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Tyehimba
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« on: November 26, 2003, 09:43:54 AM »

Ancient Egypt’s Role in European History
Dr Kwame Nantambu

When Wellesley College, Boston, Mass, U.S.A., Professor, Mary Lefkowitz published in her book, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History, (1996), she received tremendous accolades and widespread newsprint from mainstream America. The notion that was bandied about was that finally a renowned experienced Eurocentric scholar has quieted the proponents of Afrocentrism; Dr. Mary Lefkowitz has destroyed the Afrocentrists’ claim to the multifaceted originality of ancient Kemet (Egypt) and its impact on Greece and Rome. However, a much deeper, closer and sober look and analysis of this hysteria reveals a different historical reality.

The salient reality is that no one can deny the historical truism that the Greeks (the world’s first Europeans) went to ancient Kemet to study at the Temple of Waset (later called Thebes by the Greeks and Luxor by the Arabs).

In his magnum opus, A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History, (1995) Dr. Theophile Obenga quotes Aristotle ranking Egypt as “the most ancient archeological reserve in the world” and “that is how the Egyptians, whom we (Greeks) considered as the most ancient of the human race” (p. 45).

According to Dr. Obenga: “the ancient Greeks traced all human inventions to the Egyptians, from Calculus, Geometry, Astronomy and Dice Games to Writing...Since the time of Homer, Egyptian antiquity functioned strictly as a highly memorialized component of Greek history. Herodotus said it, Plato confirmed it, and Aristotle never denied it.” (p. 47). Indeed, in their book, A History of the Modern World (1984), R. R. Palmer and Joel Colton, corroborate this historical truism by contending that:

Europeans were by no means the pioneer of human civilization. Half of man’s recorded history had passed before anyone in Europe could read or write. The priests of Egypt began to keep written records between 4000 and 3000 B.C., but more than two thousand years later, the poems of Homer were still being circulated in the Greek city-states by word of mouth. Shortly after 3000 B.C., while the pharaohs were building the first pyramids, Europeans were creating nothing more distinguished than huge garbage heaps.

Furthermore, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) himself, writing in Metaphysics, not only refutes Dr. Lefkowitz’s ahistorical and false assertions but also confesses in Greek Hellenic language that: “Thus the mathematical sciences first (proton) originated in Egypt.” Egypt is “the cradle of mathematics-that is, the country of origin for Greek mathematics”. So, according to Aristotle, “the mathematical arts had never before been formed, constituted or elaborated anywhere else originating in Egypt only” (Obenga, p. 47-48). Aristotle acknowledges the originality of the ancient Egyptians in his own words.

In addition, in Prologue to Prodlus’s Commentaries on Euclid’s Elements, a disciple of Aristotle named Eudemus, who lived in the forth century B.C., confirms: “we shall say, following the general tradition, that the Egyptians were the first to have invented Geometry, (that) Thales, the first Greek to have been in Egypt, brought this theory thereof to Greece” (Obenga, p. 48).

The fact of the matter is that the famous, well known Greeks (Europeans) whom we study and revere in school curricula today all studied at the feet of the ancient Egyptians–Afrikans in the Nile Valley, Kemet. For example, Plato studied at the Temple of Waset for 11 years; Aristotle was there for 11-13 years; Socrates 15 years Euclid stayed for 10-11 years; Pythegoras for 22 yeasrs; Hypocrates studies for 20 years; and the other Greeks who matriculated at Waset included Diodorus, Solon, Thales, Archimides, and Euripides. Indeed, the Greek, St. Clement of Alexanddria, once said that if you were to write a book of 1,000 pages, you would not be able to put down the names of all the Greeks who went to Kemet to be educated and even those who did not surreptitiously claim they went because it was prestigious. “ Herodotus said it, Plato confirmed it and Aristotle never denied it”.

The fact of the matter is that it took 40 years to graduate/matriculate from Waset; this then means that none of the Greeks graduated.

Dr. Obenga points out this significant Kemet-Greece linkage:

I Thales (624-547 B.C.) was the first (protos) Greek student to receive his training from Egyptian priests in the Nile Valley.

II Plato (428-347 B.C.) records that Thales was educated in Egypt under the priests.

III Proclus (Neoplationist, 420-485 A.D.) Reports that Thales introduced science, philosophy and mathematics/geometry to Greece.

