east Africa (esp. Uganda). Messrs. Yurco and Kusimba (in Africa in Egypt ed. Theodore Celenko 1996) are among those pointing up the specific detail of deliberate deforming of horns in east Africa. What is known as the “walking-larder” practice of living off the blood plus milk but not meat of cattle has long been known to typify the PN in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, etc. Erection of menhirs/standing-stones in ring fashion is known among the PN cattlemen. So too is not just naming cattle but pet-naming them too.

The pet-naming of cattle was further traced to Sudan in several works by Edward Evans-Pritchard. The feeding off the blood and milk of cattle but only rarely slaughtering them for food is also suggested by messrs. Wendorf & Schild (ib.) for their excavations in Egypt. They answer the problems of the feeding of the cattle by stating the food was brought in (as in Nabta Playa & its role Northeastern African Prehistory online & elsewhere). The water they prove was provided by deep walk-in wells tapping straight into underground aquifers. Wicker (ib.) shows how similar are the Ankole and depictions of Egyptian cattle and Yurco/Kusimba (ib.) attest yet more of the cattle with deformed horns pictured in Egypt. The raising of stone rings is also proven by Wendorf/Schild (ib.) at Nabta Playa.

Cattle with deformed horns are further shown by Yurco/Kusimba (ib.) as part of Saharan rock-art. Clyde Winters (The Spread of Cattle Domestication among Mande-speaking peoples online) argued strongly for migration out of which he described as the African Fertile Crescent that had once been the verdant paradise already noted. These movements were undoubtedly triggered by the vanishing grasslands and for Winters (ib.) they are especially are marked by more words of the ghost-word type. Nor are they the only instance of words undergoing development. Others involve the soft-c/s becoming a hard c/k/q sound.

An example of the latter may be a change from sar to ger/kar. Christopher Ehret (The Civilisations of Africa 2002) the east African sar (= thorn-bush cattle-pen/enclosure) passed from east Africa to Egypt. Ruth Whitehouse (in The Origins of Europe ed. Desmond Whitehouse 1976) that African cattle-pens were the origin of what became the structures of southern Europe called causwayed-camps (= ditched enclosures). The sar becoming ger forms part of what Richmond Palmer (The Carthaginian Voyage to West Africa 1931) argued for. He wanted ger to come via the Teda/Tebu of Tibesti (Chad) to west Africa as the gerike (cattle-enclosure) further transformed to Karikon recorded in the ancient text of the Periplus of Hanno or Voyage of Hanno.

One of the objections to the separate African domestication of cattle involves their large size but there is an interesting story perhaps illustrating facets of this. Julius Caesar (ca. 2050 B.P. Roman) wrote that in north Europe, the Germans would slay the Giant Elk by leaning it against a tree and pushing the tree over. Pieter de Marees (17th c. Dutch) substitutes elephants in west Africa but otherwise, the details are the same.

The daft component of this story, should not be overlooked. This especially means that of getting the obliging animal to lean against the appropriate tree but one aspect becomes important. No cattle-breed is known to have been as large as an elephant but the horn-span of the Giant Irish Elk is as large as that of the auroch, so the replacement of the elk by the elephant should have significance. It may be important that the word of elephant comes from Greek word of elephas that does translate as stag.

If it is true that there was a separate domestication of the wide-horned Saharan auroch, it may be useful to observe there is a wide-horned apparently kept by the Buduma people of Lake Chad. This is the Kuri breed adapted to an aquatic mode of life in the shallows of Lake Chad and eats mainly aquatic plants. Such adaptations are frequently thought to take millennia to happen and another that seems to have occurred in Guinean parts of west Africa was the N’dama breed. It is a small variety without a hump but its major characteristic is its immunity to the sleeping sickness spread by the tsetse fly.

From the East
Given that a strict definition of northeast Africa is strictly Egypt, it is probably worth restating that Egypt is an African country. On the other hand, its geographical position means it was wide open to making contacts of diverse kinds from what goes under the various names of west Asia, southwest Asia, the Levant, Nearer Asia, Fertile Crescent, etc. Indeed, the part of Egypt that is Sinai is in the strictest sense, part of Nearer Asia.

This especially means something starting as far away as Elam (now mainly the province of Khuzistan of southwest Iran), Mesopotamia (now mainly Iraq), Syro/Palestine (= Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, etc.), Sinai (= Egyptian west Asia), etc. Notable here would be the domestic structures of sites in Palestine/Israel plus Maadi (Egypt). They include Safadi (Israel), Beersheba (Israel), Maadi (Egypt), etc. Messrs. Watron and Blin are cited on the Andrea Byrnes site as discounting the Beersheba/Safadi house-sites as not being truly subterranean but that those at Meser (Israel), Sidon/Dakeman (Israel), Maadi (Egypt), etc, are.

