“I, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties.
There is no precedent for a Head of State himself speaking in this assembly. But there is also no precedent for a people being victim of such injustice and being at present threatened by abandonment to its aggressor. Also, there has never before been an example of any Government proceeding to the systematic extermination of a nation by barbarous means, in violation of the most solemn promises made by the nations of the earth that there should not be used against innocent human beings the terrible poison of harmful gases. It is to defend a people struggling for its age-old independence that the head of the Ethiopian Empire has come to Geneva to fulfill this supreme duty, after having himself fought at the head of his armies.
I pray to Almighty God that He may spare nations the terrible sufferings that have just been inflicted on my people, and of which the chiefs who accompany me here have been the horrified witnesses.
It is my duty to inform the Governments assembled in Geneva, responsible as they are for the lives of millions of men, women and children, of the deadly peril which threatens them, by describing to them the fate which has been suffered by Ethiopia. It is not only upon warriors that the Italian Government has made war. It has above all attacked populations far removed from hostilities, in order to terrorize and exterminate them.
At the beginning, towards the end of 1935, Italian aircraft hurled upon my armies bombs of tear-gas. Their effects were but slight. The soldiers learned to scatter, waiting until the wind had rapidly dispersed the poisonous gases. The Italian aircraft then resorted to mustard gas. Barrels of liquid were hurled upon armed groups. But this means also was not effective; the liquid affected only a few soldiers, and barrels upon the ground were themselves a warning to troops and to the population of the danger.
It was at the time when the operations for the encircling of Makalle were taking place that the Italian command, fearing a rout, followed the procedure which it is now my duty to denounce to the world. Special sprayers were installed on board aircraft so that they could vaporize, over vast areas of territory, a fine, death-dealing rain. Groups of nine, fifteen, eighteen aircraft followed one another so that the fog issuing from them formed a continuous sheet. It was thus that, as from the end of January, 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes and pastures were drenched continually with this deadly rain. In order to kill off systematically all living creatures, in order to more surely to poison waters and pastures, the Italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again. That was its chief method of warfare.
Ravage and Terror
The very refinement of barbarism consisted in carrying ravage and terror into the most densely populated parts of the territory, the points farthest removed from the scene of hostilities. The object was to scatter fear and death over a great part of the Ethiopian territory. These fearful tactics succeeded. Men and animals succumbed. The deadly rain that fell from the aircraft made all those whom it touched fly shrieking with pain. All those who drank the poisoned water or ate the infected food also succumbed in dreadful suffering. In tens of thousands, the victims of the Italian mustard gas fell. It is in order to denounce to the civilized world the tortures inflicted upon the Ethiopian people that I resolved to come to Geneva. None other than myself and my brave companions in arms could bring the League of Nations the undeniable proof. The appeals of my delegates addressed to the League of Nations had remained without any answer; my delegates had not been witnesses. That is why I decided to come myself to bear witness against the crime perpetrated against my people and give Europe a warning of the doom that awaits it, if it should bow before the accomplished fact.
Is it necessary to remind the Assembly of the various stages of the Ethiopian drama? For 20 years past, either as Heir Apparent, Regent of the Empire, or as Emperor, I have never ceased to use all my efforts to bring my country the benefits of civilization, and in particular to establish relations of good neighbourliness with adjacent powers. In particular I succeeded in concluding with Italy the Treaty of Friendship of 1928, which absolutely prohibited the resort, under any pretext whatsoever, to force of arms, substituting for force and pressure the conciliation and arbitration on which civilized nations have based international order.
Country More United
In its report of October 5th 193S, the Committee of Thirteen recognized my effort and the results that I had achieved. The Governments thought that the entry of Ethiopia into the League, whilst giving that country a new guarantee for the maintenance of her territorial integrity and independence, would help her to reach a higher level of civilization. It does not seem that in Ethiopia today there is more disorder and insecurity than in 1923. On the contrary, the country is more united and the central power is better obeyed.
I should have procured still greater results for my people if obstacles of every kind had not been put in the way by the Italian Government, the Government which stirred up revolt and armed the rebels. Indeed the Rome Government, as it has today openly proclaimed, has never ceased to prepare for the conquest of Ethiopia. The Treaties of Friendship it signed with me were not sincere; their only object was to hide its real intention from me. The Italian Goverment asserts that for 14 years it has been preparing for its present conquest. It therefore recognizes today that when it supported the admission of Ethiopia to the League of Nations in 1923, when it concluded the Treaty of Friendship in 1928, when it signed the Pact of Paris outlawing war, it was deceiving the whole world. The Ethiopian Government was, in these solemn treaties, given additional guarantees of security which would enable it to achieve further progress along the specific path of reform on which it had set its feet, and to which it was devoting all its strength and all its heart.
Wal-Wal Pretext
The Wal-Wal incident, in December, 1934, came as a thunderbolt to me. The Italian provocation was obvious and I did not hesitate to appeal to the League of Nations. I invoked the provisions of the treaty of 1928, the principles of the Covenant; I urged the procedure of conciliation and arbitration. Unhappily for Ethiopia this was the time when a certain Government considered that the European situation made it imperative at all costs to obtain the friendship of Italy. The price paid was the abandonment of Ethiopian independence to the greed of the Italian Government. This secret agreement, contrary to the obligations of the Covenant, has exerted a great influence over the course of events. Ethiopia and the whole world have suffered and are still suffering today its disastrous consequences.
This first violation of the Covenant was followed by many others. Feeling itself encouraged in its policy against Ethiopia, the Rome Government feverishly made war preparations, thinking that the concerted pressure which was beginning to be exerted on the Ethiopian Government, might perhaps not overcome the resistance of my people to Italian domination. The time had to come, thus all sorts of difficulties were placed in the way with a view to breaking up the procedure; of conciliation and arbitration. All kinds of obstacles were placed in the way of that procedure. Governments tried to prevent the Ethiopian Government from finding arbitrators amongst their nationals: when once the arbitral tribunal a was set up pressure was exercised so that an award favourable to Italy should be given.
All this was in vain: the arbitrators, two of whom were Italian officials, were forced to recognize unanimously that in the Wal-Wal incident, as in the subsequent incidents, no international responsibility was to be attributed to Ethiopia.
Peace Efforts
Following on this award. the Ethiopian Government sincerely thought that an era of friendly relations might be opened with Italy. I loyally offered my hand to the Roman Government. The Assembly was informed by the report of the Committee of Thirteen, dated October 5th, 1935, of the details of the events which occurred after the month of December, 1934, and up to October 3rd, 1935.
It will be sufficient if I quote a few of the conclusions of that report Nos. 24, 25 and 26 “The Italian memorandum (containing the complaints made by Italy) was laid on the Council table on September 4th, 1935, whereas Ethiopia’s first appeal to the Council had been made on December 14th, 1934. In the interval between these two dates, the Italian Government opposed the consideration of the question by the Council on the ground that the only appropriate procedure was that provided for in the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928. Throughout the whole of that period, moreover, the despatch of Italian troops to East Africa was proceeding. These shipments of troops were represented to the Council by the Italian Government as necessary for the defense of its colonies menaced by Ethiopia’s preparations. Ethiopia, on the contrary, drew attention to the official pronouncements made in Italy which, in its opinion, left no doubt “as to the hostile intentions of the Italian Government.”
From the outset of the dispute, the Ethiopian Government has sought a settlement by peaceful means. It has appealed to the procedures of the Covenant. The Italian Government desiring to keep strictly to the procedures of the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928, the Ethiopian Government assented. It invariably stated that it would faithfully carry out the arbitral award even if the decision went against it. It agreed that the question of the ownership of Wal-Wal should not be dealt with by the arbitrators, because the Italian Government would not agree to such a course. It asked the Council to despatch neutral observers and offered to lend itself to any enquiries upon which the Council might decide.
Once the Wal-Wal dispute had been settled by arbiration, however, the Italian Govemmcnt submitted its detailed memorandum to the Council in support of its claim to liberty of action. It asserted that a case like that of Ethiopia cannot be settled by the means provided by the Covenant. It stated that, “since this question affects vital interest and is of primary importance to Italian security and civilization” it “would be failing in its most elementary duty, did it not cease once and for all to place any confidence in Ethiopia, reserving full liberty to adopt any measures that may become necessary to ensure the safety of its colonies and to safeguard its own interests.”
Covenant Violated
Those are the terms of the report of the Committee of Thirteen, The Council and the Assembly unanimously adopted the conclusion that the Italian Government had violated the Covenant and was in a state of aggression. I did not hesitate to declare that I did not wish for war, that it was imposed upon me, and I should struggle solely for the independence and integrity of my people, and that in that struggle I was the defender of the cause of all small States exposed to the greed of a powerful neighbour.
In October, 1935. the 52 nations who are listening to me today gave me an assurance that the aggressor would not triumph, that the resources of the Covenant would be employed in order to ensure the reign of right and the failure of violence.
I ask the fifty-two nations not to forget today the policy upon which they embarked eight months ago, and on faith of which I directed the resistance of my people against the aggressor whom they had denounced to the world. Despite the inferiority of my weapons, the complete lack of aircraft, artillery, munitions, hospital services, my confidence in the League was absolute. I thought it to be impossible that fifty-two nations, including the most powerful in the world, should be successfully opposed by a single aggressor. Counting on the faith due to treaties, I had made no preparation for war, and that is the case with certain small countries in Europe.
When the danger became more urgent, being aware of my responsibilities towards my people, during the first six months of 1935 I tried to acquire armaments. Many Governments proclaimed an embargo to prevent my doing so, whereas the Italian Government through the Suez Canal, was given all facilities for transporting without cessation and without protest, troops, arms, and munitions.
Forced to Mobilize
On October 3rd, 1935, the Italian troops invaded my territory. A few hours later only I decreed general mobilization. In my desire to maintain peace I had, following the example of a great country in Europe on the eve of the Great War, caused my troops to withdraw thirty kilometres so as to remove any pretext of provocation.