IV Greek intellectual life started with the Egyptian-trained student, Thales. He was the founder of the first Greek school of philosophy and science.

V Thales strongly recommended that Pythagoras travel to Egypt to receive his basic education and to converse as often as possible with the priests of Memphis and Thekes.

VI In the fall of 332 B.C. when Alexander invaded Egypt, Aristotle accompanied him

VII Aristotle ranked the country of the Pharaohs (Egypt) the most ancient archaeological reserve in the world. He wrote “That is how the Egyptians whom we considered as the most ancient of the human race”. (Obenga, pp. 28-45).

The Temple of Waset, the world’s first university, and known as “the septer” was built during the reign of Amenhotep III in the XVIII Dynasty, ca 1391 B.C. At its zenith, it educated 80,000 students.

Many people today believe that the words “man know thyself” (in Greek, qnothi seauton) were originally written and spoken by the Greek philosopher, Socrates. The ancient Egyptians wrote these words on the outside of their Temples in the Nile Valley and addressed these words to the neophytes - one of whom was the student Socrates himself. In a companion scenario, the originality of the words “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die,” has been assigned to the Greek philosopher Socrates, whereas history proves that the inventor who coined these words is Imhotep, the Afrikan deity and “the world’s first recorded multi-genius.” He built the world’s first stone building–the Step pyramid at Saqqara circa 2630 B.C.

Moreover, contrary to public information, the first Olympics that was held in Olympia, Greece, in776 B.C., was not held to reward sportsmanship, physical brawn or brinkmanship but instead as a public ceremonial worship by the Greeks of the Afrikan deity Amon, the “ruler of the Gods.” In fact, history proves quite convincingly that the Gods and Goddesses of Europeans were of Afrikan origin but given European names. For example, the Afrikan God, Amun, was renamed Zeus by the Greeks and Jupiter by the Romans; the Afrikan God, Heru (the son of God and associated with light and sun) was called Apollo by both the Greeks and the Romans; the Afrikan God Imhotep (the God of Healing and medicine) was renamed Asclepius by the Greeks and Aesclapius by the Romans; the Afrikan God Djhuti/Thoth (God of Science, Writing and Knowledge) was called Hermes by the Greeks and Mercury by the Romans; the Afrikan God, Pluto, was called Pluto by both the Greeks and Romans; the Afrikan God, Ausar, (the God of resurrection) was renamed Osiris by the Greeks; whereas the Afrikan Goddess Hathor (the Goddess of love and beauty) was called Aphrodite by the Greeks and Venus by the Romans; and the Afrikan Goddess Ist (Aset), (Goddess of maternity), was renamed Isis and was worshiped as the “Black Madonna.” This Afrikan Goddess has had such an impact on Europe that if we were to decipher Paris, the capital city of France, we get Per Isis: Per means Temple, while Isis means “House of Isis”; so the capital of a major European country is named in honor and eternal worship of an Afrikan Deity/Goddess. (See Figure I.)

One of the greatest contributions of the Nile Valley civilization in Egypt to the world was its educational system. The ultimate aim of education in ancient Kemet was for a person to become “one with God,” to “become like God” or “to become godlike through the revision of one’s own ‘Neter’ of how god is revealed in the person.” “Education in ancient Egypt was religious at its base.” At age seven, the brightest boys in Egypt were selected for training in the priesthood. This was the highest honor that could be possibly bestowed on a family-the selection of a son for admission into a caste of brilliant thinkers, the “guardians of the state” whom Plato so greatly admired and wrote about. When the boys (Neophytes) entered the Temple/schools (or Grand Lodge) they had to study for 40 years - subjects as Grammar, Arithmetic, Rhetoric and Dialectic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music, Architecture, Masonry, Carpentry, Engineering, Sculpture, Metallurgy, Agriculture, Mining, Forestry, Art and Magic.

The Neophyte was vigorously trained in how to:

1. Control his thoughts

2. Control his actions

3. Have devotion of purpose

4. Have faith in the ability of his master to teach him the truth

5. Have faith in himself to assimilate the truth

6. Have faith in himself to wield the truth

7. Be free from resentment under the experience of persecution

8. Be free from resentment under experience of wrong

9. Cultivate the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal (i.e., he must have a sense of values)

10. Cultivate the ability to distinguish between right and wrong

Plato, who greatly admired the Egyptian education system and actually recommended that it be introduced into Greece, copied/imitated/derived his three “cardinal virtues” from these ten goals the neophyte had to attain in the Nile Valley. “Control of thoughts and action,” Plato called the “virtue of wisdom;” “freedom of resentment under persecution” Plato called the “virtue of fortitude;” “the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and between the real and unreal,” Plato called the “virtues of justice and temperance.”