Another online comparison was shown to be that of two Mesopotamian gods accompanied by a sphinx and all have look-alike faces. They were compared with the face of the Great Sphinx at Giza (Egypt). Yet another comparison is of the platform-temples or ziggurats of Babylonia and the Stepped Pyramids of Egypt. The Mesopotamian structures and some Egyptian Pyramids are of mudbrick.

Another connection comes via Syro/Palestine comes with Manetho (ca. 2350 B.P. Egypto/Greek) writing about the Hyksos. The name of Hekau-Khasut evidently passed into Greek then English as Shepherd Kings but modern scholars prefer Kings or Lords of Many Lands. They appear to mainly have been what the Bible calls Amorites and Assyrian texts Amurru (= Westerners). Confirming their Semitic origin is Manetho describing them as “Shepherd Kings & Brothers from Phoenicia”. Manetho went on to describe the Great Sphinx as marking conquest of most of Egypt.

Further linking Syro/Palestine is via Israel itself and the Biblical Joseph as the Egyptian Imhotep usually regarded to have been the architect of the first Stepped Pyramid. The association of the name of Joseph with the Pyramids is both ancient and widespread even on the remote west of Europe, as witness the account of Brother Fidelis (9th c. Irish) referring to the Pyramids as “The Barns of Joseph”.

The walls of Mesopotamian buildings were recessed and this feature is repeated by Egyptian structures called mastabas from the Arabic for bench from their being held to look like benches from a distance. These recessed walls are especially well proven in Egypt from their being well attested by the walls of palaces best known from their being depicted in stylised form but then are called serekhs. This concept is said to originate with Henri Frankfort by Michinori Oshiro (Gottingen Miszellen = GM 2003) plus others.

Oshiro (ib.) more specifically cites specific traits at the White Temple at Uruk (Mesopotamia/Iraq), the Main Temple at Uruk again, Dynasty-1 mastabas at Tarkan (Egypt), etc, for actual walls; those depicted in stylised form and given the labels of palace facades, palace walls, serekhs; mode of support-walls for outer walls without prior levelling in Egypt. Even the patterns plus the cone-shaped utensils used to make the patterns found in some numbers in Mesopotamia plus Syro/Palestine occur in Egypt too. The Egyptian finds are confirmed at el-Omari, Maadi, Merimde, etc.

These finds run north to south and have prompted suggestions of a north/south dichotomy in Egypt. James Henry Breasted (Ancient Times 1935) placed the Deltaic Egyptians in the north among the darker members of the Caucasoid race that he thought distinguished them from the even darker southerners. Skeletons were found in tombs that were taller, sturdier and broader-skulled than those of populations in the south. They came from tombs empty of grave-goods and Zurinsky (ib.) says this again contrasts with burials of the south.

The period of Egyptian prehistory called after Buto/Maadi from the sites at Buto plus Maadi and they probably give some of the best evidence of how non-Egyptians arrived in Egypt. Links of Mesopotamia came via Syro/Palestine and Sinai to Buto with subsequent diffusion along branches of the Nile and overland to Maadi. Many Egyptian sites were seen to yielded finds of that favourite foodstuff of donkeys called chickling. Bones of donkey, ingots of copper, etc, were found at Maadi as already noticed. It will be recalled this may prompt visions of the ass-trains of the much later merchants bringing copper out of Anatolia to Assyria.

Other items further attest the direction, as shown by messrs. Wenke (as Byrnes ib.) and Lankester (Mesopotamia & Egypt online). The cone-shaped ceramic pattern-makers seen to be proven in Mesopotamia are also said by Wenke (ib) to appear at sites of the Amuq-A Culture of Syria and were seen to stretch the length of Egypt. Frances Lankester (ib.) multiple-brush occurs in Elam and spread to Mesopotamia, Syro/Palestine, Sinai then Egypt. A further description is of such as cups, containers with looped handles, more pots with wide triangular mouths also found in Egypt.

Amuq-to-Buto routes were thought by Lankester (ib.) to attest direct voyages between north Syria and Egypt that bypassed Sinai. More ships are those discussed in the extensive online sites of Lankester (ib. & elsewhere) about the rocks of the wadis of the Eastern or Nubian/Arabian Desert. This Wadi rock-art is also discussed by David Rohl (esp. in Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation = Vol. 2 of The Test of Time books 1999) plus Toby Wilkinson (The Genesis of the Pharoahs 2003) in chapters having the identical titles of “Ships of the Desert”.

Rohl’s thesis is given fuller treatment in “Egypt & the Sea in Antiquity”. According to such as Percival Hadfield, Rafael Patai, Geoffrey Parrinder, etc, on the concept of Divine Kingship came via India, Israel to Africa. Bernal (ib.) shows more links between the “east” in general and Elam in particular through the Memnon, Eos (= Dawn) was seen inevitably seen as coming from the east because the sun rises in the east. She was also seen as the mother of Memnon and to have come from a city variously spelt as Susa, Shushan, Shush, Susiana, Cissia, Kissia, etc, that was in turn was the capital of Elam then a capital of Persia. The Kissia/Cissia spelling also gives an alternative name for Eos as mother of Memnon (King of Kush).