War then took place in the atrocious conditions which I have laid before the Assembly. In that unequal struggle between a Government commanding more than forty-two million inhabitants, having at its disposal financial, industrial and technical means which enabled it to create unlimited quantities of the most death-dealing weapons, and, on the other hand, a small people of twelve million inhabitants, without arms, without resources having on its side only the justice of its own cause and the promise of the League of Nations. What real assistance was given to Ethiopia by the fifty two nations who had declared the Rome Government guilty of a breach of the Covenant and had undertaken to prevent the triumph of the aggressor? Has each of the States Members, as it was its duty to do in virtue of its signature appended to Article 15 of the Covenant, considered the aggressor as having committed an act of war personally directed against itself? I had placed all my hopes in the execution of these undertakings. My confidence had been confirmed by the repeated declarations made in the Council to the effect that aggression must not be rewarded, and that force would end by being compelled to bow before right.
In December, 1935, the Council made it quite clear that its feelings were in harmony with those of hundreds of millions of people who, in all parts of the world, had protested against the proposal to dismember Ethiopia. It was constantly repeated that there was not merely a conflict between the Italian Government and the League of Nadons, and that is why I personally refused all proposals to my personal advantage made to me by the Italian Government, if only I would betray my people and the Covenant of the League of Nations. I was defending the cause of all small peoples who are threatened with aggression.
What of Promises?
What have become of the promises made to me as long ago as October, 1935? I noted with grief, but without surprise that three Powers considered their undertakings under the Covenant as absolutely of no value. Their connections with Italy impelled them to refuse to take any measures whatsoever in order to stop Italian aggression. On the contrary, it was a profound disappointment to me to learn the attitude of a certain Government which, whilst ever protesting its scrupulous attachment to the Covenant, has tirelessly used all its efforts to prevent its observance. As soon as any measure which was likely to be rapidly effective was proposed, various pretexts were devised in order to postpone even consideration of the measure. Did the secret agreements of January, 1935, provide for this tireless obstruction?
The Ethiopian Government never expected other Governments to shed their soldiers’ blood to defend the Covenant when their own immediately personal interests were not at stake. Ethiopian warriors asked only for means to defend themselves. On many occasions I have asked for financial assistance for the purchase of arms That assistance has been constantly refused me. What, then, in practice, is the meaning of Article 16 of the Covenant and of collective security?
The Ethiopian Government’s use of the railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa was in practice a hazardous regards transport of arms intended for the Ethiopian forces. At the present moment this is the chief, if not the only means of supply of the Italian armies of occupation. The rules of neutrality should have prohibited transports intended for Italian forces, but there is not even neutrality since Article 16 lays upon every State Member of the League the duty not to remain a neutral but to come to the aid not of the aggressor but of the victim of aggression. Has the Covenant been respected? Is it today being respected?
Finally a statement has just been made in their Parliaments by the Governments of certain Powers, amongst them the most influential members of the League of Nations, that since the aggressor has succeeded in occupying a large part of Ethiopian territory they propose not to continue the application of any economic and financial measures that may have been decided upon against the Italian Government. These are the circumstances in which at the request of the Argentine Government, the Assembly of the League of Nations meets to consider the situation created by Italian aggression. I assert that the problem submitted to the Assembly today is a much wider one. It is not merely a question of the settlement of Italian aggression.
League Threatened
It is collective security: it is the very existence of the League of Nations. It is the confidence that each State is to place in international treaties. It is the value of promises made to small States that their integrity and their independence shall be respected and ensured. It is the principle of the equality of States on the one hand, or otherwise the obligation laid upon smail Powers to accept the bonds of vassalship. In a word, it is international morality that is at stake. Have the signatures appended to a Treaty value only in so far as the signatory Powers have a personal, direct and immediate interest involved?
No subtlety can change the problem or shift the grounds of the discussion. It is in all sincerity that I submit these considerations to the Assembly. At a time when my people are threatened with extermination, when the support of the League may ward off the final blow, may I be allowed to speak with complete frankness, without reticence, in all directness such as is demanded by the rule of equality as between all States Members of the League?
Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.
Assistance Refused
I have heard it asserted that the inadequate sanctions already applied have not achieved their object. At no time, and under no circumstances could sanctions that were intentionally inadequate, intentionally badly applied, stop an aggressor. This is not a case of the impossibility of stopping an aggressor but of the refusal to stop an aggressor. When Ethiopia requested and requests that she should be given financial assistance, was that a measure which it was impossible to apply whereas financial assistance of the League has been granted, even in times of peace, to two countries and exactly to two countries who have refused to apply sanctions against the aggressor?
Faced by numerous violations by the Italian Government of all international treaties that prohibit resort to arms, and the use of barbarous methods of warfare, it is my painful duty to note that the initiative has today been taken with a view to raising sanctions. Does this initiative not mean in practice the abandonment of Ethiopia to the aggressor? On the very eve of the day when I was about to attempt a supreme effort in the defense of my people before this Assembly does not this initiative deprive Ethiopia of one of her last chances to succeed in obtaining the support and guarantee of States Members? Is that the guidance the League of Nations and each of the States Members are entitled to expect from the great Powers when they assert their right and their duty to guide the action of the League? Placed by the aggressor face to face with the accomplished fact, are States going to set up the terrible precedent of bowing before force?
Your Assembly will doubtless have laid before it proposals for the reform of the Covenant and for rendering more effective the guarantee of collective security. Is it the Covenant that needs reform? What undertakings can have any value if the will to keep them is lacking? It is international morality which is at stake and not the Articles of the Covenant. On behalf of the Ethiopian people, a member of the League of Nations, I request the Assembly to take all measures proper to ensure respect for the Covenant. I renew my protest against the violations of treaties of which the Ethiopian people has been the victim. I declare in the face of the whole world that the Emperor, the Government and the people of Ethiopia will not bow before force; that they maintain their claims that they will use all means in their power to ensure the triumph of right and the respect of the Covenant.
I ask the fifty-two nations, who have given the Ethiopian people a promise to help them in their resistance to the aggressor, what are they willing to do for Ethiopia? And the great Powers who have promised the guarantee of collective security to small States on whom weighs the threat that they may one day suffer the fate of Ethiopia, I ask what measures do you intend to take?
Representatives of the World I have come to Geneva to discharge in your midst the most painful of the duties of the head of a State. What reply shall I have to take back to my people?”
June, 1936. Geneva, Switzerland.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
A SCENE FROM THE OPET TEMPLE AT KARNAK
Photograph © Greg Reeder 1981"The most decisive divine confrontation encountered in Egyptian religious thought is without doubt between Re and Osiris. As the principle representations of sky and earth, life and death, light and darkness, day and night, they constituted one another's necessary compliment. Without some form of union between them, the Egyptian world view would have been hopelessly divided and the rhythm of life broken." -Jan Bergman.
THE VANISHING EVIDENCE OF CLASSIC AFRICAN CIVILIZATION
Prof. Manu Ampim
The “Vanishing Evidence” series is a general summary of years of detailed observation and research. The full documentation supporting the conclusions expressed in this series of articles, including dozens of photographs, will be published in my forthcoming book, Modern Fraud: The Forged Ancient Egyptian Statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret. I make no attempt here to “prove” such a complicated case as forgeries and the deliberate destruction of African artifacts in just a few short articles. Rather, this series is simply a preliminary report on my findings, which will be given extensive treatment in my book Modern Fraud. - MA
The “Vanishing Evidence” series is a general summary of years of detailed observation and research. The full documentation supporting the conclusions expressed in this series of articles, including dozens of photographs, will be published in my forthcoming book, Modern Fraud: The Forged Ancient Egyptian Statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret. I make no attempt here to “prove” such a complicated case as forgeries and the deliberate destruction of African artifacts in just a few short articles. Rather, this series is simply a preliminary report on my findings, which will be given extensive treatment in my book Modern Fraud. - MA
SCOPE OF “THE VANISHING EVIDENCE” SERIES
I originally wrote "The Vanishing Evidence of Classical African Civilizations" series in The Gaither Reporter in 1995-1996. The 3-part series documents the unintentional human-aided deterioration, as well as the deliberate and massive alteration, mutilation, and destruction of ancient Egyptian artifacts. The series covers three broad categories of this vanishing evidence: the Temple Evidence (part I), the Tomb Evidence (part II), and the Museum Evidence (part III). Before writing the series, I had meticulously studied artifacts and images at temples, tombs, pyramids, museums, and ancient residential sites throughout Egypt and Nubia (1990, 1994-1995). I also carefully examined ancient Egyptian and Nubian artifacts at nearly all of the major museums, institutes, and libraries in eleven European countries (1989-1990), and in dozens of cities throughout the U.S. and Canada (1991-1992). Overall, I painstakingly studied well over a million images and artifacts before writing the “The Vanishing Evidence” series.
My initial goal was simply to follow the path of research outlined by the eminent scholar, Dr. Chancellor Williams in The Destruction of Black Civilization (1974), and conduct primary research on ancient Black civilizations. As Williams pointed out, the accurate knowledge of African science, social organization, and advanced spiritual systems can only be known from an unbiased first-hand study of the history and artifacts. Though I began my extensive multi-country research tour with a mission of documenting the specific details of the advanced African civilizations of ancient Egypt and Nubia, a quite different and unexpected theme emerged in every region that I studied. I was struck by the specific patterns of deliberate alterations and defacement of the artifacts. These patterns became clear after I had visited the initial group of European museums. What I noticed most was that these acts were more than simply knocking off the noses of statues, they involve a much broader assault on ancient Black images.
METHODS OF DESTRUCTION AND ALTERATION
My observations of the evidence are careful and are supported by photographic and video documentation. The extensive study of over a million artifacts and images gave me the keen power of observation to make analyses of the same materials that are also available to Egyptologists, although most of them have not studied the volume of the materials that I have examined. When the artifacts in question were examined meticulously, I found that the methods used to change or damage the images are varied, and they include: subtly altering the shape of the nose on statues by using some type of sanding device; adding on false noses; reshaping or completely destroying the face on temple and tomb walls; lightening the color of the face and body paint on statues and paintings; completely eliminating the paint on statues and paintings and thus making the images appear “white”; destroying the lower facial structure, particularly the chin and jaw area; putting in false bluish-gray inlaid eyes; plastering over temple images with White Portland Cement during ongoing “conservation” work; and creating outright forgeries! These acts of fraud and deliberate destruction is what I call the handiwork of modern conspirators. I was stunned by such an angry, vicious, and widespread attack against Black images by the enemies of Classical African Civilizations.