In the area of medicine, the literature says that Hypocrates (born 460 B.C.) is the “father of medicine,” but again history proves that the Afrikan deity, Imhotep, (born 2700 B.C.) was worshiped by the Greeks as the “God of Medicine” 2,000 years before the birth of Hypocrates. Nevertheless, Hypocrates is portrayed as supreme in the area of medicine as reflected in the “Hippocratic Oath” that graduates from medical schools must recite.

The “Oath” reads as follows:
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I fulfil according to my ability and judgement this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art-if they desire to learn it-without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning of my sons and to the sons of him who instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to medical law, but to no one else.

Now, as was mentioned earlier, Apollo is the Greek and Roman derivative of the Afrikan deity, Heru and Asclepius is the Greek derivative of the Afrikan deity, Imhotep. However, in this European medical “Oath,” no mention is made of the truism that the revered Greek and Roman deities, Apollo and Asclepius, are duplicates of the original Afrikan deities, Heru and Imhotep. Furthermore, the “Oath” also callously omits evidence of “the Kemetic roots and the personalities associated” with this ahistorical, Eurocentric medical Oath. Instead of reciting the “Hippocratic Oath,” medical school graduates should now recite the real, historical “Imhotep Oath.”

Egypt is indeed the light of the world. In the words of Cheikh Anta Diop: “Universal knowledge runs from the Nile Valley toward the rest of the world, in particular, Greece, which served as an intermediary. As a result, no thought, no ideology is foreign to Africa which was the land of their birth.” And no amount of Eurocentric research can ever efface this Egyptian, historical, contributive reality.

References
Lefkowitz, M. (1996). Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History, New York: Basic
Obenga, T. (1995). A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Source Editions.
Palmer, R.R. and Colton, J. (1984). A History of the Modern World, New York: Knopf, Ltd.

Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").
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Bantu_Kelani
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« Reply #1 on: November 27, 2003, 02:17:14 AM »

This is a great account of the ancient Africans by Dr Kwame Nantambu based on FACTS not on theories! Thanks Tyehimba for posting it! The ancient scholars agree about these black people but beware Hollywood and racists will still paint a broad white brush across History and make everyone Caucasian. I know it is difficult for them to accept Truth!

Bantu-Kelani.
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We should first show solidarity with each other. We are Africans. We are black. Our first priority is ourselves.
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« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2003, 08:07:53 AM »

Yes Tyehimba..very insightful info!

Here is a correlating article I found while surfing "Race and History"...( sorry..tis a bit long but expands the topic )
........

Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa
by Molefi Kete Asante

Africa's influence on ancient Greece, the oldest European civilization, was profound and significant in art, architecture, astronomy, medicine, geometry, mathematics, law, politics, and religion. Yet there has been a furious campaign to discredit African influence and to claim a miraculous birth for Western civilization. A number of books and articles by white and some black conservatives seek to disprove the Egyptian influence on Greece.  

One of the most recent works in this genre is a book by Wellesley professor Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa. It continues what Martin Bernal calls in Black Athena the Aryanist tradition of attacking African agency in regard to Greece by raising strawpeople arguments and then knocking them over. This is unfortunate but to be expected by an intellectual tradition that supports the dominant mythologies of race in the history of the West by diverting attention to marginal issues in the public domain.  

Afrocentricity seeks to discover African agency in every situation. Who are we? What did we do? Where did we travel? What is our role in geometry? How do we as a people function in this or that contemporary situation? But the Afrocentrist does not advance African particularity as universal. This is its essential difference from Eurocentricity which is advanced in the United States and other places as if the particular experiences of Europeans is universal. This imposition is ethnocentric and often racist. Afrocentricity advances the view that it is possible for a pluralism of cultures to exist without hierarchy but this demands cultural equality and respect.  

