By
Sampson Iroabuchi
Onwuka
Introductory digest on the comparative analysis of Greek to Egyptian studies...
The triple
penetration of African Culture as a stand in history exercised by majority of
the Professors may have started from Edward Blyden who maintained that there
was nothing wrong with Islam or with Africans switching from Christianity to
Islam, adding that Judaism like Christianity and Islam has left its mark on the
continent of Africa. This triple heritage is mainly religious in nature, is
revised by more competent historians of Africa as off shoots of the older
Egyptian religion. But none of these religious influences, or what is now
Documentary Hypothesis, will replace the impact of Art and Archeology. And here
we may consider the Role of Sculptures or visible Arts in widening the scope of
our understanding about African past, especially, the impressions from Museum
pieces which like other Documentary sources of presumed Ancient History mainly
opines on Greek and Romans of the relational encounter with the so-called
Africa and the cultural milieu of Greco Magna leading into Northwest Nubia.
These days, we regard the geographical swaths between Cartage and North Africa
– at least up to Ancient Cyrene – as Roman Africa reaching covering the period
after the defeats of Hannibal and Jurguthen, the Civil and Regnal wars in
Alexander Egypt between the Pharaohs (Cleopatra and his Brother) whose
authority subtended in Alexander, and to the 7th century CE
incursion of the so-called Arabs and their gospels of Islam. We must discuss
these episodes of dissent from the vistas of several schools of Black studies
with particular respect to Archeology and Arts, that as much we know that the
Israelites and their historical relationship with God, where forbidden from
erecting objects in the name of God or object representing an ancestor, we may
suggest that this objection to graven images did not extend to the rest Asia
and therefore Archeological correlation between Africa of 100, 000 years
(Manetho) and the rest of world must apply in comparative Archeology and Arts,
beginning with Clay and Pottery which was made into an Academic Institution by
the earliest Palestine Archeologist and Egyptologist.
The issue about
the Clay and pottery, Bronze Age and the Iron Age, as the philosophy of history
in terms of Archeology does educate, we may say that the features of the bones
and body types linked to the invasion of certain races are too erroneous to be
useful. The impact of human biological condition on the use of materials cannot
be reduced to a few physical finds, even if there is a suggestion that the
migratory routes through Canaan into parts of Syria and beyond, point common
African Ancestry. I insist that there is serious need for continuity in
understanding the broad strokes of history, accepting that skulls found in much
of Europe may have shown some distinction, may be related to a form of
migration, but denying that the Bronze - Iron age connection to this migrants
does chime with the evolution of their types. The corresponding association of
skulls in Spain and Greece, to skulls found in Cyprus, of people ‘long burrow
head’ versus the ‘long broad face’ of Minoan and Crete in the Bronze Age, is by
implication evidence of ancestors of these areas and people, may not be that
true. For sure the settlers in these parts of the world came in very recent
times from Egypt and Syria as proper history will indicate – even if the
instances of civil war in Mino and Mycenaean, suggest that people were living
in these places, our instant gratification is that the language that is
pronounced as Greek in recent times, came from Egypt and parts of Syria. When
we add Hittites as godfathers of Indo-European people and language, we elevate
the case for what have otherwise been.
We may still make a case for the sweep
of immigrants as history presumes of Egypt and its civilization over the years.
The issue regarding the Badarian culture of Egypt, and the arrival of a specie
type in Naqada, suggest a differential in size, in posture and in facial
features. The mentioned that ‘predynastic’ of lower Egypt differs from physical
features of Upper Egypt, and a near replacement of lower by upper Egypt,
leading to variations in size and pigmentation are parts and center of world
history that may even make the warmest believer in the relative relevance of
world history and mono-genesis a doubter.
As such the
meaning behind biblical archeology is that the initial masters on the school of
Archeology were towing a certain line, line already made available to them via
the teachings of the Bible in spite of the influence of modernity in Europe and
America. As such a dimly lighted documentary fact of Exodus may by incident to
themes of migration and conquest, may have occupied the general fancy of the
historians from Christian background and eventually led biblical Archeologist
of mostly Christian background to draw all kinds of conclusion about Middle
East and Palestine. That from Biblical accounts and Biblical influences of the
faithful, among who are Africans, the conclusions are not suffered to reasons
and objective review on the problems of Biblical translations and
interpretation teeters on the verge of heresy and rebelling.