My observations of the evidence are careful and are supported by photographic and video documentation. The extensive study of over a million artifacts and images gave me the keen power of observation to make analyses of the same materials that are also available to Egyptologists, although most of them have not studied the volume of the materials that I have examined. When the artifacts in question were examined meticulously, I found that the methods used to change or damage the images are varied, and they include: subtly altering the shape of the nose on statues by using some type of sanding device; adding on false noses; reshaping or completely destroying the face on temple and tomb walls; lightening the color of the face and body paint on statues and paintings; completely eliminating the paint on statues and paintings and thus making the images appear “white”; destroying the lower facial structure, particularly the chin and jaw area; putting in false bluish-gray inlaid eyes; plastering over temple images with White Portland Cement during ongoing “conservation” work; and creating outright forgeries! These acts of fraud and deliberate destruction is what I call the handiwork of modern conspirators. I was stunned by such an angry, vicious, and widespread attack against Black images by the enemies of Classical African Civilizations.
MODERN FORGERIES
One of the most absurd invention of the conspirators is the forged statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret in the Cairo Museum. I present detailed and concrete evidence in my forthcoming book, Modern Fraud: The Forged Ancient Egyptian Statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret (also see part 3 of this series on the Museum Evidence) that there is a list of specific artistic rules which are consistently applied to statue after statue throughout the pyramid age.[1] Although some writers would attempt to argue to the contrary, the fact that there was a body of specific artistic rules is demonstrated by the tens of thousands of statues and paintings that are presented in exactly the same way across various sites and cites throughout all of the major periods: the old, middle, and new kingdoms. Thus, these shocking forgeries make no artistic sense as they violate a long list of clearly defined rules, according to the ancient Egyptian rule system. Further, these fabricated European-looking statues do not make any cultural or historical sense, and it is consistent that they were found (or rather created by modern hands) during the 19th century, which has been called by some historians as “The Great Age of Fakes.” There is no doubt that the Ra-Hotep and Nofret forgeries stand completely outside of the ancient Egyptian artistic, cultural, and historical reality.
One of the great forgeries of the 19th century which has already been proven is that of the famous Queen Tetisheri. The statue of “Queen Tetisheri” was purchased by the British Museum in 1890, and this fake piece (with its facial features resembling most Europeans) was paraded around the world until it was first suspected as a fraud in 1984. This fake Tetisheri statue was showcased in the British Museum special exhibit on forgeries in 1990, but not before this forgery fooled experts and deceived the world for 100 years![2]
WHO ARE THE CONSPIRATORS?
Who are the conspirators responsible for these acts of destruction, alteration and invention is a basic question that must be answered. Brian Fagan in his book on The Rape of Egypt (1975) documents a list of culprits: the Christian Copts who destroyed statues and monuments; the conquering Arabs who dismantled ancient buildings; and the 18th and 19th century European travelers, adventurers, and archeologists who were treasure hunters, plunderers, and looters. It was during the 19th century that a vast number of ancient Egyptian artifacts were excavated, but most of these discoveries were not adequately documented, with original on-site photographs and detailed field reports, which are now standard procedures within the archeological field. The systematic documentation of archaeological excavations did not develop until many years after volumes of artifacts were already taken from their original African sites and eventually placed in museums. Indeed, it is a sketchy record of how most of these artifacts were discovered and eventually made it onto museum floors.
This brings us to the identification of a large group of conspirators, who are the handlers of the excavated artifacts. This group includes excavators, antiquities dealers, museum curators and directors, and restorers and conservationists. Somewhere between the original excavation of the artifacts, to their transport, sale and acquisition, storage, cleaning, conservation, and finally their display on the museum floor there has been a diligent effort at altering, reworking, and “touching up” the facial features of countless statues. The conspirators who perpetrate these acts are behind the scenes actors who use a hit and run strategy of defacement and alteration of the art. They hide their hands from public view, but the results of their fraudulent and destructive activity is plain to see by anyone who carefully examines the evidence, as their pattern of fraud is highly distinctive. The lack of original documentation of many excavated artifacts has made it easy for these conspirators to commit their fraud. It is well known that many great artifacts of ancient Egypt were destroyed by the hands of plunderers during the widespread looting and trading in antiquities that went on for centuries, but what is not well known is the full story of the artifacts that did survive the wave of plunderers and make it into modern museum collections. I show in Modern Fraud that a large number of these surviving artifacts have undergone a racial makeover at the hands of modern conspirators. The results of their fraudulent work are the countless altered artifacts, reworked pieces, fake genealogies, and a host of forged statues.
The most recent revelation of the racist fabrications by this group of handlers, or more specifically Western museum directors, is reported in the current issue of Archaeology Magazine 54 (September-October 2001, p. 27). This report is associated with an article by Peter Lacovara et al. Archaeology reported that in the absence of scholarship the directors of the Niagara Falls Museum in Ontario, Canada “fabricated pedigrees” for many of their Egyptian mummies in the mid-nineteenth century. The most imaginative of these fake pedigrees, or false identities, was created for a bearded male mummy of the Roman period. The museum officials invented the following elaborate story for him which is a complete myth: “General Ossipumphnoferu the General in Chief of Thotmes III. ... He was a man of military skill, also a famous magician. He was 60 years old when he died. The scar on his forehead was caused by an enraged elephant while defending the king from his onslaughts. A palace was erected for the general near that of the king.” The museum officials took their scandalous activity even further, as for many years the “general” was displayed in the coffin of Iawttayesheret, a high-ranking woman from the 25th dynasty, which was 700 years before his time! It is incredible that the directors of a public museum would take an unidentified Roman period mummy, with a European facial appearance, put him in a woman’s coffin from 700 years earlier, and then create a bogus identity for him as a famous general during a period which was another 700 years earlier than the coffin he was buried in! Eventhough this mummy and other artifacts at the museum were not studied comprehensively by an Egyptologist, this is yet another case which documents that Western museum directors would go to any lengths in the 19th and early 20th century to falsify evidence.
Currently, there is no doubt that this list of conspirators includes local Egyptian government workers, who are carrying out many acts of destruction on a regular basis. These men either work for the Egyptian government on “conservation” projects, or for various European or North American archeological teams. On several occasions in the 1980s and 1990s, these unsupervised minimally-skilled government workers have been caught on video tape plastering over temple images and inscriptions! In fact, it is impossible to visit the Karnak Temple in Luxor and not see the recent defacement, and it is suspicious that with rare exception Egyptologists are silent about this matter.
Who are the conspirators responsible for these acts of destruction, alteration and invention is a basic question that must be answered. Brian Fagan in his book on The Rape of Egypt (1975) documents a list of culprits: the Christian Copts who destroyed statues and monuments; the conquering Arabs who dismantled ancient buildings; and the 18th and 19th century European travelers, adventurers, and archeologists who were treasure hunters, plunderers, and looters. It was during the 19th century that a vast number of ancient Egyptian artifacts were excavated, but most of these discoveries were not adequately documented, with original on-site photographs and detailed field reports, which are now standard procedures within the archeological field. The systematic documentation of archaeological excavations did not develop until many years after volumes of artifacts were already taken from their original African sites and eventually placed in museums. Indeed, it is a sketchy record of how most of these artifacts were discovered and eventually made it onto museum floors.
This brings us to the identification of a large group of conspirators, who are the handlers of the excavated artifacts. This group includes excavators, antiquities dealers, museum curators and directors, and restorers and conservationists. Somewhere between the original excavation of the artifacts, to their transport, sale and acquisition, storage, cleaning, conservation, and finally their display on the museum floor there has been a diligent effort at altering, reworking, and “touching up” the facial features of countless statues. The conspirators who perpetrate these acts are behind the scenes actors who use a hit and run strategy of defacement and alteration of the art. They hide their hands from public view, but the results of their fraudulent and destructive activity is plain to see by anyone who carefully examines the evidence, as their pattern of fraud is highly distinctive. The lack of original documentation of many excavated artifacts has made it easy for these conspirators to commit their fraud. It is well known that many great artifacts of ancient Egypt were destroyed by the hands of plunderers during the widespread looting and trading in antiquities that went on for centuries, but what is not well known is the full story of the artifacts that did survive the wave of plunderers and make it into modern museum collections. I show in Modern Fraud that a large number of these surviving artifacts have undergone a racial makeover at the hands of modern conspirators. The results of their fraudulent work are the countless altered artifacts, reworked pieces, fake genealogies, and a host of forged statues.
The most recent revelation of the racist fabrications by this group of handlers, or more specifically Western museum directors, is reported in the current issue of Archaeology Magazine 54 (September-October 2001, p. 27). This report is associated with an article by Peter Lacovara et al. Archaeology reported that in the absence of scholarship the directors of the Niagara Falls Museum in Ontario, Canada “fabricated pedigrees” for many of their Egyptian mummies in the mid-nineteenth century. The most imaginative of these fake pedigrees, or false identities, was created for a bearded male mummy of the Roman period. The museum officials invented the following elaborate story for him which is a complete myth: “General Ossipumphnoferu the General in Chief of Thotmes III. ... He was a man of military skill, also a famous magician. He was 60 years old when he died. The scar on his forehead was caused by an enraged elephant while defending the king from his onslaughts. A palace was erected for the general near that of the king.” The museum officials took their scandalous activity even further, as for many years the “general” was displayed in the coffin of Iawttayesheret, a high-ranking woman from the 25th dynasty, which was 700 years before his time! It is incredible that the directors of a public museum would take an unidentified Roman period mummy, with a European facial appearance, put him in a woman’s coffin from 700 years earlier, and then create a bogus identity for him as a famous general during a period which was another 700 years earlier than the coffin he was buried in! Eventhough this mummy and other artifacts at the museum were not studied comprehensively by an Egyptologist, this is yet another case which documents that Western museum directors would go to any lengths in the 19th and early 20th century to falsify evidence.
Currently, there is no doubt that this list of conspirators includes local Egyptian government workers, who are carrying out many acts of destruction on a regular basis. These men either work for the Egyptian government on “conservation” projects, or for various European or North American archeological teams. On several occasions in the 1980s and 1990s, these unsupervised minimally-skilled government workers have been caught on video tape plastering over temple images and inscriptions! In fact, it is impossible to visit the Karnak Temple in Luxor and not see the recent defacement, and it is suspicious that with rare exception Egyptologists are silent about this matter.