Mary Lefkowitz' book has sought to re-assert the idea that Greece did not receive substantial contributions from Kemet, the original name of Egypt, which is the Greek name for the ancient land. Professor Lefkowitz has offered the public a pablum history which ignores or distorts the substantial evidence of African influence on Greece in the ancient writings of Aetius, Strabo, Plato, Homer, Herodotus, Diogenes, Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus. A reader of Lefkowitz' book must decide if she or he is going to believe those who wrote during the period or someone who writes today. History teaches us that a person is more likely to distort an event the farther away from it she happens to be. If you have a choice, go with the people who saw the ancient Egyptians and wrote about what they saw.  

Conservative white columnists have felt a tremendous need to respond in the most vigorous fashion with their applause to shore up their racial mythologies. And now George Will (Newsweek, February 12, 1996) and Roger Kimball (Wall Street Journal, February 14, 1996) have seen fit to bless Professor Mary Lefkowitz' Not Out of Africa as a sort of definitive moment in intellectual history. It is no such moment. It is a racial argument clearly fast back-stepping. As is too often the case these days, however, Lefkowitz received the go-ahead to attack Afrocentricity by writing this book of blacks such as Anthony Appiah and Henry Gates. They have, of course, had a real problem with the Afrocentric idea.  

What this indicates is that we have gone full circle from the Hegelian "Let us forget Africa" to a late 20th century attack on African scholarship by declaring, in the face of the evidence, that major influences on Greece were not out of Africa. And as such it will simply confirm the inability of some scholars to get beyond the imposition of their particularism of Europe. No one can remove the gifts of Europe nor should that ever be the aim of scholarship but Greece cannot impose itself as some universal culture that developed full-blown out of nothing, without the foundations it received from Africa.  

The aim of Professor Lefkowitz is to support the unsupportable idea of a miraculous Greece and thus to enhance a white supremacist myth of the ancient world. Perhaps George Will and Roger Kimball believe that that they have found a savior of the pure white thesis. They are wrong. The thesis cannot be supported with facts although Professor Lefkowitz goes to great length to confuse the picture by concentrating on irrelevancies.  

Professor Mary Lefkowitz' work pales besides the research done by Cornell professor Martin Bernal, Black Athena, the late Cheikh Anta Diop, author of Civilization or Barbarism, and Temple professor Theophile Obenga, author of the important La Philosophie Africaine de la période Pharonique, (African Philosophy in the Age of the Pharoahs) or the forthcoming work by Professor Maulana Karenga on ancient Egyptian ethics.  

The press fanfare granted Not out of Africa, however, does demonstrate how noise can be confused with music. But what is more worrisome is that it demonstrates a glee, although misinformed, of those who feel some sense of relief that a white scholar has taken on the Afrocentrists, a kind of white hope idea. This stems, as I believe George Will has shown in his essay on the subject, from what is viewed as white salvation from the irrationality of Afrocentrists. It originates in an historical anti-African bias and Roger Kimball nearly gloated that readers would "savor" Lefkowitz' "definitive dissection of Afrocentrism." Contrary to any definitive dissection of Afrocentrism what Professor Lefkowitz offered was a definitive exposure of the principal assumptions of a racial structure of classical knowledge.  
 
Professor Lefkowitz is conversant with many Greek sources but as she admits this is the first time that she has ventured into these waters. This is unfortunate because she has created a false security among those who believe that Greece sprung like a miracle unborn and untaught. Bringing Frank Snowden in the discussion of the ancient world does not help because Professor Snowden's book Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Graeco-Roman Experience is fatally flawed as a Eurocentric interpretation of the African past. His objective was to demonstrate that Africans existed in the imaginations and experience of Greece and Rome. He succeeded in stripping all agency from Africans. The problem is that Ethiopia in the form of Nubia and Kemet (Egypt) existed thousands of years before there was a Greece or Rome. To start a discussion of the ancient world with 800 B.C is certainly poor scholarship. But Professor Lefkowitz reliance on Snowden is the least of her problems.  

The book is badly written and terribly redundant as if she is in a hurry to enlarge a relatively poor argument. How many times can you really say that George G. M. James should not have used the term "stolen legacy" when he claimed that the Africans influenced the Greeks? Professor James certainly had just as much rhetorical justification as Professor Lefkowitz who chose the unsubtle title "Not Out of Africa" probably for the same reason as Professor James called his book Stolen Legacy.  