In fact the likes of W.F Albright and his
students, John Bright, et al, followed the conservative model in describing the
ruins of the ancient city of Ai, where in the Bible, Joshua and the Israelites
essentially brought Ai and the culture to an end in route to the Promised Land.
W.F Albright account of how Christianity essentially manifested itself is best
illustrated in what should be called his ‘Magno-opus’ ‘From Stone Age to
Christianity’, where enough emphasis on the movement of the Israelites from the
Egypt into the land of the Bible is selected side by side the Archeological
discoveries of his time. The issue that challenged his assumptions is indigene
to the history regarding the nature of the Hebrew movement from Egypt to Israel
the promised land. He was also motivated by how the eventual arrival or
settlement in what is now Israel.
The influence of
Biblical Archeology is narrating modern African history is so much that it
takes a will of iron to get things going as the willingness to read further
than necessary and bring into light some of the information about Africa and
Africans. In essence the theories of Ham, Shem, and Japheth have already taken
roots in Christian imaginations. It was only a question of time that the
Biblical imaginations of the Ham, Shem, and Japheth managed to compose a new
history of the world without the world knowing it. This is not so easy a point
to overlook, it is however easier to overstate given the article of faith and
imprinting in our cultural minds whose recent Europe feeds Africa as
Christianity came from Europe to Africa. Whereas, the theological history of
Christianity being the Acts of the Apostles who saw Christ to the schism in the
church between the Eastern and Western, is a foot note to early church leaders,
many of whom where Africans or where known to have studied in Africa. The
Character of these Early Christian fathers is African in meaning including the
breaking point associated with the Cappadocians and Nicaea Creed. All theologians agree that Africa gave Christianity
its character, which does not mean that Europe in later ages played so small a
finger in pushing the bandwidth of the church, rather enforces the argument
that history of Africa from 18th century CE concerns the return of Christianity
does not replace it the past.
In many shades of
similar meaning, we may regard the inference as part of the argument that these
intellects came from Europe and then moved in to Africa, and it may seem
logical that the movement of people from one part of the world constitutes an
influence on o. In all realities, the
images of a Ra as Ram and images of Baal as Bull seem unjustified given the
themes of life in compromise of stars, epistemic and astrology two millennia
after the Pyramids of Snefu. The later version of world learning, especially
with Egyptians and Babylonians are to be fairly grasped as a material for study
free from the myth of Creation which is a more grasping myth than the images
and the names. Gaston Maspero, Auguste Mariette, Karl Richard Lepsius, Schiaparelli,
James Breasted, Howard Carter, Flinders Petrie, David Roberts, George Andrew
Reisner, and one of the greatest, Jean Francois Champollion. In terms of
Languages, we include the Latinate and their role in East Africa and in the
North African churches after the decline of Muslim domination in Venice
sometime in 18th century A.D.
It is impossible to deny that the Visual Art and the sculpture have
not more than taken its fair share of African history. There is nowhere in the
world that we prove that Blacks in Antiquity does not include samples from
Museum pieces, some of which show people with very obtuse ears and obtuse lips,
some of whom are caricature objects with enough presenting of black faces and
types. This field of Black Studies - Museum Pieces - has its moments in terms
of connecting the Ancient History of the past to the present, and it tells us
stories about when, when, where and how the civilized cultures such as Greeks
and Romans saw Africans and the Blacks. The discipline is not without
difficulty, especially when there is no mention of these images as only limited
to Africa or Africa only bereft of serious facial biceps. Did we have Blacks in
Europe, Blacks in Asia and Blacks in Middle East? The answer is resounding yes,
yet it seems that when we speak of Blacks in terms of it all, there is always
the primitive hive of the tropics that accompany such thinking. Here we
shall use T.F.R.G Braun essay 'Greek in Egypt' to heave of the more enduring
stamp of these view which is role of Art in implicating the past.