WHAT ARE THEIR MOTIVES
After examining a vast body of artifacts, it seems evident that the ultimate motives of these groups of conspirators from the 19th century to the present is to eliminate the Black images from the ancient Egyptian historical record. This motivation is consistent with the racist views of many of the 19th and early 20th century Egyptologists who made many ridiculous assertions about Black people having little to no role in ancient Egypt, and that this was a civilization founded by white or Semitic people from the North. These baseless claims were widespread within the ranks of Egyptologists, and they helped inspire both H. M. Herget’s 1941 National Geographic Magazine paintings of pale-skinned Egyptians and the imaginary white images created by Hollywood, which together have deceived the public for the past half century.[3] This nonsense was exposed in the 1950s by the late Senegalese scholar, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop. Diop assembled an awesome body of evidence to document the Black foundation of ancient Egypt and to expose the dishonest discourse of Western Egyptologists who were, as he put it, “performing intellectual acrobatics” to avoid dealing with concrete evidence to support their contentions about the Northern origins of ancient Egyptian civilization.[4] The mainstream Egyptologist Bruce Trigger in The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt (1995) discusses Diop’s impact and that it is because of his work that ancient Egypt is now seen by mainstream scholars as an African nation. Trigger also comments that “the white racist rhetoric that permeated most early twentieth-century writings about the development of Egyptian civilization has long been abandoned, [but] ideas formulated at the time have continued to influence thinking about the origins and nature of Egyptian civilization.”[5]
The “white racist rhetoric” that Trigger describes as permeating early twentieth century writings is simply a continuation of the same racist views held in the 19th century, and it is within this climate that the behind the scenes handlers had both the motives and the opportunity to deface images, alter facial features, and create racist forgeries.
RESPONSE TO THE SERIES
Since I first wrote "The Vanishing Evidence" series in 1995-1996, there has been much discussion, and many individuals across the country have indicated to me that they have also observed both the human-aided deterioration and the deliberate acts of destruction against Black images and artifacts. I have examined photographs of several of these individuals who have traveled to Egypt at various times, and for the most part only a very small percentage of their photographs are useful, because the individual photographers are not trained on how to systematically document the damage. However, some of the images are invaluable as they document the ongoing assault on Black images at major temple sites. It is now known by many that the physical evidence of classical African civilizations is vanishing before our eyes in essentially every geographical area. Many people are now aware that the human-aided decay, distortion of the artifacts, and deliberate defacement is widespread and this damage is most obviously visible at popular temple sites throughout Egypt.
Predictably, there have been a few white writers who have made ignorant comments about the “The Vanishing Evidence” series without even looking at the artifacts in question! They have not examined the first-hand evidence that I outline in the series, but they attack without anything other than empty emotion. They are in blind support of the fraudulent activity and racist scholarship of the 19th and 20th century. These people subscribe to Western colonial scholarship, eventhough this scholarship was born and bred in the brutal period of European expansion and colonialism. Egyptology as a discipline originated in this shameful 19th century era, and still maintains -- with little improvement -- its arrogant colonial discourse about African culture and civilizations. Any research that challenges this Western paradigm is automatically attacked by the apologists of this paradigm as “wrong” “misinformed,” or “pseudo-scientific.” These individuals are willing to do whatever it takes to ignore evidence, and in some cases lie and mislead the public.
PREVIOUS DOCUMENTATION
After I had begun organizing my information on the vanishing evidence theme that had emerged from my museum and field work, I later found out that a portion of my work of documenting the ongoing deterioration and destruction in Egypt had already been anticipated by the accomplished Egyptologist John Romer nearly 20 years earlier.[6] On his website, Romer republished a 1997 essay which summarizes his many years of work in the King’s Valley and is entitled “The Valley of Death,” wherein the author wrote: “The warning has been sounded. Loud and clear. Egypt’s famed Valley of the Kings...is in danger itself of the death it silently encloses. In less than 25 years—unless something is done urgently—the valley of priceless ancient tombs could become the valley of ochre mud. And responsible is the planet’s prime agent of destruction—man himself.” Lastly, there is also video footage shot by Ashra Kwesi in his video series on “The African Origin of Civilization” that I recall viewing in the 1980s. Kwesi’s short footage showed local Arab workers chopping and plastering over wall material at one of the Luxor area temples. Kwesi's footage was probably my first exposure to the documentation which shows the vanishing evidence of classical African civilizations.
An updated version of “The Vanishing Evidence” series, complete with numerous photographs, form an important section in my upcoming book on Modern Fraud, which concerns the Ra-Hotep and Nofret forgeries.
Prof. Manu Ampim October 2001
Profmanu@acninc.net PO Box 18623 Oakland, CA 94619
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notes
[1] I list some of these rules in Manu Ampim, “Ra-Hotep and Nofret: Modern Forgeries in the Cairo Museum?” in Egypt: Child of Africa (1994), pp. 207-212. I will discuss the full body of these rules in my forthcoming book, Modern Fraud: The Forged Ancient Egyptian Statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret.
[2] For details see: Mark Jones, ed., Fake: The Art of Deception (1990), pp. 160, 162. The “Tetisheri” statue was first suspected to be a forgery in 1984 by Mr. W.V. Davies, Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum. See Davies, British Museum Occasional Paper (no. 36, 1984). For the significance of this forgery see Manu Ampim, “Ra-Hotep and Nofret: Modern Forgeries in the Cairo Museum?” in Egypt: Child of Africa (1994), pp. 207-208. [Return to text]
[3] William Hayes, “Daily Life in Ancient Egypt,” National Geographic Magazine 80 (1941): 419-515. H. M. Herget’s 32 imaginary color paintings with pale-skinned Egyptians are used as illustrations for Hayes’ article, eventhough Hayes states “the Egyptians are, and always have been, Africans,” and that they are a “brown” and “brunet” (i.e. dark brown or reddish brown) skinned people. This deliberate public deceit and racism is still being carrying on by KMT Magazine, which uses these same dishonest images created by Herget more than a half century ago. For example see: KMT premiere issue (spring 1990), pp. 9, 11, 16; and KMT vol. 5, no. 4 (Winter 1994-95), pp. 45-46, 60. KMT now seems to have adopted a new favorite set of modern racist drawings by Winifred Brunton to illustrate its various articles; for the complete set of the Brunton drawings, see KMT, vol. 1, no. 4 (Winter 1990-91), pp. 52-61. Also see KMT, vol. 8, no. 1 (Spring 1997), p. 31; and vol. 12, no. 3 (Fall 2001), pp. 1, 74. [Return to text]
[4]Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974), trans. by Mercer Cook. The African scholars C.A. Diop and Theophile Obenga solidified their position of Egypt as a Black civilization at the historic 1974 “Peopling of Ancient Egypt” Symposium. See: UNESCO, The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script: Proceedings of the Symposium held in Cairo, Egypt from 28 January to 3 February 1974 (The General History of Africa, Studies and Documents, no. 1, 1978), p. 102. [Return to text]
[5]Bruce Trigger, “Egyptology, Ancient Egypt, and the American Imagination” in The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt (1995), pp. 21-35. [Return to text]
[6]John Romer had already done thorough work in documenting the deterioration of the monuments, with his publication, Physical Deterioration of the Royal Tombs in the Valley of the Kings: A Progress Report on the 1977-1978 Season of the Brooklyn Museum Theban Expedition (1978). Along the same lines, Romer wrote The Rape of Tutankhamun (1993), which was later turned into a one-hour PBS television documentary in 1994. [See: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7171/romer.html] [Return to text]
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Archaeologist Discover Ancient Ship
By Tim Stoddard
Kathryn Bard, a CAS associate professor of archaeology, recently discovered the first ancient remains of Egyptian seafaring ships.
Kathryn Bard had “the best Christmas ever” this past December when she discovered the well-preserved timbers and riggings of pharaonic seafaring ships inside two man-made caves on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. They are the first pieces ever recovered from Egyptian seagoing vessels, and along with hieroglyphic inscriptions found near one of the caves, they promise to shed light on an elaborate network of ancient Red Sea trade.
Bard, a CAS associate professor of archaeology, and her former student Chen Sian Lim (CAS’01) had been shoveling sand for scarcely an hour on their first day of excavation on a parched bluff rising from the shore at Wadi Gawasis when a fist-sized hole appeared in the hillside. “I stuck my hand in, and that was the entrance to the first cave,” Bard says. “Things like that don’t happen very often in archaeology.”
Led by Bard and Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Fattovich of the University of Naples l’Orientale, the team uncovered the rectangular entrance to a second cave, constructed with cedar beams and blocks of limestone that were former ship anchors. Inside they found a network of larger rooms and an assortment of nautical items, among them ropes, a wooden bowl, and a mesh bag. They also found two curved cedar planks that were probably the steering oars on a 70-foot-long ship from Queen Hatshepsut’s famous 15th-century b.c. naval expedition to Punt, a trade destination somewhere in the southern Red Sea region. Buried in sand outside the second cave, the team found a piece of rope still tied in what she believes is a sailor’s knot. “It must have come from a ship,” she says. “It couldn’t have been used for anything else.” Fragments of pottery scattered near the artifacts date to Egypt’s early 18th dynasty, circa 1500 b.c., around the time Hatshepsut reigned.
The archaeologists also discovered several stelae (pronounced steely), limestone slabs about the size of small modern tombstones, installed in niches outside the second cave. Most were blank, but Bard found one, face down in the sand, with the cartouche of King Amenemhat III, who ruled about 1800 b.c. The text recounts two expeditions led by government officials to Punt and Bia-Punt, whose location is uncertain. “That this stela has been preserved with very little damage for that long is really unusual,” she says, “and the preservation of organic material in the caves is truly remarkable. I’ve worked in Egypt since 1976, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Bard’s colleagues share her enthusiasm. “I think it is a very exciting discovery,” says John Baines, an Egyptologist on the faculty of oriental studies at Oxford University. “People have tended to assume that the Egyptians didn’t do a tremendous amount of long-distance travel because very few remains of these sites have been found.” Based on texts discovered over a century ago, reseachers have known that Egyptians mounted naval expeditions to Punt as far back as the Old Kingdom (2686–2125 b.c.). In Punt they acquired gold, ebony, elephant ivory, leopard skins, and exotic animals such as baboons that were kept as pets, along with the frankincense necessary for religious rituals.