The term of Kush is also seen in “India” in the name of the mountain-range called the Hindu Kush. With Kush equated with “Ethiopia”, it is “the straight-haired Ethiopians” who are identified with speakers of tongues from within the Dravido/Tamil sequence of what has been called “Greater India” (= Pak., India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka). The term of Kush is further seen in “India” in the name of the mountain-range of the Hindu Kush and in what was formerly Elam/is now the Khuzistan (= Land of Blacks?) province of southwest Iran. Not only is Khuzistan as a Land of Blacks” reinforced by Gedrosia (= Land of Blacks?) just to the south in Baluchistan (Pak.) but Bernal (ib.) says a king of Persia named Artaxerxes adopted Memnon as part of his name to help legitimise Persian rule over the now-conquered Elam. Aeschylus (ca. 2500 B.P. Greek) refers to Susa the city of Eos and Herodotus (ca. 2450 B.P. Greek) to Susa as the city of Memnon.

Homer tells us that Memnon brought troops to support the Trojans to support Troy against the Greeks. Someone named Dyctis Cretensis (= D. from Crete) is said by later sources to have written about Memnon gathering an army of Indians plus Africans to assist Troy. It may have further interest that what were the great powers of Early Medieval Europe also looked to “India” for military aid. This involved the much later Prester John legends and the perceived great Christian empire ruled by him. What was being sought was assistance against the all-conquering Islam.

From the South: Structures & Statues
Away from areas where caves provide natural places of habitation, a priority would be to provide shelter. In some cases, this meant using skins or hides of animals. The skins also covered drums plus the “bottles” of hunter/gatherers. Whether or not there were skin/hide-boats in west Africa remains moot. On the other hand, there are few signs of such west African vessels in such authoritative studies as Water Transport by James Hornell (1946); The Sea-craft of Prehistory by Paul Johnstone (ib.), Boats of the World by Sean McGrail (2004), etc.

There are rather more signs of them in parts of east Africa. Here Alessandra Nibbi (Revue d’Archaeologie 1993) shows them as probable in Ethiopia. Louise Bradbury (Journal of the American Research in Egypt 1996) felt the well-known but strange-looking craft from Punt (= Djibouti/north Somalia?) depicted in wall-art at Tomb 143 at Thebes (Egypt) were a form of raft put on skin-floats. Nibbi (ib.) also looked at a phenomenon of skin-boats in Ireland, Norway plus Canada. This was of sunlight behind them making them look distinctly glass-like and held this was known in Egypt too.

Starting from west to east are African papyrus/reed-boats that include Ra I and II built for Thor Heyerdahl (The Ra Voyages 1971) with Ra II making it across the Atlantic. They would appear to relate closely to the almady (a Moroccan coastal fishing craft) and the kaday (a Lake Chad vessel of the Buduma builders of RA I). Depiction of the type includes Saharan rock-art plus tomb-art in Egypt itself part of a more widespread media showing papyri-craft as standard in Egypt. A little to the east were the reed-boats of Wadi rock-art and on the Red Sea noted in the Bible as plying between “Ethiopia” (= Kush/Nubia) and Israel. Further east still were yet more ocean-going Egyptian reed-ships noted by Eratosthenes (ca. 2250 B.P.) on the Indian Ocean.

The classic vessel-type of west Africa surely has to be the dugout-canoe. They were known from western parts of southern Africa to western parts of northern Africa. This means from Lake Makgadkgadi (a sort of super Okavango & now mainly the Kalahari Desert) in the deep south up to Lake Mega-Chad (a greatly expanded Lake Chad & now much reduced & mainly enclosed by the Sahara). There is coastal near-match. In “The intertwined history of the silk-cotton & baobab”, Roger Blench (online) showed the silk-cotton used for most African canoes came via the Atlantic. An account by al-Umari (14th c. Egyptian) shows Malian canoes also on the Atlantic and another by Columbus (15th/16th c. Italian) shows what yet may be more from west Africa. Hannes Lindemann (Alone at Sea 1958) proved west African canoes were ocean-going vessels when successfully crossing the Atlantic.

Confirmation of the east African dugout-canoe as sea-going/ocean-going vessels comes with translations of the Periplus Maris Erythraei (= PME= Voyage on the Erythrean Sea). These translations of the Voyage of the Erythrean Sea (= the western Indian Ocean) are mainly those by George Huntingford (1980) and Lionel Casson (1989). Christopher Ehret (The Civilisations of Africa 2003) attributed the dugout-canoe in east Africa to the arrival of the Bantu there presumably accords with the above-noted periods of the Khwe/Bantu interactions. James Hornell (Mariner’s Mirror 1947) in “The Making & Spreading of a Dugout Canoe” believed the dugout-canoe was constructed in ancient Egypt but Bjorn Landstrom (The Ships of the Pharoahs 1970) disagreed with this.