W.F Albright
(Archeology of Palestine; 1949; 71) citing the work that he did along his mates
in Palestine, gave a brush stroke of the familiar names in sciences, archeology
and history that enabled the creation of the school of Biblical Archeology and
eventually Archeology of Palestine. Historically, Albright is the individual
who is believed to have turned Archeology into a science, with emphasis on
Clay, linguistic inscriptions and Artifacts. In one similar argument, it has been
suggested that it was Petrie Flinders (William Petrie Flinders) who began to
record the difference between plates, arguing that it could be used to remotely
designate an area or a civilization long forgotten or past. It is history that
Flinders developed this method based on already existing forms of arrangement
through pottery. Yet his scientific approach proved totally useful in the hands
of Albright who not showed that a difference between a hill and dung exist,
that there is such a thing as a 'Tell' which may be history of materials left
over. This seemed improbable at first.
The idea of
evolving language of the Bible and how it fitters (fits) through the lines of
historical argument, make all kinds of argument recent that it is quite wrong
to presume that any culture of Ancient world would have bequeathed Jews their
culture saving the Greeks. But only through the nose of History can much be
made the origins of these names in Greece, some of the names have their own
meaning only in Africa and in the North. In fact the very definition of Judaism
in the attempt to stem the He mentioned "For example, close to the Hebrew
language of Biblical tradition is the millennium earlier Ugaritic poem of Ball
from ancient coastal city of Ugarit in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries
BCE. Almost every element of the story of Baal's Battle with most finds a
reiteration somewhere in the Bible...."
The importance of
Mezzopanti (Guiseppe Caspar Mezzofanti), Ippolito Rosselini (Egyptologist;
among the founding members of the new school of Egyptology) with respect to
languages and standard Latin already in use in some parts of Africa, in Tunis
and in Abyssinia and among the Nubia languages and Ethiopia, was made into a
science for recording African languages by Karl Richard Lepsius. Lepsius is credited with standardizing the
Latin for transliterating African languages along the Nile and Sahara. These
growth which was dominated initially by Italians – some of whom were familiar
with neighboring African languages such as those in Morocco and Tunisia were
replace d by the Prussians associated with Biblical protestant Theology seeing
that Italians and the Catholics were as much interest in refining the History
of Africa as they were concerned with re-establishing the Catholic Church. The
reign of Prussia over the disputed areas of Europe made this transition
possible, but the influence of Rosselini and Mezzofanti *, along the lines of
the Champollion and the French expeditionary groups, including others who
worked in Assyria for instance Sassy and Henry…, were highly reproduced by the
Karl Richard Lepsius, Ferdinand
Therhault (font), and a certain Carl Freidrich Meinhoff. The latter is known to have
continued the work of the Southern African linguistic juggernaut Wilhelm Bleek
and his wife whose propounding of African languages covered over 3, 000 pages.
Between the formative comparative Mezzonfanti, astrictive Rosselini, formative
Lepsius, the print font of Therhault, the transitioning of Meinhoff is a
history of Africa that is impossible to overlook.
Of course these
men were mainly French and German, but their intrusion into Africa began in the
context of two stimuli, one of which is the broaching of Egyptian gates by
Napoleon and the French expedition, and then the hunt for gold which occupied
the minds of the early diggers. But in more recent times, the influence of
Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Gutherie’s linguistic neologies on African
languages is major stay in cultural and philosophical synthesis on the African
linguistic history. The emphasis on languages as a history may have started
elsewhere, particularly through the Europeans under the formative years of the
19th century Modern language experts from Russia and Hungry –
particularly Rask and then under the Prussians and then Germans who inherited
the tradition through Hungarian Semitic schools and theology. The French gave
the heaviest emphasis on language connection to history largely from
Egyptologist whose final works were ameliorated in Champollion and Ferdinand
Saussure. It is pointless to rehearse
the structural histography of language and its evolution may due to the
cultural conurbation of Britain and the United States. The official point of
this match in history is the product of Anthology with experts in culture and
language such as Frank…but his lasting influence on language as an item
independent of foreign influences was appropriated by Greenberg on one hand and
Guthrie on the other. As such we look beyond the causality of world history in
linguistic expositions involving for instance Africans or other third world
whose environment were breached by Europeans from the turn of the 16th
century A.D.