The discovery is shedding light on other aspects of the Red Sea trade. “It was not known until we found this stela that King Amenemhat III had sent any expeditions to Punt,” Bard says. “That makes this an important historical text.” The team also found fragments of pottery inside the small cave that the Italian archaeologists believe originated in Yemen, which suggests the Egyptians either sailed further than had been previously thought or were part of a more complex web of trade.
Sailing to Punt required a tremendous investment of manpower. Egyptian shipbuilders harvested cedar from the mountains of Lebanon and transported it up the Nile to a shipbuilding site, where the vessels were first assembled and then disassembled into travel-ready pieces that could be carried on a 10-day journey across about 100 miles of desert to the coast. “The logistics involved were phenomenal,” Bard says. “They’d have to carry fresh water and supplies for travel.”
Trading places:
During the 1990s, Bard and Fattovich had conducted a 10-year excavation near Aksum, Ethiopia, where they found evidence of a previously unknown period in African civilization. But when war broke out along the Eritrean border in 1998, they decided to relocate to the Egyptian coastline. The team went first to Wadi Gawasis in 2001 to investigate “the other end of Red Sea trade,” Bard says.
Fattovich selected Wadi Gawasis because in the 1970s an Egyptian archaeologist had identified it as the likely location of the ancient seaport of Saaw, known from texts as the departure point for expeditions to Punt. The team limits its excavation to the six weeks between semesters each winter, avoiding the extreme heat and humidity during the summer.
While Bard is thrilled by the recent cave discoveries, she notes that they have only begun to discover the secrets of Wadi Gawasis. “I’m sure there’s at least one other cave we haven’t excavated yet,” she says. “There may be many more. And we’ve only just cleared out the entrance to the large cave, and it’s enormous. We have years’ more work to do there.”
When she returns next December, she will be joined by a researcher who will use ground-penetrating radar to determine if there are more caves and to estimate how far back the known caves extend. An engineer will help the team support the partially collapsed ceilings in some of the caves. “It was the find of a lifetime,” Bard says, “and there’s much more to discover there.”
18 March 2005 Boston UniversityOffice of University Relations
Pre-history Africa & the Badarian Culture
Miniature dagger
Sudan (Kerma, cemetery M, grave 48), Early Kerma culture, 1900-1700 B.C.
Made of gold, bronze, ebony, and ivory
In 1913 George Andrew Reisner and the Harvard University–Museum of Fine Arts Expedition discovered this exquisitely crafted miniature daggers found in the grave of a young boy, is entirely Nubian.
Evidence of the Badarians into Pre-historic Egypt (4500-3800 BC)
The founder of pre-dynastic Nile Valley archaeology was William Finders Petrie (1853-1942), whose excavations at Nagada and Ballas in Upper Egypt nearly 100 years ago unearth nearly 1200 pre-dynastic graves. Other archaeologists such as Quibbell, Brunton, and Caton-Thompson have only refined and extended his research. It was Petrie who established the basic principles of pre-dynastic archaeology, and worked out a dating method that is still used today. He is famous as "The Father of Egyptian Pre-history." It was Petrie's conviction that there was "a peaceful", if not a united, rule all over Egypt and Nubia [Sudan], during the entire pre-dynastic period. (Petrie, 1939). No older cultures were unearth until the excavations of Brunton and Caton-Thompson in 1928 at al-Badari. Skull studies of the Badarians identifies them as southern in origin. The existence of a still earlier culture called the Tasian (Deir Tasa) has been claimed. If the Tasian must be considered as a separate cultural entity then it might represent a nomadic culture with a Sudanese background and which interacted with the Badarian Culture.
Africa's Early History:
100,000 B.C. Recent discoveries of incised ocher date back almost as far as 100,000 B.C., making Africa home to the oldest images in the world. The most remarkable early evidence of symbolic activity in Africa comes in the form of the recent find of engraved ocher plaques, such as this one, from Blombos Cave on the southern coast of Africa. This is an unequivocally symbolic object, even if we cannot directly discern the significance of the geometric design that the plaque bears; and it is dated to around 70,000 years ago, over 30,000 years before anything equivalent is found in Europe. To evidence such as this can be added suggestions of a symbolic organization of space at the site of Klasies River Mouth, also near the southern tip of Africa, at over 100,000 years ago.
35,000-30,000 B.C. "Oldest human skeleton found in Egypt". Nazlet Khater man was the earliest modern human skeleton found near Luxor, in 1980. The remains was dated from between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago. The report regarding the racial affinity of this skeleton concludes: "Strong alveolar prognathism combined with fossa praenasalis in an African skull is suggestive of Negroid morphology [form & structure]. The radio-humeral index of Nazlet Khater is practically the same as the mean of Taforalt (76.6). According to Ferembach (1965) this value is near to the Negroid average." The burial was of a young man of 17-20 years old, whose skeleton lay in a 160cm- long narrow ditch aligned from east to west. A flint tool, which was laid carefully on the bottom of the grave, dates the burial as contemporaneous with a nearby flint quarry. Thoma A., Morphology and affinities of the Nazlet Khater man, Journal of Human Evolution, vol 13, 1984.
27,000 B.C. The earliest southern African rock art dates to 27,000 B.C. Over 40,000 paintings exist in 500 rock shelters. The original people who inhabited most of southern Africa were the Xhoisan or 'San People'. They were hunter-gatherers who occupied the area from Zimbabwe to Cape Town including the desert (Kalahari) of southwest Africa. The San People were adept at engraving and painting on rock surfaces. They represented themselves with bows, arrows, and digging sticks using yellow, red, and brown colors. San rock paintings always had spiritual significance. The San or Bushman rock paintings and rock engravings of southern Africa were part of a remarkable religious tradition. The art was not simply decorative or a record of daily life. Its purpose was a deeper one. The trance dance was the central religious ritual of the San. Shamans, or medicine people, used supernatural power obtained during trance states to make rain, heal the sick and maintain social harmony. Many rock paintings and engravings are depictions of visions experienced while in trance. Others depict ritual occasions or the animals whose power the shamans hoped to use. In addition to red ocher and other substances, some images of the eland, Africa's largest antelope, were made with its blood, thought to contain the animal's supernatural potency. Archaeologists have traced the ancestors of the San back more than 50,000 years. For these ancient hunters and foragers, the spirit world was never far from daily life, and nowhere was it closer than at the tens of thousands of rock-art sites scattered across Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Lesotho. There, on the walls of the rock-shelters where they lived, they depicted antelopes, rhinos, elephants, and other animals; people hunting and performing rituals; mythical creatures, half animal and half human.
A summary of rock art databases in Southern African countries indicates that there are at least 14,000 sites on record, but that many more exist than have been formally recorded (Deacon 1997). There are probably well in excess of 50,000 sites in the region as a whole, with a conservative estimate of more than two million individual images. The paintings of people in Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania have dramatic hairstyles that are not seen so often in the art further south. In contrast, there are many more paintings in the south of people wearing cloaks, some of which are elaborately decorated.
8000 B.C., Early Khartoum. Hunting, gathering of wild plants, fishing, pottery (the earliest pottery in Sudan), grindstones, worked flint, ceramics, and ostrich eggshell beads. Early attempts at farming, or at least, the periodic harvesting of wild cereals by semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, as evidenced by ‘sickle-sheen’ on their tools. We even see how the earliest inhabitants lived on an environment which was intimately bound to moist and arid phases in the climate of the region. Khartoum lies in the center of the Sudan at the junction of where the White Nile and the Blue Nile meet to form the great Nile River. This junction forms a superb and unique sight, with both the White and Blue Niles flowing side by side, each with its own color. The Nile River is possibly the most famous river in history. It was by its banks that one of the oldest civilizations in the world began.
8000 B.C. Nigeria. "Africa's oldest known boat" the Dufuna Canoe was discovered near the region of the River Yobe in Nigeria. The Canoe was discovered by a Fulani herdsman in May 1987, in Dufuna Village while digging a well. The canoe’s “almost black wood”, said to be African mahogany, as “entirely an organic material”. Various Radio-Carbon tests conducted in laboratories of reputable Universities in Europe and America indicate that the Canoe is over 8000 years old, thus making it the oldest in Africa and 3rd oldest in the World. Little is known of the period to which the boat belongs, in archaeological terms it is described as an early phase of the Later Stone Age, which began rather more than 12,000 years ago and ended with the appearance of pottery. The lab results redefined the pre-history of African water transport, ranking the Dufuna canoe as the world’s third oldest known dugout. Older than it are the dugouts from Pesse, Netherlands, and Noyen-sur-Seine, France. But evidence of an 8000-year-old tradition of boat building in Africa throws cold water on the assumption that maritime transport developed much later there in comparison with Europe.
Peter Breunig of the University of Frankfurt, Germany, an archaeologist involved in the project, says the canoe’s age “forces a reconsideration of Africa’s role in the history of water transport”. It shows, he adds, “that the cultural history of Africa was not determined by Near Eastern and European influences but took its own, in many cases parallel, course”. Breunig, adding that it even outranks in style European finds of similar age. According to him, “The bow and stern are both carefully worked to points, giving the boat a notably more elegant form”, compared to “the dugout made of conifer wood from Pesse in the Netherlands, whose blunt ends and thick sides seem crude”. To go by its stylistic sophistication, he reasons, “It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.”
The "oldest known boat" found in Egypt is dated 5000 years old, located in the desert sands of Abydos, Egypt. See also Archaeological research in Northeastern Nigeria.
7000 B.C. South Nubia (Sudan). Hunting, gathering, fishing, pottery, worked copper, beautiful ceramics and fine sculpture. Around 6000 years ago central Saharan ideas arrived in the Nile valley, adding mummification and other rituals to the potent mix which was to become the Egyptian civilization. The Black Mummy. In around 5000 B.C. there was a change in climate and the region became increasingly dryer. The population trekked out of the Sahara region towards the Nile valley below the second Cataract where they made permanent or semi-permanent settlements. Animals were domesticated for the first time and hunting grew less important. Goats, sheep and cattle are descended from the wild creatures that used to populate the regions lying close to the Nile valley. People also started farming. Thus, Nubia, Egypt’s southern neighbor with its own civilization, preceded ancient Egyptian (Kemet) civilization. It has already established that this area was the birthplace of iron industry.