Ruling classes always seek to promote and to maintain their ruling mythologies. Professor Lefkowitz' passion in trying to walk a tight rope between support of the false mythology of a Greek miracle and the facts of Egyptian influence on the early Greeks is telling. She seeks to minimize the role Egypt played in civilizing Greece by claiming that only in art and architecture was there real influence. This flies in the face of the ancient observers and beneficiaries of the largesse of the Africans.  

Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa, has demonstrated the tremendous power of a false idea especially when it is advanced in the halls of the Academy. I have come to believe that it is a part of a larger falsification that encompasses the various right-wing ideologies that parade as truth. They are rooted in the same dogma: reason is the gift of the Greeks. The Greeks are Europeans, Europeans are white, white people gave the world reason and philosophy. This is not only a bad idea it is a false idea. It is a bad idea because it preaches a European triumphalism and it is a false idea because the historical record is contrary. Tragically the idea that Europeans have some different intellectual or scientific ability is accepted doctrine and some scholars will go to any length to try to uphold it. Usually, as Lefkowitz does, they commit four fundamental flaws:  

They attack insignificant or trivial issues to obscure the main points.  

Professor Lefkowitz has three main axes to grind in her book. The first is that a student told her that she believed Socrates was black. The second is that the Greek gods came from Africa which she attributes to Martin Bernal, the author of Black Athena, and to Cheikh Anta Diop, the author of The African Origin of Civilization. The third is that freemasonry is the source of George James' claim in his book Stolen Legacy that the Greeks got many of their major ideas from the Egyptians.  

The main point made by Afrocentrists is that Greece owes a substantial debt to Egypt and that Egypt was anterior to Greece and should be considered a major contributor to our current knowledge. I think I can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black. I have never seen these ideas written by an Afrocentrist nor have I heard them discussed in any Afrocentric intellectual forums. Professor Lefkowitz provides us with a hearsay incident which she probably reports accurately. It is not an Afrocentric argument.  

I believe that both Bernal and Diop have done admirable jobs making their own cases on the legendary origins of the Greeks and I believe that readers should go to the sources themselves to see whose case, theirs or Professor Lefkowitz', is most plausible. I am convinced from my reading that the relationship between ancient Greece and Africa was closer and more familiar than Greece's relationship to Northern Europe.  

They will make assertion and offer their own interpretations as evidence.  

Professor Lefkowitz makes a statement on page 1 of her book that "In American universities today not everyone knows what extreme Afrocentists are doing in their classrooms. Or even if they do know, they choose not to ask questions." We are off to a bad start. Who are these extreme Afrocentrists? She does not provide us with one example of something that an extreme Afrocentrist is teaching in a classroom. Not one. But already the reader is inclined to believe that something exists where nothing exists. No matter how passionate, assertion is not evidence. What Afrocentrists do teach is that you cannot begin the discussion of world history with the Greeks. Creating clouds of suspicion about scholarly colleagues in order to support a racial mythology developed over the past centuries to accompany European enslavement of Africans, imperialism, and exploitation will not dissipate the fact of Greece's debt to Africa.  

They will undermine writers they previously supported in order to maintain the fiction of a Greek miracle.  

Professor Lefkowitz and others who once considered Herodotus to be the Father of History now find fault with Herodotus because as Afrocentrists read Book Two of Histories we find that Herodotus glorifies the achievements of Egypt in relationship to Greece. But Herodotus is not the only ancient Greek writer to be dismissed by classicists who accept what Bernal rightly calls an Aryan interpretation of the ancient world.  

Aristotle reported that the Egyptians gave the world the study of geometry and mathematics and the Aryanists argue that Aristotle made mistakes in what he observed. Professor Lefkowitz carries the denial of the ancient Greeks to a new level saying essentially that you cannot trust Homer, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, or Strabo. Her position is that Strabo, like Herodotus, depended too much on what the Egyptian priests told him. Every Greek who wrote on the overwhelming impact of Egypt(Africa) on Greece (Europe) is discredited or set up to be discredited by the Aryanists. The idea to abandon the Greek authors rests on the belief that these ancient Greek writers cannot be counted upon to support the theories of white supremacy.  

They will announce both sides of an issue are correct, then move to uphold only the side that supports European triumphalism.    