It is impossible to deny that the Visual Art and the sculpture
have not more than taken its fair share of African history. There is nowhere in
the world that we prove that Blacks in Antiquity does not include samples from
Museum pieces, some of which show people with very obtuse ears and obtuse lips,
some of whom are caricature objects with enough presenting of black faces and
types. This field of Black Studies - Museum Pieces - has its moments in terms
of connecting the Ancient History of the past to the present, and it tells us
stories about when, when, where and how the civilized cultures such as Greeks
and Romans saw Africans and the Blacks. The discipline is not without
difficulty, especially when there is no mention of these images as only limited
to Africa or Africa only bereft of serious facial biceps. Did we have Blacks in
Europe, Blacks in Asia and Blacks in Middle East? The answer is resounding yes,
yet it seems that when we speak of Blacks in terms of it all, there is always
the primitive hive of the tropics that accompany such thinking. Here we
shall use T.F.R.G Braun essay 'Greek in Egypt' to heave of the more enduring
stamp of these view which is role of Art in implicating the past.
Although these
days, some of the methods used by Flinders are no longer useful, but the
lasting influence of these cultures and the Europeans of some authority that
enabled it, made it possible for us to see through the Stethoscope of the
cultural and intellectual history of the
world. But as far as other law offices
are concerned, there is much to be said about the early years of these European
giants, how and when they appeared in the country. There is a persuasion of the
fact that Mastabas at Saqqara and Royal houses in Egypt including, there is
Professor G.A Reinser, J-P Lauer 'Tombs', Alessandro Barsanti who famously
excavated King Unas. It’s not a record of deeds performed by Archeologist from
those early days till now rather we can say for sure that people had a profound
influence on the lives of people and the cultures of the people that came
calling intact, Emile Amelineau in 1879-98 and then Sir Flinders Petrie who
discovered the first mummy at Meidum.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
Petrie Flinders
like W.F Albright were especially known for their interest in Palestine
Archeology. It was the occasional forays of the French activist and scientist
re-stating their interest in Egypt that led to the rise of Petrie Flinders who
crossed over from Palestine Archeology and the Studies in the Land of the Bible
to Alexander and then to Egypt further afield. It was in the course of this
whole effort that he was able to cast enough light on the subject of pottery.
While the famous Albright continued with his work in Palestine, the likes of
Petrie and his new ways of sorting out the plates and archeology leading to the
actual dates of these sites brought a whole great world of Europeans into
Egypt. One of the more important forces from that era is the man by name J-L
Lauer who worked on the tombs of Pharaohs and who tried to understand the steps
of the mortuary of Egypt and made important contributions to the field. It is
not a reason that he is mentioned by virtually every Egyptian Historian,
particularly those interested in Pharaoh Temples. J-P Lauer spent almost sixty
years in Egypt and was kindly spoken by the great I.E.S Edwards. There is
meaning to the word I.E.S Edwards - not in so are far as his books are
concerned but how the efforts of these pioneers involved extreme labors of love
and in the end, there was changes in their persons and ideas of the world.
Americans, here
that we get a first hint of what and how these individuals that took the yearly
attempt of the people to move on with their cultures and the way of life. Every
so often an institution will dedicate itself to sorting out the problems of
African history and culture that enables it. Apparently this was one the few,
to the degree that much of the effort put up by other may have gone the
distance of impregnating the specific culture or opinions available. In the
realms of these understanding, such nuances like body types and bone fragment
began to make their own case about Africa. The danger associated with these
tales about the cultural moonlight in Africa is that it went unchallenged for
many decades, largely because of the lack of native experts of African History,
bordering on opinion express which by circumstance of the age mingled with
facts that were no longer ease, adding the more religious past whose essence is
the central faith of the preached West Africans and the world. In the instance,
we look at the argument about some of the languages in Africa and some of the
theories about the 'Physical assessment' of peoples of Africa, for instance the
Bushmen theories and theories about of Kenya. This institution reply on
accounts of the visitors to the continent largely for the general fact that....