The inland distribution of canoes from western parts of southern Africa up to western parts of northern Africa was seen to have a near-match in those of the coast of Atlantic-west Africa, as shown by Roger Smith (JAH 1970). This especially means those of the fishing-based economies called Ichthyophagi of much of the African coast and further described by Herodotus to have been known in Egypt. If this can be linked to what was written by Leo Frobenius (The Voice of Africa 1913) but seen as something commercial, there is Mark Horton (Antiquity 1992) tying the Ichthyophagi of east Africa to the spread of trade.

It seems the commerce between east Africa and Egypt goes way back to Pre-dynastic days and probably involved that centred on that with the region variously named Ta-neter (= (Holy/God’s Land) or the severally spelt Punt/Punit/Puanit/Pwenet (& numerous other variants). In “Egypt & the Sea in Antiquity”, there is discussion of where Punt/Ta-Neter may have been.

Having seen that groups labelled as “Ichthyophagi” are said to have spread trade, this seems equally so for west Africa. The more so given that with the political unity envisaged by Frobenius along Atlantic shores of Africa replaced by something more diverse that included trade-routes. This would be underlined the JAH article by Smith (ib.) about west African canoes. Another JAH article was that by Ivor Wilks (1962) showing that Elmina (Ghana) was used by west African traders long before it became the major commercial base of the Portuguese in west Africa.

In “West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity”, there are what appear to have been gods of the sea along Atlantic-facing shores of west Africa. They include Umlindi identified with Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town (in western South Africa) Harbour. Other such figures are identified with rocks in west Africa. They include Azuma Rock (near Abuja, Nigeria), Blo Degbo (Paynesville, near Monrovia, Liberia), Atlas (Morocco), etc. Either Blo Degbo or Zuma Rock could have been the origin of a story recorded by al-Maqrizi (15th c. Egyptian) and cited by Flora Lugard (A Tropical Dependency 1906 & 1997).

This story has an Egyptian Pharoah marching across Africa and having reached the shores of Atlantic-west Africa, raised a statue attest this triumph bearing an inscription “no further”. There is something of the repute of the Pharoah named as Sesostris by Herodotus and identified by some with Pharoah Senusret I seemingly echoed here. What does stand out about the Sesostris/Senusret I legend is the alleged refusal of priests of the temple of Ptah at Thebes (Eg.) to allow a king of the Persian conquerors of Egypt to erect a statue alongside that of Sesostris there. Nor would this be the only record by an Islamic text linking west Africa and Egypt (see below).

Other west African statues are those noted by Joseph Olumide Lucas (The Religion of the Yorubas 1949 & 1997) at Ife (Nigeria). He says they were called Ore plus Ore-gabana (=Servant/Slave or Priest/Devotee of Ore) and says Ore was a king that had been deified. Lucas (ib.) further wrote that Ore has the side-lock of hair also widespread in east and in Egypt by that of the god named Re/Ra and it should it be overlooked that O-re is but a version of Re.

Lucas (ib.) further pointed up that Ore plus Ore-gabana had the Negroid look also claimed for that of the Great Sphinx amid the Great Pyramids at Gizeh/Giza (Egypt). Cheikh Anta Diop (The African Origin of Civilisation 1974) called attention to a series of mudbrick structures from Senegal/Mali in west Africa to Sudan in east Africa that he related to the Egyptian Pyramids.

Felix Dubois was another writer cited by Lugard (ib.) who evidently held him in high regard. Dubois described architecture in Senegal, Mauretania, Mali, etc, of a type that he thought was reminiscent of “ruins of the Nile Valley & Egypt”. Messrs. Gould (Journal of the Institute of African Studies 1972); Nii-Tete (The Legacy of the Ga of the Ga-Adangbes (online); Darling (online reports on structures in Nigeria online), take this further when referring to certain types of monuments stretching from Ghana to Nigeria described as Otutu/Tutu shrines.

Gould (ib.) discussed such shrines in “The Shrine of Tutu Abo: The Akwamu God of War” (online) and is cautious about chronology. From the title of his article, Nai Nii-Tete (ib.) was seen to attribute the Otutu monuments to the Ga people of what today is Ghana (= ex-Gold Coast). The Nii-Tete photographs of Otutu shrines show them to be very similar to the now-gone Nsude (Nigeria) Pyramids known from photographs by Patrick Darling (ib.). The tiered construction plainly relates them to the Stepped Pyramids of Egypt of rather larger size and involving more use of stone.

Flinders Petrie (in the Tarkan reports) held planks found at Tarkan (Eg.) were part of a proto-form of the niched-walls generally thought to be shown in stylised form as the serekh. They also form part of “Arguments for an Upper Egyptian origin of the Palace-facade & Serekh in Pre-Dynastic-later Dynastic times” according to Stan Hendrickx (Gottingen Miszellen 2001).