Professor Lefkowitz could have admitted that Egypt during the times of the Pharaohs, whatever interpretation you have of that ancient society, for example, as ornamented with Mystery Schools or simply filled with keepers of mysteries at the temples of Ipet sut, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae, Esna, Abydos, and other cities, was the source of much of Greek knowledge. Rather she claims that the only real impact of Egypt on Greece was in art and architecture. This is to state an obvious fact in order to obscure the deeper influences in science, astronomy, geometry, literature, religion, mathematics, law, government, music, medicine, and philosophy.  

Professor Lefkowitz' major points are not only flawed but her reasoning is faulty and cannot be sustained by any inquiry into the Greek or Egyptian languages or into ancient history. She wonders why the Afrocentric perspective is plausible to so many intelligent people. Clearly it is plausible to intelligent people because they do not believe that there was some unique brand of intelligence that struck the Greeks and created a Greek miracle willy-nilly without contact with the civilized world. In most cases knowledge builds upon knowledge. In the case of the ancient Greeks they tell us that they built upon the Egyptians. Should we believe them or should we believe the modern Aryanist interpreters who want to dismiss the ancient Greek observers?  

What are the substantial arguments advance by Afrocentrists, not the hearsay comments of a student or some rhetorical repartee between public debaters? What Afrocentrists articulate (see Asante, Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990; Theophile Obenga, A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History, Philadelphia: Source, 1995) is that the Greeks were students of the Egyptians. Readers should see the works of Yosef Ben-Jochannon and George G. M. James for themselves rather than rely on the misinterpretations and distortions of others.  

On these facts we stand:  

*Ancient Egyptians were black people.  

*Egyptian civilization precedes Greece by several thousand years  

*The pyramids are completed (2500 BC) long before Homer appears (800 BC)  

*Philosophy originates in Africa and the first Greek philosophers (Thales, Isocrates) studied in Egypt  

* A discussion of the wise, wisdom, (sb) appears on tomb of Antef in 2052 BC  

*Thales of Miletus is not a philosopher until 600 BC  

Among Greek historians and others who wrote about what the Greeks learned from Egypt are Homer, Herodotus, Iamblicus, Aetius, Diodorous Siculus, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Plato. Who were some of the Greek students of Africans, according to the ancient records? They were Plato, Solon, Lycurgus, Democritus, Anaxamander, Anaxagoras, Herodotus, Homer, Thales, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, and Isocrates and many others. Some of these students even wrote of their studies in Egypt as well.  

There are many other points that are debatable in Lefkowitz' book but I do not have space to discuss all of them in this essay. However, I do want to point out that she is also wrong on the issue of Alexandria. The City of Alexandria built in honor of Alexander of Macedonia was not a new city, the Greeks simply expanded an existing city and changed its name. The ancient Egyptian city of Rhacôtis, which probably had an even older name, was the original African city upon which Alexandria was built much like Kinshasa under the Belgians was expanded and changed to Leopoldville. Triumphalism has a way of insinuating itself into everything and then claiming that it is original.  

In the end I have asked myself, what is Professor Lefkowitz' point, why does she see the need to challenge Bernal, James, Diop, or to question my integrity? She states very clearly that her project is about sustaining the American myth of European triumphalism. In her own words:  

"Any attempt to question the authenticity of ancient Greek civilization is of direct concern even to people who ordinarily have little interest in the remote past. Since the founding of this country, ancient Greece has been intimately connected with the ideals of American democracy."

No one could have given a better reason than that for Professor Lefkowitz' spirited but misguided attempt to defend a falsification of history in the name of attacking Afrocentricity. When all is said and done a more perfect union of this nation can only be based on facts.  






 


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Tracey
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« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2003, 08:27:18 AM »

Stolen Legacy:
by Dr. George M. James
Reviewer: Milton Jones, Jr.
 
Contrary to the opinions of the reviewer who calls himself "classics lover" (after reading his review, it should be more along the lines of "fantasy lover") this book is a Masterpiece that needs to be read by any serious student of true, historical fact.

First of all, contrary to "classics lover" opinion, ancient Egypt was founded, cultivated and reached it's peak as a civilizing empire by a BLACK, AFRIKAN PEOPLE. Their own documents, in their own words say as much and while in the later (and by the way declining) years of the empire, they did intermingle with other races of peoples that they had conquered.