The fascination
with great hordes of migration like Israelites in Moses and Joshua’s time,
sweeping down on their enemies after the departing Egypt and Africa, the
fascination with a conquering group of people who move expeditiously through
many countries of the world, could not have failed to inspire the themes of
migrations as a conquest model in presenting Africa in the current age and
time. Thus, it may be inferred that and overcoming many cities and countries as
the Bible did indicate was only expected to be naturally embroidered into the
fabric of discoveries which tell their own stories. It cannot be exempted from
the cultural probability of seething with confidence the search for
archeological materials which should have been objective enough, which by
article of faith and the story concerning the Exodus may force the new
evidences of artifacts and archeological materials to kneel to the grasps of
faith.
Black faces in
Antiquity, Black Skulls in Anthropology has always had its sway in speculative
sciences of the past, indicating that there is a case of perhaps big skulls,
big nose, big lips or big toes, whose features on the human faces and skull
tend to be physically present and betray its owners have migrated from the
science and anthropology to Black studies…..
II
Frank Snowden
One professor
whose book has generated a lot of interest on this subject is late professor
Frank Snowden, and in terms of African history - if not architecture, there has
always been the issue of establishing the presence of Blacks in antiquity and
in recent times, some historians has gone out of their way to make believe that
certain obdurate faces which appear all over the place. One of the major
proponents of this idea is one Mrs. G.H Beardsley (The Negro in Greek and Roman
Civilization: A Study of the Ethiopian Type) that made a career of these Negro
types and Negro people in Greco-Roman world, 'who also considered literary
evidence'. The impact of this approach to Black studies is quite enormous.
Snowden and Beardsley made argument about Black presence in Antiquity using
Museum pieces but the problem with reductionist approach is that it perpetuates
a certain degree of prejudice.
Professor Joseph
Harris "Although professor Frank Snowden in his book, Blacks in Antiquity;
Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman experience, is not convinced that racism was
cultivated in the Greco-Roman experience, he has nonetheless confirmed that
skin color was "upper most in the minds of Greeks and Romans" when
describing Ethiopians, and that artistic representations are sufficient in
quantity from Sixth century B.C to permit the conclusion that "tightly
curled or woolly hair; broad, flattened noses; lips thick, often puffy and
perverted; prognathism" were African characteristics familiar to the
Hellenistic world." There is no quarrel about this saving for the fact
that the descriptions above are not limited to the race called African and
Black, and secondly, there is issue of when and how these so called
observations were made. For the composer of these point of view forgot to
inject the fact that both the Romans and the Greeks was typically no stranger
to Africa and Africans. In fact there greatest moments began with these
Africans and Africa some of whom would be given some impetus to the society as
we know too well.
Frank M. Snowden,
Jr. (Blacks in Antiquity; 1970); deals on 'Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman
Experience' and measure the sculptural images from a so-called Greco-Roman
world, that bear prints of "color" "lips thick"
"tightly curled and woolly hair" and "broad and flat noses"
and these images are received in our generation by a version of Black Studies
emphasizing Black presence in antiquity. This term 'Black presence' should no
doubt be mistaken with Diop's 'African presence' or 'presence African' in
Egyptian Art, a theme now celebrated as a Afrocentric if only we mention an
opponent 'Stephen Howe' in this case.
Afrocentrism (1998) – the book by Stephen
Howe is as important as the range of academic exercises done by either side of
the divide on Africa and its history. There are no shortages of African history
any day, but the problems with these Histories is the compulsive attempt to
synthesize a documentary version of world history by omitting the more
thorough-going aspects of African history with due respect to a past that
precedes Europe. Stephen Howe's compelling literature reduced Afrocentric History
to a culture of protest, that it, the attempt by those from older generation to
the new at doing away with obvious European-centrism about Africa, which is
mingled with Religion and doctrines, yielded a history that is not worthy of
the continent of any capacity. In one summary, the book by Stephen Howe is a
recommended, only to a degree that syntheses are to be accepted as a challenge
to Afrocentric history and with understanding that it that Afrocentric History
like other cultures of New Age Africa is a protest
literature. If we measure the themes of World History from the probable
point of the Pioneers of such history in modern times, we would still witness
the gaps in the narrating given the presence of other sources such as Dravidian
history.