The number of pyramids in Nubia (aka Kush) were a total of 223, double the pyramids of its neighbor Egypt. Research suggests that a line of kings lived in Qustul in northern Nubia as early as, or perhaps even earlier than, the first pharaohs of Egypt. The people of these early cultures buried their dead in stone-lined pit graves, accompanied by pottery and cosmetic articles. At this time, Nubia was known to the Egyptians as "Ta Seti," the "Land of the Bow," because of the fame of Nubian archers. The skill of Nubian archers forestalled the conversion of Nubia to Islam until A.D. 1400.
3800-3100 B.C. Qustul: The oldest tombs of a pharaonic type are found in Nubia (Kingdom of Qustul), and these thirty-three A-Group tombs appear in Nubia before the dynastic period. Cemetery L at Qustul, which is a small cemetery containing unusually large and wealthy tombs of A-Group. It was in one of these graves, "L-24" coded by the excavators, that the mysterious incense burner came to light. An incense burner with figures and pictographs gouged deep into the clay. This censer had been found, not in Egypt, but nearly 200 miles deep in Nubia. The inscription showed three ships sailing in procession. The three ships were sailing toward the royal palace. One of the ships carried a lion - perhaps a deity. The central boat carries the king, sitting and equipped with long robe, flail and White Crown. All motifs that would later become symbols of Pharaonic rule in Egypt. This piece had been made no later than 3400 B.C. At that early date, there were not supposed to have been any such things as pharaohs or pharaohs' palaces. The discovery of the Qustul Incense Burner is considered one of the earliest certifiable uses of incense by a culture. This Qustul burner also rose a debate regarding the Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization. Upon the Incense Burner is a relief of a royal procession considered by many archeologists as evidence of the worlds first monarchy. This debate maintains that Nubian culture often referred to as Ta-seti, developed as early as 7000 B.C. forming the source for Egyptian Pharonic culture, as well as its religious system. However, Egyptologists all agree that the bounty of the lush Nile Valley was instrumental to the luxuriant flowering of Ancient Egypt. The Sahara was not always a desolate wasteland. Some 10,000 years ago, the Sahara received considerably more rain than it does today, permitting a savanna-like vegetation of open grasslands peppered with shrubs and trees, much like the East African plains of today.
The tombs, badly plundered and fire damaged, contained pharaonic images on A-Group objects, indicating that they belonged to rulers from the period before Egypt's First Dynasty. The residents of Qustul buried their dead in stone-lined graves, usually in a contracted position facing west. Within the graves were a considerable selection of goods: pottery; jewelry made from shells, bone, ivory, stone or faience; feathers and leather caps, and linen or leather kilts for clothing; palettes for grinding eye shadow; baskets containing food; and clay figurines of people and animals. One grave contained copper axes, a lion's head of rose quartz inlaid with glaze, a mica mirror, and two maces with gilded handles; still others contained beer and wine jars. "The elaborate A-Group painted pottery, tombs, small objects, epigraphy shows the special importance of Cemetery L in early Nubia with its possible role in the development of pharaonic Egypt." (Williams (1986)) Structural remains of houses have been found only occasionally, most notably stone foundations and Afia, near Korosko. The leaders of the A-Group communities probably played an important intermediary role among the fast-developing Egyptian economy, the communities in Upper Nubia and those in surrounding regions, furnishing raw materials of various kinds, including ivory, hardwoods, precious stones, and gold, perhaps also cattle. The Early A-Group was contemporary with the latter part of Egypt's Amratian, culture and early Gerzian. The richest cemetery was located at Khor Bahan. This phase was also coexistent with a Sudanese Neolithic culture called the Abkan, which dominated the region at the Second Cataract in Batn el-Hagar. The true relationship between the Egyptian Predynastic culture and the Early A-Group is not yet fully understood.
"The most affluent area was located in the southernmost part of Lower Nubia, displaying an impressive number of rich cemeteries with a strong social presence of women in both the village cemeteries and in many of the elite cemeteries. An advanced chiefdom that controlled at least the southern part of Lower Nubia may have been formed during the A-Group, perhaps the result of a consolidation process parallel to that of Egypt. The center was at Qustul near the present Sudanese-Egyptian border, where the Chicago Oriental Institute has excavated an elite cemetery with funerary offerings of outstanding quality. The A-Group society was so similar to that in pre-dynastic Upper Egypt that there was a kind of equilibrium between them. These Nubian people were not living in the shade of the pre-dynastic Egyptians, nor were they subservient to them in a colonial way. They had no need to leave their home in order to find food or employment in the big city. Given the growing desire for exotic goods like the obsidian from the temple, A-Group Nubians likely came to Egypt for transactions!"
Hunting for the Elusive A Group, by Archaeology Magazine
Note: Unfortunately, the likelihood of further archaeological study at Qustul, or any other site in Nubia, is all but impossible became many of the primary areas of investigation now lie under 250 feet of water, at the bottom of Lake Nasser. This man-made lake covers an area of approximately 500 square miles, and it is the second largest man-made lake in the world. Over 150,000 Nubians and Sudanese were forced to relocate off the land their ancestors had called home for over 5,000 years. Over 45 Nubian villages were washed away along the banks of the Nile south of Aswan. They were resettled in and around the city of Aswan and in villages further north. Twenty-three Nubian monuments were saved from the rising waters There is no way to estimate the total number of temples and tombs which now lie at the bottom of Lake Nasser, nor is there any way of knowing the many secrets these structures currently hold. Because of the creation of the Aswan High Dam, the world will never have an opportunity to study the full impact Africans from the southern Nile Valley had on the development of ancient Egypt and subsequent civilizations.
Around 2200 B.C., the C-Group emerged between the first and second cataracts. The C-Group was similar to the A-Group. The most powerful Nubian kingdom after 2000 B.C. was what the Egyptian called the Kingdom of Kush.
Eventually the old cultures of Nubia and Egypt changed radically due to the immigration of foreigners into the Nile Valley. Egypt was overpowered by Rome in 332 B.C. Axum Kingdom (modern Ethiopia) attacked Nubia, destroyed Meroe, Kushites fled west toward Lake Chad, West Africa, in 350 A.D. Aksumite people were product of cultural and genetic mixing of Kushite and Semitics from Yemen in south Arabia.
6000 B.C. Tassili-n-Ajjerm. The people of the Sahara apparently influenced the cultures of both the Nile valley and of West Africa, and one suspects the use of masks is one such link. Pastoralism, in the form of domesticated sheep and goats, spread from the Sahara. The domestication of the local wild Bos africanus cattle probably also originated in the Sahara, in the fourth millennium. Tassili-n-Ajjerm has one of the most important groupings of pre-historic cave art in the world. More than 15,000 drawings and engravings record the climatic changes, the animal migrations and the evolution of human life on the edge of the Sahara. The Sub-Saharan dried up about four thousand years ago.
4500 B.C. Badari. It was in 1923 that Egypt's indigenous Badarian culture was discovered by archaeologists Brunton, and Caton-Thompson. About 600 tombs are excavated and recorded. The Badarian culture (named after al-Badari); is the earliest known "civilized Egyptian civilization" based on farming, hunting and mining. They lived at about 4500 B.C. and may have even been as far back as 5500 B.C. These farmers grew barley, wheat, flax and wove linen fabrics in addition to tending flocks. Calibrated radiocarbon dates of two charcoal samples from a Badarian site suggest that it was the first farming culture in Upper Egypt. We do not know what kind of house or shelter the Badarian made for himself.
Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (1999).
The dead were buried with their finest possessions, personal possessions and clothing for use in the next world. Badarians produced fine pottery and carved objects as well as acquiring turquoise and wood through trading.
Green malachite ore, so important for the beautification of the eyes, was ground on cosmetic palettes. They were found together with grinding pebbles which were used to grind the ore into powder to be used as green eye-paint. Malachite ore is mined in the Eastern Desert and in Sinai. The Eastern Desert is the long strip of land between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. The castor plant, which grew wild, supplied them with oil to lubricate their skins, or to fill their lamps. Grain was stored in clay bins; made into bread, apparent remains of which are found in graves. Porridge no doubt was a common form of food, and was ladled out of the pots with large dippers or spoons, which could be carried hung from the belt.
The Badarians practice agriculture and domesticated sheep and goats. Egyptologist have found in Badarian and other pre-dynastic cultures of Upper Egypt some materials and ideological evidence of southern or Sudanic African elements. The publication Current Anthropology, April, 1965 noted that "the Badarians pottery is connected with the pottery of the Khartoum (Sudan) neolithic culture." The Khartoum Neolithic and Badarian share the characteristics of shell fishhooks, black top and ripple pottery, and flat-topped axes. Anthony J. Arkell, The Prehistory of the Nile Valley (1975) also states that Badari pottery may have a Khartoum "mesolithic" origin.
Burial Grounds:
The Badarians gave their dogs, cattle, sheep, jackals, and cows ceremonial burial. This burial of animals were also found during the archaeological survey of Nubia ; but these are all B-Group or later still in date. Amulets with animal heads, like gazelle and hippopotami, were found with the human skeletal remains. Of the every-day religion of the Badarians we know very little. That they had a belief in the efficacy of amulets we know from the animals’ heads found on the bodies; the gazelle and the hippopotamus had attributes which it was desired to acquire by magical means, or they were objects of veneration and could afford the wearer protection.