This has it that from simple structures of mastaba/bench-like type with apparent wattle walls alternating with lengths of fabric that became expressed in stone as lengths of wall separated by niches and as wall-paintings in later tombs. The elaboration of the mastaba into a more conical shape led to the Pyramid. The stacking of mastabas led to the Stepped form of Pyramid and is attributed to someone called Imhotep. He served Pharoahs of the 3rd Dynasty of Pharoahs that in turn was said by Petrie (ib.) to be of African origin.

It may also be said that the architecture looked at by Dubois (ib.) relates to the Stepped Pyramids and Stepped forms were seen right across Africa. It is also curious the Kushite cone-shaped Pyramids are held to post-date the Egyptian Pyramids yet are echoed for shape by the earliest appearance of the Pyramids in Egyptian artworks.

Rather smaller stones but still large enough to be called megaliths (from Greek megas = large & lithos = stone) were the menhirs used to construct rings best known in west Africa from those of Senegambia (= Senegal & Gambia). Menhirs were also raised in circle form in east Africa, as at Namoratunga (Kenya). These are far from being the only stone circles in Sub-Saharan Africa but are amongst the most famous there. Andis Kaulins (African Megaliths online) related the Senegambian circles to land-use of before ca. 5000 B.P.

Messrs. Parker (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 1923) and Palmer (The Voyage of Hanno to West Africa 1931) observe burials inside Senegambian circles. El-Bekri (11th c. Andalusian Arab) reports they marked kings of the Wakor/Ghana Empire. If ever an intact Wakor royal grave is ever found, something as spectacular as the tomb of Tutankhamun may be expected from el-Bekri’s description. The Kaulins comparison of the Senegambian stone rings to star-systems parallels a similar attribution relating the Namoratunga stone circles to various star-based orientations by many writers. So too does the stone circle at Nabta Playa (Egypt).

Another monument may be shown by a simple motif according to messrs. Johnson (History of the Yorubas 1921 & 2001) and Meyerowitz (The Divine Kingship in Ghana & Ancient Egypt 1960). At its simplest, this symbol resembles what English cricketers would recognise as something like the three stumps of a wicket without a bail across the top. William Ingrams (Zanzibar: Its People & its Hist. 1931) is one of those showing this motif in trident-like form in east Africa. It has long been related to the serekh itself seen as the stylised form of the palace-façade, as in the “Arguments for an Upper Egyptian origin of the Palace-facade & Serekh in Pre-Dynastic-later Dynastic Egypt” by Stan Hendricks (Gottinger Miszellen 2001).

Palmer (ib.) plus Winters (Proto Saharan Religion online) show the same motif across the Sahara plus the Soudan (= Land of the Blacks). The land of Soudan (not the modern republic of Sudan) was described by es-Sadi (15th c. Malian) in Tarikh es-Sudan (= Chronicle/History of Sudan/Land of the Blacks). The Tarikh is cited by Lugard (ib.) as saying west African priest/wizards from Senegal and Mali were called on by Egyptian Pharoahs to assist in contests of magic against Moses. Anne Christie (Magic of the Pharoahs 2007) further cites the “Sealed Letter” (ca. 3200 B.P. Egyptian text) describing a 7-foot Ethiopian into the court of Pharoah demanding a contest of magic. The Koran identifies the Pharoah bringing west Africans (as per the Tarikh) and contesting with Moses as Rameses II and the Pharoah of the Sealed Letter is regarded as the same Pharoah.

ROYAL & OTHER SYMBOLS
If Maqrisi/Maqrizi (& other variants) gives a west African setting for the military adventures of an Egyptian Pharoah possibly of the 12th Dynasty more at home in Nearer Asia, Anatolia, the Balkans, the Aegean, etc, according to Herodotus, this has further interest. Bernal (ib. saw the campaign in Anatolia as marking the general-ship of Ammenemes/Amenemhet II (son of Senusret I = the Sesostris of Herodotus?). Bernal (ib.) went on to identify him with the Memnon of Greek legend and whose mother whose went under various labels that include Eos plus Cissia.

Diop (ib.) also noted Cissia is very similar to Cisse in turn a very common name in west Africa. Cisse/Sisse was also the clan-name of the dynasty from the Mande-speaking Soninke ruling the Wakor/Old-Ghana Empire according to Mohammed Gadala (Exiled Egyptians 1999). The apparently word of Sese is that of islands on Lake Nyanza in east Africa that were also the cradle of the main of the Baganda kings of Uganda and where the Baganda kept their royal fleet. Gadalla (ib.) further says sisse also had the curious meaning of those riding mares. Given that the donkey was the animal ridden by the average Egyptian, presumably someone who rode a mare was not your average Egyptian.