The story of
Roman Interest in Africa is rehearsed several times, and from all accounts,
there was a place called Africa, which is an Island in Tunisia, now and then, a
ship territory in Carthage, or what is now Tunisia which at early years was a
hot spur between the Greeks and the Phoenicians (Carthagians). The speculation is that from this Island in
Tunisia called Africa, possibly similar to Athinka, a bridge, an Island –, the
Romans and their leaders gradually expanded to the entire continent. But the
Romans and the Greeks are very late Mediterranean interferences and their
managerial influences in Africa then and now, is triumphalist with reason. But
the claims sour that with Rome came a new dimension in African history, we
should completely bury the past with a supposed Greek influence in Egypt and
accept that Africa was none existent until a group of military renegades
entered the smashed and struggling reactionary group of Egyptians holding off
the Persians. The Greeks were considered saviors of African history for many
reason including the redemption of the damaged papers (Papyrus) of Egypt,
recovering of old Temples and Synagogues and the attempt by Sotos I (Ptolemy I)
in recopying these old manuscripts of Egypt through a priest by name Manetho.
At least we may
certify that the Pharisees just like the Sadducees considered Christ a Prophet
and the man of God did not have problems in accepting the message that Christ
preached but had problems with him being called the Son of God, and in later
stages of New Testament, the only son of God. The title needs to be cleared was
not applied to Jesus Christ while he lived, the transition from son of God to
only son of God may have found itself in the Bible along the lines of the
translations from Aramaic which the language of the Apostles of Christ such as
Paul – himself a Pharisee and like other Pharisees among them – and in many
ways recorded some of their history in Aramaic and some in Hebrew, had their
stories translated from Aramaic to proper Hebrew and to the Greek to meet the
demands of the audiences. None of these translators from Hebrew and Aramaic
into Greek and Latin were original speakers of the language, saving for those
in Africa, both in Egypt and in Thebes where Aramaic devised for the Persia by
priest of Edfu still extant.
It makes additional sense and perhaps a poor light
that the division over the Son of God and the Divine Logos was clearly a matter
of language and the returning ideologies of the nations such as Rome and Greek
Islands, the latter quite familiar with Egyptians rites and traditions were in
many ways a people gradually their own. For them, there is a connection between
the flesh and the spirit which events – no unlike those of others in historical
Egypt – mandates a god – not unlike Zeus. But to what extent a Dionysus is a
God or god in Greece and Romans is explicated by the light of the meaning of
Zeus who is historically same as Danaus, a priest of Barca from Dongola little
ways from Aswan, twin brother of Pharaoh – who should have been Amosis II – who
was himself a father of 50 sons whose infamous tragedy are now realized from
their fated murder by daughters of Zeus following their fathers instructions
saving a certain Linzur usually connected to El. That the Greeks call Edfu Elusian, exposes the debt that the word
Helena owes to the Gerbel Barka, since going at the core of these intertwined
histories, Gerbel is same as Jebel, it is in many ways a mountain
When we still
discourse the obstacles associated with students of African history - even in
Nigeria and in Africa - we put it clearly that the Greeks or the Romans did not
claim to have brought Civilization to Africa. The Persians and the Carians or
the Lydians, the Sea People and the Assyrians, did not at any time make such
claims. When we teach that the Architecture came from Helena we are teaching
what is not history. When we make a long list of historians of older times
including Herodotus and Diodoros, we are reading history mainly composed in
Africa by non-Africans, especially Herodotus who spent a long while traveling
but spent half his wanderings in the East or Egypt and its limits. Erasthophenes
(supposed father of Geography) is not a Greek born in Cyrene, he wrote in what
is now Greek but was essentially an African from Cyrene or what is now Libya.
Strabo was born in Africa but may have been of mixed parentage at least a side
of him is from Halicarnassus and not particularly Turkey.