In most of these communities the graves of the deceased where situated away from the living areas, the cultivated land, even at this early date, the decision to bury the dead in the desert had already been made. Another foreshadowing of the Naqada culture was the orientation of the human burials, with the body facing south and the face, west in a fetal position, and wrapped in basketry skins, or linen. The fetal position evokes the idea of rebirth. The southward orientation of the body is in reference that the south is "the land of beginnings." The south is also "the land of the spirits," where the souls of ancestors dwell. The face pointing west reflects the belief of "the hidden land," where the soul of the departed journeys after it quits the body. The elaborate funerary practice of dynastic times seems to have evolved from pre-dynastic times. This is important as it shows, even at this early period, that there was the belief that the West was the land of the dead. A style of burial which continued in the succeeding Naqada culture. That there was belief in survival after death is obvious from the food-offerings placed in the graves. The deceased were wrapped in their everyday clothes and laid down as if sleeping, covered by what may have been a replica of their home; and with them were placed their toilet objects and implements of craft. For some reason, it was considered desirable that they should look toward the setting sun. The grave goods that are found within these early graves show that there was some kind of universal belief in the existence of life after death. Objects and artifacts were buried with the dead for use in the next life. These artifacts included: personal adornments such as jewellery, make-up, and materials like lapis lazuli.
Brunton, Caton-Thompson, The Badarian Civilization and Predynastic Remains Near Badari, 1928; Petrie, Prehistoric Egypt. London, 1920.)
Who Were The Badarians?
The Badarian structure is said to have affinity to the black race . . . Max Toth, Pyramid Prophecies, Destiny Books, (1988): "The oldest ivory figurines found in ancient Egypt were sculpted by the Badari, a Negroid race of the Egyptians".
Dr. Eugen Strouhal Physical Anthropologist was able to take samples of seven of the racially mixed Badarian individuals which were macroscopically curly [spirals of 10-20mm in diameter] or wavy in [25-35 mm]. They were studied microscopically by S. Tittlebacchova from the Institute of Anthropology of the Charles University, who found in five out of seven samples a change in the thickness of the hair in the course of its length, sometimes with simultaneous narrowing of the hair pitch. Strouhal summarized: "The outline of the cross-sections of the hairs was flattened, with indices ranging from 35 to 65. These peculiarities also show the Negroid inference among the Badarians (pre-dynastic Egyptians)." (Journal of African History, 1971). Thus, this is incompatible with the theories that the Negro element only infiltrated into Egypt at a late stage. Also see other references.
Badarian Pottery:
The pottery from the Badarian graves is very eloquent, with their reddish-brown bodies and black-tipped rims. The combed features are those of geometric patterns, whose ideological significance is as yet undetermined. Some vases were made from basalt, while ivory was used for small bowls, ladles, and female figurines. The red wares were made without a potter's wheel like all pre-dynastic pottery. After giving them their form, which was sometimes unconventional, they were dried in the sun, sometimes covered with red ochre, and burnished with a stone. Thus a smooth shiny surface was achieved, which showed off better the native reddish color of the clay. They were fired either in open fires or very simple kilns. The black decorative upper rim and inside of the black-topped pottery possibly stem from smoldering chaff or other organic materials the pots were placed in upside down before or after firing. Ancient Nubian pottery was similar in style and color.
The British Museum (Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan) is the foremost center for the study of prehistoric Nile Valley ceramics. According to the museum: (1) the oldest in Africa, that reveals the spectrum of manufacturing techniques from the Western Desert, the Oasis, Lower Nubia and the Dongola Reach; (2) the oldest Neolithic Red Polished Black Topped Wares from the Nile Basin, a type common to the Nubian cultures, as well as, the Badarian culture from Upper Egypt; (3) the Rippled Wares, which resemble those from the Late Nubian Neolithic and Badarian periods. The later examples clearly indicate the extensive relationship between Nubia and Egypt in prehistory, and the assimilation of the African component into the Pharaonic culture. (The Wendorf Pottery Collection at the British Museum).
Badarian Pottery, 4500 B.C.
Ancient Egyptian Types in the Flesh
Young Bishari's of North Africa, Egypt, 1890
Being Aware of False Images in Museum
Nubian Village Snapshots
Nubian Pottery, 1700-1550 B.C.
Petrie Museum, London
Badarians carved objects as well as acquiring turquoise and wood through trading. Glass, ivory, crystal, and copper was found at some burial sites. Objects found at the Badari excavation sites: beads, bone needles, copper pins, clay model boats, combs, mirrors, bracelets, ivory finger-rings, nose and ear studs, shells amulet-pendants, woven linen clothing, skins, ivory spoons, cooking pots, basket works, and arrow-heads. Badarian civilization is an earlier phase of the Amratian-Pre-dynastic. The close typological relationship between the two is evident. Racially they are one. The use of matting, which is almost universal in Badarian graves, is also common in Early Pre-dynastic times, but gradually dies out after that. Judging from the remains that we have of the Badarians, they seem to have been a very peaceful people. There is a considerable proportion of long-lived individuals among the burials; there are no examples of broken bones or injuries; and we find no warlike weapons such as the disk-mace which is characteristic of the Early Pre-dynastics.The Badarian culture appears to have developed, or rather degenerated further, in Nubia, where it was much less affected by foreign influences. Many of the Early Pre-dynastic parallels to Badarian objects, especially flints, bone awls, and the like, are found in Nubia. The rippled surfaces to the pottery vases in a modified form continued on there till much later periods. Most striking of all are the pottery forms; the bowl, which is by far the commonest Badarian shape, is also very usual in Nubia, where it persisted for many centuries. We need, I think, be in no two minds about the essentially pre-dynastic character of the Badarian civilization. The only other culture so far found in Egypt which is comparable with it is that of the “Pan-grave” people.
Brunton, Caton-Thompson, The Badarian Civilization and Predynastic Remains Near Badari, 1928.
Trade and Unification of the Two Lands:
The problem in most books -- it regards the unification of the Two Lands as the start of Egyptian history. Of course it is not -- by then they had developed glass, silver, bronze in limited amounts, shells, all of these show us: (1) that they had traded regularly and deliberately for some time; (2) that they knew exactly where to go, how to get there, and what they would find when they got there; (3) they had developed (or learned of) new technologies from their overseas contacts.
"Badarian trade we have ample evidence. It is a matter of dispute from what neighboring lands certain materials and objects come; but it is quite certain that they were not found or manufactured locally. The basalt vases were probably traded up the river from the Delta region or from the northwest. Elephant ivory may have been local, but was more likely imported from the South. Shells came in quantities from the Red Sea shores. Turquoise possibly came from Sinai; copper from the North. A Syrian connection is suggested for the four-handled pot of hard pink ware. The black pottery, with white incised designs, may have come directly from the West, or indirectly from the South. The porphyry slabs are like the later ones in Nubia, but the material could have come from the Red Sea mountains. The glazed steatite beads, found in such profusion, can hardly have been made locally. We see, then, that the Badarians were not an isolated tribe, but were in contact with the cultures of countries on all sides of them. Nor were they nomads; their pots, some of them both large and fragile, were absolutely unsuitable for the use of wanderers. Trade connections need not necessarily affect race, but the variation in the physical features of these people, such as the stature, hair, and facial outline, imply that they were affected to some degree by actual racial admixture".
Brunton, Caton-Thompson, The Badarian Civilization and Predynastic Remains Near Badari, 1928, pp. 41-42.
"Towards an Understanding of Egyptian History: Reading older histories of Egypt can today be somewhat misleading. There have been breakthroughs in our knowledge of ancient Egypt, which have only recently been published to a widespread audience. For example, historically, and mostly due I believe to Palettes such as that of Narmer, it appeared to most readers that the unification of Egypt was attributed to a monumental war between the Upper and Lower Egypt. But recent findings indicate that civilization in Upper (southern) Egypt developed sooner then Lower Egypt, and possibly spread north. There are now theories, that while military conflict certainly played a part in the unification, it might not have been a single war or battle that bought the two lands together." [See Gebel el-Arak Knife, shows combats of black men overcoming red men. (Petrie, 1939)]. "Reading older histories (even a few decades) of Egypt and newer versions can certainly cause layman considerable consternation. Breakthroughs in Egyptology are likely to even accelerate. New imaging tools and methods of exploration, along with the general use of computers and sophisticated databases will likely increase our knowledge of ancient Egypt dramatically in the coming years. And while the Internet is a viable tool for the dissemination of the knowledge, unfortunately it is so often also a media of crackpots and simply the uninformed. So it is very important that readers beware, and use a good amount of intelligent judgment on what information can be trusted, and what cannot be." Professor William M. Finders Petrie
Sudanese Dynasties
From The Making of Egypt, (1939).
Scorpion king of the Anu [Aunu] culture.
"A breath of life came from the Sudan. This southern source was likewise the inspiration of . . ." the 1st, 2nd (Anu), 3rd [Sudanese], 4th, 5th, 12th [Sudanese] dynasties. "The 12th dynasty was undoubtedly descended from Amenemhat, the great vizier of the 11th dynasty. It seems, then, that he married the heiress of the Uah-ka family, as stated in the pseudo-prophecy, "A king shall come from the south whose name is Ameny, son a Nubian woman." She called her son by the family name Senusert, and he was the founder of the 12th dynasty, according to Manetho. The main sources of the 18th dynasty were Nubian and Libyan, depicted black and yellow, but not red of the Egyptians. Ahmos Nefertari was one of their black queens. Her black strain seems to come through the Tao I and II ancestry. The 19th dynasty was a direct mixture of races." Petrie states: "Decay continued in a divided kingdom; Egypt seemed hopeless until a fresh Ethiopian invasion stimulated it, as in earlier instances". This was the beginning of the 25th dynasty.