If Memnon as Amenemhet II stands, there is a further explanation for an east-coming Memnon. His mother as Eos meaning Dawn is one, Eos plus Memnon held to be from Susa. Memnon having conquered “Africa” plus India came from India with Indians and Africans to assist Troy against the Greeks according to Dictys Cretensis (= Dictys of Crete). Even if coming overland from Africa plus Egypt, the approach to Hittite Anatolia and then Troy would be from the east.

Tradition has it that Memnon was king of both Kush and Egypt. Bernal (ib.) regards an inscription found at Mit Rahina (Egypt) as the Egyptian counterpart of what Herodotus wrote about Sesostris. This was to confirm Egyptians in Nearer Asia that when led by Amenemhet II/Memnon would have through Anatolia towards Troy would confirm the easterly direction.

Herodotus also described the tightly-coiled hair plus the black skins of the Aethiopes (= Africans) but also goes on to say this does not always attest Africans. Much is made of this by modern academics but frequently regard Africans as of one phenotype across the continent. This very plainly overlooks the wide variation of physical types across Africa. In any case, what is said by Herodotus was not confined to ethnic comparisons. Moreover, several other Greek writers make the linkage between Aithiopia/Africa and Egypt (esp. note Aeschylus re. black-skinned Egyptians). In this light is that the Semitic scribes of Israel plus Assyria had good reason to know the location of Kush. Memnon was held by the Greeks to be King of all Kush (= all of Af. in this respect). Bernal (ib.) notes some images of Memnon show Memnon as white but that easily the bulk of them do so with black skins, tightly-coiled hair, thick lips, etc, typical of most of west Africans.

There surely has to be no better symbol of Royalty than an actual monarch, more especially as the God-kings seen as living gods-on-earth as part of what is called Divine Kingship. The where and when of its point of origin is much discussed but as with so much about the distant past, this remains very uncertain.

What is very definite is that African Divine Kingship owes very little to outside agencies. The west African language of Wolof of mainly Senegambia and Soninke of Mali has such words as bari/fari translating as king according to messrs. Diop (ib.) and Gadalla (ib.). The resemblance to the east African name/title of Perahu plus Egyptian Per-aha (= Great House) for ruler will be immediately obvious.

So too should Yoruba ade/ate (= crown) and Egyptian atef (= crown) according to Lucas (ib.). He also says held that Yoruba ade-nibi and Egyptian atef-nibit both translate as Crown of the Mistress. Lucas (ib.) also says that a head of a god named Olokun (= Lord of the Sea) is one of the Yoruba heads wearing a stylised uraeus. The uraeus adorns a crown with a rising cobra evidently symbolically ready to spit venom into the eyes of the enemies of the king, as most realistically known in Egypt. Olokun-type heads are held to represent past Obas (= Yoruba kings) and are part of the Divine kingship shared with Pharoahs.

Gerald Wainwright (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 1923) famously wrote of “The Red Crown in Prehistoric Times” and gave the Deshret (= Red Crown), a Libyo/Saharan origin. It may well be that as excavation of the semi-circle of oases in the Egyptian Sahara (the so-called western Sahara) at Siwa, Baharya, Farafra, Kharga, Dakhla, Nabta Playa, etc, proves them to be of Pre-Dynastic origin, they may attest how the Deshret got to Egypt. Since Wainwright (ib.) wrote, it has become clearer that the Libyo/Saharan origin he sought for the Deshret is unlikely.

Winters (ib.) related the god-name of Gnia/Nia (= the Bambara Creator-god) to that of the trans-Saharan deity named Nt/Nit/Neith further known as an alternative for the Deshret. To this west African connection is what is written by Wicker (ib.) shows how the east African herder approaches cows in the skin or half-skin of her dead calf to induce her to drop her teats and give milk. He wrote the half-skin folded up resembled the Deshret. A route via Kush/Nubia to Egypt probably seems demonstrated by rock-art at Wadi Qash (Egypt), a potsherd from Naqada (Egypt), a Nekhen (Egypt) macehead, etc.

Diop (ib.) referred to twig-stiffeners inserted into long conical white bonnets in Senegal and would resemble the equally nest-like long cone-shapes shown by Frederick Wicker (Egypt & the Mountains of the Moon 1991) in east Africa. He also cited the famous reports by Marcel Griaule describing the equally long white bonnets of the Dogon of Mali. Lucas (ib.) related the Yoruba placename of Efa/Ifa/Ife to the Egyptian word of Nefer. The “Ancient Egypt: The Mythology” site shows Nefer as an alternative label for the Hedjet (= White Crown), so adds to the Royal connection of west Africa and Egypt.

Wicker (ib.) noting the long conical green nests of the weaver-bird turn white in the hot east African sun was seen as a probable forerunner of the Hedjet by him. The Hedjet is also held to be linked to a figure at Jebel Barkal (= Holy Mountain, Sudan). Here is a monolith standing stark on a small mountain in otherwise open country of the Nile Valley This monolith was anciently seen as the god named Amun wearing a version of the Hedjet among the herders that Toby Wilkinson (Genesis of the Pharoahs 2003) holds were the major source of Pre-Dynastic Egypt. Timothy Kendall (Genesis of the Pharoahs: Genesis of the “Ka” & Crowns online) holds this continued. He refers to Diodorus Siculus noting more of the ancient and clearly trans-African long conical headgear in Kush/Sudan. The path to Egypt seems shown by a Qustul (Eg.) incense-pot, rock-art at Wadi Abbad (Eg.), etc.