As for the "Mystery System" to place the founding of this system in 18th century France is to show one's ignorance in full display & spectacle. If you were to do any real and detailed study into the mystery systems of the world such as the Free Masons, Kabalists, etc... you will find that their beliefs, structures and practices could be traced, as many of them do, back to the courts of the Pharoh's. Make no mistake, they have perverted most of the original meaning, but the origin is still found in Egypt. Concerning his statement that every scholar of history has stated and never denied that greece was influenced by Egypt is itself ludicrous. To this day, so called "scholars" are dening that fact, and by the way, isn't it funny how you find not one scholar in greece worthy of mentioning until after the travels and conquests of Alexander the Great in particular in Egypt, then all of a sudden here comes all of these incredible scholars and books and of course the library of Alexandria containing all of this wisdom. Why where these things not founded in greece prior to this time period if the greeks where really so scholarly? As far as the ridiculous comment: not only did the greek plagiarize them, but that miracolously, this plagiarism caused the egyptians to instantly forget all of the plagiarized material and not make any new records of it! You must remember that unlike Afrika which has historically had a respect and thirst for the both the obtaining, recording and sharing of knowledge, europeans (see rome) have always had just as much a thirst for destroying and rewriting any and all records that didn't line up with their propaganda which is exactly what happened to the records of ancient Egypt.

It is clear that "classics lover" has had a hard time as most do when confronted with something that completely destroys the long held myths that they have been taught. If you are a true student who will take the time to study all the facts, then you will see that Dr. James did his homework when he put this book together and begin to appreciate the wonderful and rich tradition that is ancient Egypt, a glorious Afrikan Empire. --
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Tyehimba
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« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2003, 08:50:45 AM »

Quote
One of the greatest contributions of the Nile Valley civilization in Egypt to the world was its educational system. The ultimate aim of education in ancient Kemet was for a person to become "one with God," to "become like God" or "to become godlike through the revision of one's own ‘Neter' of how god is revealed in the person."



Yes Kelani and Tracey, much can be learned from the ancient African civilizations that contributed much of what lots of people take for granted today. The above part stood out for me.
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Tracey
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« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2003, 10:53:20 AM »

Indeed Tyehimba... Imagine if the "ultimate aim of education" remained true to it's source ie.." one with God," to "become like God" or "to become godlike through the revision of one's own ‘Neter' of how god is revealed in the person" !

...and to be nourished pon these valued principles from the inception of one's formative "education" through learning to:

1. Control his thoughts

2. Control his actions

3. Have devotion of purpose

4. Have faith in the ability of his master to teach him the truth

5. Have faith in himself to assimilate the truth

6. Have faith in himself to wield the truth

7. Be free from resentment under the experience of persecution

8. Be free from resentment under experience of wrong

9. Cultivate the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal (i.e., he must have a sense of values)

10. Cultivate the ability to distinguish between right and wrong

...hmmmmm
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Tracey
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Posts: 396

Rootsie.com


« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2003, 08:45:39 AM »

You know...something else about this piece that made me stop to think and pause..( as there is many thoughts to consider here).. but one thing not mentioned is this..that it is NOT that these foundational principles nor value systems out of ancient Kemet/Egypt are of a long lost thing of the past. It's just that within the evolution of the collective choices of mankind from then till now..do the truths that once availed themselves so openly and so readily..do now remain  hidden for a reason. And they are hidden..I believe, because we have chosen and valued other worldly treasures over our godself..and now seem far removed from. What once served as an important and sacred part of daily life as reflected in the lives of the ancient Africans/Egyptians.. now stand as mighty symbols to attest to some of the greatest human achievments and spiritual potentialities of all time.

In this age of information do we but see the greater and bigger picture. It is we today, who now have access to the REAL origins of information unlike the Greeks and other civilizations who could simply bogart any information and claim origination. None but the most well informed knew any better. But it now stands to be seen and validated that we in the present era become aware of the facts, and therefore know its SOURCE. For we can no longer dismiss where we gather our most vital and critical information from nor where the foundations from which we think rest upon.

The journey back to ancient Africa and Kemet IS to recognize the originators of modern science, mathmatics, physics, philosophy, astronomy, language, etc..etc..and of a highly respected value and spiritual system. It is through this awareness that comes the spiritual journey back to the collective higher self..

Human history does not stop with the knowledge gleaned from within one's own lifetime..but travels way back and beyond to the begining and cradle of human origins. It is here within the full context of history do we but ultimately and truly begin to 'know thyself.'....and gather the keys to unlocking the essence within our own godselves here in this lifetime.
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