Site References
Dynasty 0, Francesco Raffaele, AH 17, 2003
Daily Life of the Nubians, Robert Steven Bianchi, Greenwood Press, 2004
Coulson, D, & Campbell, A 2001 African rock art. New York: Abrams
African Rock Art (published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001)
Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Kathryn A. Bard, Steven Blake Shubert, Routledge; Illustrate edition, 1999
Deacon, J 1997 A regional management strategy for rock art in Southern Africa. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 2: 29-32
P. Breunig, The 8000-year-old dugout canoe from Dufuna (NE Nigeria), G. Pwiti and R. Soper (eds.), Aspects of African Archaeology. Papers from the 10th Congress of the PanAfrican Association for Prehistory and related Studies. University of Zimbabwe Publications (Harare 1996) 461-468
African Peoples' Contributions to World Civilizations: Shattering the Myth (African Peoples' Contributions to World Civilizations)
by Paul L. Hamilton, R. A. Renaissance Publications; 2nd edition (July 1, 1995)
Early Khartoum "Mesolithic" Settlements in the Geili-Kabbashi Area, Sudan, Journal of Field Archaeology 20, (1993), pp. 519-522
Hassan, F.A. The Predynastic of Egypt, Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 2 (1988), pp. 135-185
Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 1: The A-Group Royal Cemetery at Qustul, Cemetery L.,
Bruce B. Williams, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 1986
Eugen Strouhal. Evidence of the Early Penetration of Negroes into Prehistoric Egypt, Journal of African History, 1971
Arkell, A. J. and Peter J. Ucko. Review of Predynastic Development in the Nile Valley. Current Anthropology April, 1965
Vol. 6(2), pp. 145-166
Petrie, W.M. Flinders. The Making of Egypt, London. New York, Sheldon Press; Macmillan, 1939
Petrie, W.M. Flinders. Prehistoric Egypt. London, 1920
Morant, G. M. The Predynastic Egyptian Skulls from Badari and Their Racial Affinities. In Mostagedda and the Tasian Culture, edited by G. Brunton, pp. 63-66. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1937
Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson. The Badarian Civilization and Predynastic Remains Near Badari; London British School of Archaeology in Egypt University College, 1928
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Most African-Americans originated in West Africa, continent has the most genetic variation
WASHINGTON (AP) — Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.
The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa. The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.
"Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes" in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.
People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.
Over 10 years, Tishkoff and an international team of researchers trekked across Africa collecting samples to compare the genes of various peoples. Often working in primitive conditions, the researchers sometimes had to resort to using a car battery to power their equipment, Tishkoff explained.
The reason for their work? Very little was known about the genetic variation in Africans, knowledge that is vital to understanding why diseases have a greater impact in some groups than others and in designing ways to counter those illnesses.
Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University noted that constructing patterns of disease variations can help determine which genes predispose a group to a particular illness.
This study "provides a critical piece in the puzzle," he said. For example, there are clear differences in prevalence of diseases such as hypertension and prostate cancer across populations, Williams said.
"The human genome describes the complexity of our species," added Muntaser Ibrahim of the department of molecular biology at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. "Now we have spectacular insight into the history of the African population ... the oldest history of mankind.
"Everybody's history is part of African history because everybody came out of Africa," Ibrahim said.
Christopher Ehret of the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, compared genetic variation among people to variations in language.
There are an estimated 2,000 distinct language groups in Africa broken into a few broad categories, often but not always following gene flow.
Movement of a language usually involves arrival of new people, Ehret noted, bringing along their genes. But sometimes language is brought by a small "but advantaged" group which can impose their language without significant gene flow.
Overall, the researchers were able to study and compare the genetics of 121 African groups, 60 non-African populations and four African-American groups.
The so-called "Cape-colored" population of South Africa has highest levels of mixed ancestry on the globe, a blend of African, European, East Asian and South Indian, Tishkoff said.
"This will be a great population for study of diseases" that are more common in one group than another, she said.
The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins. There was "very little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans, Tishkoff said.
Ehret added that only about 20 percent of the Africans brought to North America made the trip directly, while most of the rest went first to the West Indies.
And, he added, some local African-American populations, such as the residents of the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, can trace their origins to specific regions such as Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education at Vanderbilt University, the L.S.B. Leakey and Wenner Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard and Burroughs Wellcome foundations.
RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
11:33 PM PDT, April 30, 2009
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa. The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.
"Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes" in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.
People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.
Over 10 years, Tishkoff and an international team of researchers trekked across Africa collecting samples to compare the genes of various peoples. Often working in primitive conditions, the researchers sometimes had to resort to using a car battery to power their equipment, Tishkoff explained.
The reason for their work? Very little was known about the genetic variation in Africans, knowledge that is vital to understanding why diseases have a greater impact in some groups than others and in designing ways to counter those illnesses.
Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University noted that constructing patterns of disease variations can help determine which genes predispose a group to a particular illness.
This study "provides a critical piece in the puzzle," he said. For example, there are clear differences in prevalence of diseases such as hypertension and prostate cancer across populations, Williams said.
"The human genome describes the complexity of our species," added Muntaser Ibrahim of the department of molecular biology at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. "Now we have spectacular insight into the history of the African population ... the oldest history of mankind.
"Everybody's history is part of African history because everybody came out of Africa," Ibrahim said.
Christopher Ehret of the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, compared genetic variation among people to variations in language.
There are an estimated 2,000 distinct language groups in Africa broken into a few broad categories, often but not always following gene flow.
Movement of a language usually involves arrival of new people, Ehret noted, bringing along their genes. But sometimes language is brought by a small "but advantaged" group which can impose their language without significant gene flow.
Overall, the researchers were able to study and compare the genetics of 121 African groups, 60 non-African populations and four African-American groups.
The so-called "Cape-colored" population of South Africa has highest levels of mixed ancestry on the globe, a blend of African, European, East Asian and South Indian, Tishkoff said.
"This will be a great population for study of diseases" that are more common in one group than another, she said.
The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins. There was "very little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans, Tishkoff said.
Ehret added that only about 20 percent of the Africans brought to North America made the trip directly, while most of the rest went first to the West Indies.
And, he added, some local African-American populations, such as the residents of the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, can trace their origins to specific regions such as Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education at Vanderbilt University, the L.S.B. Leakey and Wenner Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard and Burroughs Wellcome foundations.
RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
11:33 PM PDT, April 30, 2009
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
Monday, 4 May 2009
Namibia Bushmen were first people in ‘Garden of Eden’
The Garden of Eden may not have looked much like its traditional image of a lush, fertile corner of the Earth.
Instead, a genetic study of Africa suggests that the origin of humanity lies in a sandy, inhospitable region near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola.
The area is populated by the Bushmen, or San people, who may be the closest thing to a biblical Adam and Eve. The study even gives the co-ordinates as 12.5° E and 17.5° S.
Scientists suggest that the clicking sounds characteristic of the San’s language may be a remnant of original human speech.
The conclusion emerges from the largest study of African genetics yet, conducted by an international team led by Sarah Tishkoff, of the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers studied genes from more than 3,000 people in 121 of 2,000 population groups in Africa. The study demonstrated that there was more genetic diversity in Africa than anywhere else on Earth, and found that modern African populations evolved from 14 ancestral ones.
Dr Tishkoff said that the study had traced the origin of mankind on the assumption that the oldest population would have the greatest genetic diversity. That diversity decreases as populations migrate away from the origin. “The source area for migration within Africa was in that area that represents today the San homeland,” she said. “What it’s really reflecting is the high level of diversity we are seeing in the San populations. It’s consistent with other studies that those populations have the most ancient lineages.”
She left open the possibility that the San may have themselves migrated at some point from a Garden of Eden somewhere else. “It’s very possible that those populations may have migrated from another region, such as eastern Africa. If that’s the case, 50,000 years ago they might have been in eastern Africa and that might have been the source of the migration,” she said.
The study also calculated the point from which human beings — perhaps a single tribal band as small as 150 people — left Africa about 50,000 years ago to populate the rest of the world. The exit point lies near the midpoint of the African coast of the Red Sea, at the coordinates 37.5° E, 22.5° N.
The genes of African-American populations were also studied, showing, as expected, that their roots lay principally in West Africa, source of the transatlantic slave trade. The ancestry of African-Americans was 71 per cent from the Niger-Kordofanian population of West Africa, 13 per cent European and 8 per cent other Africans.
Remains of the day
- The ruins of Babylon were discovered in the 19th century in Iraq. Saddam Hussein planned to restore the ancient city, complete with the Hanging Gardens
- Satellite images taken in 2004 of Mount Ararat in Turkey led Hawaiian Christian archaeologists to declare they were “98 per cent sure” they had found Noah’s Ark
- The Hollywood director James Cameron claimed two years ago that the tombs of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, found outside Jerusalem in 1980, were authentic. He said it was proved by DNA analysis
Sources: Times Archive; BBC; National Geographic
By James Bone
Instead, a genetic study of Africa suggests that the origin of humanity lies in a sandy, inhospitable region near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola.
The area is populated by the Bushmen, or San people, who may be the closest thing to a biblical Adam and Eve. The study even gives the co-ordinates as 12.5° E and 17.5° S.
Scientists suggest that the clicking sounds characteristic of the San’s language may be a remnant of original human speech.
The conclusion emerges from the largest study of African genetics yet, conducted by an international team led by Sarah Tishkoff, of the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers studied genes from more than 3,000 people in 121 of 2,000 population groups in Africa. The study demonstrated that there was more genetic diversity in Africa than anywhere else on Earth, and found that modern African populations evolved from 14 ancestral ones.
Dr Tishkoff said that the study had traced the origin of mankind on the assumption that the oldest population would have the greatest genetic diversity. That diversity decreases as populations migrate away from the origin. “The source area for migration within Africa was in that area that represents today the San homeland,” she said. “What it’s really reflecting is the high level of diversity we are seeing in the San populations. It’s consistent with other studies that those populations have the most ancient lineages.”
She left open the possibility that the San may have themselves migrated at some point from a Garden of Eden somewhere else. “It’s very possible that those populations may have migrated from another region, such as eastern Africa. If that’s the case, 50,000 years ago they might have been in eastern Africa and that might have been the source of the migration,” she said.
The study also calculated the point from which human beings — perhaps a single tribal band as small as 150 people — left Africa about 50,000 years ago to populate the rest of the world. The exit point lies near the midpoint of the African coast of the Red Sea, at the coordinates 37.5° E, 22.5° N.
The genes of African-American populations were also studied, showing, as expected, that their roots lay principally in West Africa, source of the transatlantic slave trade. The ancestry of African-Americans was 71 per cent from the Niger-Kordofanian population of West Africa, 13 per cent European and 8 per cent other Africans.
Remains of the day
- The ruins of Babylon were discovered in the 19th century in Iraq. Saddam Hussein planned to restore the ancient city, complete with the Hanging Gardens
- Satellite images taken in 2004 of Mount Ararat in Turkey led Hawaiian Christian archaeologists to declare they were “98 per cent sure” they had found Noah’s Ark
- The Hollywood director James Cameron claimed two years ago that the tombs of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, found outside Jerusalem in 1980, were authentic. He said it was proved by DNA analysis
Sources: Times Archive; BBC; National Geographic
By James Bone
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