In “West African & Egyptian Religious Beliefs in E.A. Wallis Budge’s Osiris”, it is said that beetles were worn as amulets in west Africa plus Egypt. Messrs. Olumo and Eybira (The Yoruba: The Egyptian Connection (online) compared Yoruba okpara (= beetle) and Egyptian kepara/kephara (= beetle). Wicker was/is seen to write of mainly events in east Africa and he wrote of an Egyptian word he translates as “the beetle of the lake”. He says it indicates the tortoise but the context is more suggestive of a turtle.

Words possibly attesting turtle/tortoise across the continent from west Africa to parts of east Africa brings us to argued-for links with the Khepresh (= Blue Crown) of Egypt. An article titled “Redheaded Berber Ramesses II” by Karl Earlson (online) cites Wicker in favour of the “Great White/Caucasian Race”. Not only are “Great White Race” theories long discredited but presumably Earlson has not read Wicker, as Wicker (ib.) argues the opposite.

Earlson (ib.) rightly points up the difference between the Khepresh as something man-made and hair as something natural. He also notes the spirals on the Khepresh of Rameses II as decorative. To borrow a phrase from the Cockney slang of London, this is a statement of the bleeding obvious. As to the Khepresh motifs, suggestions range from markings on tortoise/turtle shells to chakras (= blessings). However, the spirals on this crown fit more with the combination of thick lips, black colouration, flat snub noses, etc, seen from the Buddha statues of Asia to the Memnon images of Greek art of Europe.

Hair was seen to be depicted on one of the pair of statues at the Yoruba holy site of Ife (Nig.). Lucas (ib.) says that of them, Ore joins with such as Olokun as claimed deified Obas. Ore also has the side-lock of hair for priests in Nigeria plus Egypt. What are called breastplates in Benin (Nigeria) plus Lagos (Nigeria) were called wesekhs in Egypt. Messrs. Meyerowitz (ib.) and Wainwright (Man 1951) observe they attest priests in both Nigeria plus Egypt.

Wainwright was also one of the trio of Egyptologists that excavated at Tarkan (Eg.) and published their reports through the 1920s. One interpretation by Petrie was of planks there. He thought they were part of wooden structures but most Egyptologists read them as planks from boats. The major form of ship/boat-building from Tanzania/Kenya to the River Nile involved what has been called sewn-plank construction with the shared feature of ropes sheered from the outside to prevent drag when in the water. This is held in common with the sea-going ships of east Africa from Tanzania to Somalia called mitepe (= pl. of mtepe) up to the river-boats of the River Nile.

More of the same comes when Wicker (ib.) compared canoes of the Great Lakes of east Africa and the Great Ship found near the Pyramid of Khufu/Cheops. The Great Lakes boats and the Khufu Ship were built of Mimosacaea wood (Great Lakes buchanani & Egyptian acacia); the Mimosacaea planks joined edge-to-edge; the planks being transversely sewn; none of these vessels having a true keel; raised stems fitting like glove over the middle; their sterns being sutured in place; rounded internal caulking; dowels made of wood from trees of the Zisyphus family.

This is reinforced by further comparison of canoes of the Great Lakes region of east Africa and the funerary barge of Senusret. The Great Lakes canoes of Lake Nyanza (= ex-Lake Victoria) have a Royal linkage; they had the cross-beams set in bilges; the first or second of which penetrate beyond the planking of the vessel; this protrusion of the planks being towards the bow/stern. Wicker (ib.) went on to describe these traits as also characterising the funerary barge of Sesostris III, so reinforces the Royal connection.

Wilkinson (ib.) pointed up the ships depicted on rocks in the wadis of the Kusho/Nubian region of Sudan but also stretching into Egypt. This is what we have seen as Wadi rock-art in pages above. Wilkinson (ib.) also compared what is seen on Wadi rock-walls with motifs to be seen on Egyptian pottery of the Naqada period of most of Late Pre-Dynastic Egypt. This means the Wadi ships are upwards of a full millennium older than those of the alleged Mesopotamian ancestors the variously labelled Dynastic Race, Eastern Invaders, Square-boat People, etc, theorists would have us believe in.

This in turn shows interpretations in support of this on the basis of what is shown at the “Painted” Tomb (= Tomb 100) at Nekhen (= Hierankopolis, Egypt); the handle of a knife from Gebel el-Arak (Eg.); an incense-burner from Qustul (Eg.), needs to change. The Hedjet is envisaged as being worn by the “Amun” figure at Gebel Barkal that became more identified with Osiris over time. It also occurs on an incense-burner from Qustul plus another found at Nekhen. There is also tying of Amun-Re (=lion), Horus (= hawk), Osiris (= Hedjet), etc, as Qustul images. This southern linkage continues along a route shown by the wearer of the White Crown at Gebel Barkal, the Qustul incense-burner, the so-called Horus incense-burner, etc.

If the Mesopotamian Invaders are removed from consideration, another interpretation is that the Painted-tomb plus Arak knife-handle largely attest scenes of Africans fighting other Africans for control of what was Ta-Seti/what is now south Egypt. In this way, the high-stemmed ships would remain the ships of invaders but those invaders would be Africans from Kush not Mesopotamians. Much is made of the fact that a figure engraved on the on the Arak knife-handle looks very like a Mesopotamian “Lord of the Beasts”. Not nearly so well known is the uncertainty of the find-spot of the knife-handle.

Wilkinson (ib.) noted that rulers pictured as sitting in boats was an apparent prerequisite of kingship and words to do with kingship are discussed by Christopher Ehret (ib.) plus others. Ehret (Civilisations of Africa 2003) was writing about languages many-named Afrasan, Afrasian, Afro-Asiatic, Hamito/Semitic, etc. He says Afrasan ghost-words of *Wa’per (= sky & divinity) plus *Waa’ka (= priest-kings) give us some idea where the concept of Divine Kingship began. This is especially so given that Afrasan tongues are basically African. Petrie noted that Waaka/Waka is still the name of the god of war of the Oromo (= the Galla) people of mainly Ethiopia. Waa’ka or Waka also occurs as the Uakha of somewhat further north in Kushite Sudan plus Egypt.

The Waaka/Uakha family are tied by Petrie (ib.) to many tombs in Kush/Ta-seti where they may be a long-lived tradition. By the 4th/5th dynasties, they are seen at Qau (in Ta-Seti parts of Egypt) their main traits are the tomb plus temple cut into rock with forecourts of masonry. Also stone mauls found there are matched at the Aswan (Eg.) stone quarries. The linkage with the south continues with the “Prophecy of Neferti” telling of a man “From the South” plus his family coming to rule in Egypt. It should be noted this means what is the Kush/Ta-Seti region straddling the modern Sudan/Egypt border.

From the South in Africa tends to mean from Sub-Saharan Africa, as shown in west Africa by Gaetuli and east Africa by Nasut that translate as “From the South”. Nasut comes from Egyptian n y swt (= later nsw) also meant Royalty. This southern linkage for Egyptian Royalty continues with what is written about what have been called Dynasties 00 plus 0. They accord with Dynasties 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 25, etc, described by Petrie (ib.) as also “From the South”.

Petrie’s (ib.) translation of the so-called Anu Plaque has been challenged someone not writing under their real name but under the pseudonym of Kmt-sesh. There is an interesting analogy here with the well-known translation by John Thacher of the abridgement of the 3rd Voyage of Columbus being doubted by someone again writing under a pseudonym, this time it is that of Quetzalcoatl. Common to both is that the Petrie plus Thacher translations are standard works. Another shared feature is that both are designed to counter the Africa-centred or Afrocentric case for an African presence in Egypt plus Mesoamerica respectively.

An even more savage attack on Afrocentricism being applied to Egypt by Bernal (ib.) was by Emily Vermeule. This came via “Black Athena Revisited” itself co-edited by Mary Lefkowitz (199 ) who has placed herself at the head of the anti-Bernal challenge. Vermeule (ib.) wrote that the record of an Egyptian Pharoah coming home with a Kushite African tied to the front of his ship clearly proves there could be no connection between what the many works of Diop plus Van Sertima calls “Black” (= Sub-Saharan) Africa and Egypt. Vermeule (ib.) pays no attention to Egyptian texts telling of a Pharoah of a dynasty returning from Palestine with the bodies of seven Palestinian princes tied to his ship, therefore does not pose the question of whether this rules out any Egyptian linkage with Syro/Palestine.

On pages above, it was said the location of Egypt in northeast Africa means that it was wide open to culture and/or people from parts of west Asia. Egypt is also geographically part of the continent of Africa. Anyone disagreeing with this need only to look to south Egypt and/or across the border into Sudan (itself meaning Land of Blacks).

It tends to be overlooked the Nile is an African not just an Egyptian river Part of the Nile is in the variously named Kush, Nubia or Sudan and the rest of its ca. 4000 miles stretches away deep into the continent. Not all of it is navigable along its length but looking at the Red Sea, we find past names include Kush d-malono (= Sea of Kush) plus the Sea of Azania that from combining the works of Pliny and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea stretches from south Sudan way past the Horn of Africa down to possibly Mozambique.

This will indicate that the position of Egypt, its river plus its Red Sea coast means that Africans in ancient Egypt is inevitable.

Harry Bourne (Revised 2010)

body-container-line