At least Strabo did
majority his work in Africa, essentially describing where he was at the time of
his writings of the Pharaoh Sotis III. Ptolemy’s Atlas is not a work a man
called Ptolemy; it is a re-composition of an Old Geography ordered by the
Ptolemy. There are no quarrels about Sextus Empiricus, Paschal, and Pelagius,
or others of later meaning such as Iranaeus, Valentinus, Origen, Clement,
Athanasius, Appian, all of whom were born and raised Africans, including Arian
(mixed parentage) and early Christian fathers, some of who were Africans, most
of who studied in Alexander where the school of commentary was popular. It is
also not a surprise that the so called Greek authors of the 3rd
century B.C did not write a word until they arrived in Alexander Egypt. The
Jew, Philo, is then and now called Philo of Alexander and his Canonical history
of Israel and God is still a lasting classic.
The deputation of the Son of God and the
conceptions of his divinity was believed to brought a new reality, that from
all granted reasons why there was Greek and Roman, Jews and Gentiles, the whole
idea that a Law which separated Israelites from others or from attaining the
spiritual equinity with others, was by a single Act reduced to love, broken for
all asunder and was for those who would believe on the son of God. At no point,
did the Early Church elders doubt this theory to be wrong, what was however
wrong was that the Jesus of Nazareth was now to be called the truth and the
light, and in spite of the teachings of Christ regarding the nature of God, it
was the associated faith in his disciples, some proving that there was also a
resurrection and an ascension was for them meeting demands of the Savior
Christ. But the Eboins as we learn from the accounts of Eusebius and others,
Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History of the Church ; which is the history of
the Apostleship of Christ and of God, from age of Epistles to Pastoral to
Ecclesiastical and the Pontificate in order of St. Peter and of Rome. According
to Eusebius, there was a mention of these Ebions(*) or Eboins who believed that
Jewish was the son of God but ‘a natural union of man and Mary’; (Eusebius, HE
III 27), and similar citation, the Ebions believe that ‘He was begotten like
other human beings” Origen Contra Celsius V. All the disagreement between the
early Christian fathers over the Divinity of Christ was can understood from the
guiding light of these Ebions, who were a sect of the extreme sect of the
Essenes who had among a certain Gamaliel. There is prove that there is perhaps
more than one Gamaliel, although not all present during the Age of Paul and at
least in the Acts of the Apostles will point to one clear Ga maliel.
t is not to be
mistaken that these people accepted that Jesus was the Only son of God,
although the later versions of the Ebionites of later traditions were almost
entirely Christians, but that there were discovered in the deserts or the azara
(Igbo for Wilderness and Hebrew for open court): therefore Nazareth, lived in
Caves, suggest that unrelenting suggest their unrelenting influence on
Paul whose teachings on the persons of
Christ and of the Laws, were not based on Laws alone which was dead works rather
on deeds. These were called the Pious Ones, and remained in desert long after
the years of Christ who was not himself without their influence.
When the T.F.R.G
Braun mentioned the once avoided emphasis on Egyptian status which were
'plotted out in advance on a grid of squares' and about the Grid on square
point of these Egyptian Arts and Sculptures, for a long time this grid on point
was associated with Greek Art and some people made a whole career out of these
grid points are essentially Doric in origin. It is not wrong to challenge some
of that assumptions based on what they have in the field since everything this
is now clearly associated with Greeks, is essentially a footnote to Egypt. We
may make a note on the structure of Dorian architecture which relied
extensively on Grid points and on working the details first before executing.
The details of a number of the structures in Greece and elsewhere…. It will seem to suggest that what amounted to
Architecture is perhaps borrowed from sculpture or the other way round. Far
more revealing is the so called role of Greek and Roman Art in the history of
Africa and its continent. When we compare this rise of the Dorian art and Ionic
order from set examples littered everywhere in Africa and particularly Egypt,
we are certain that the flow of world history needs revisiting.
Concerning the Dorian, there is a long
standing tradition about this people dating back at least to the destruction of
Troy. It may be the sack of Troy "Homeric' sack of Troy since it is
believed to have taken place by at least "80 years" before the
'Return of the Heraclydidae'. The return of Heraclydidae is very important for
the light it shades on Ephesus which was sacked by Pelopids, and historians has
demonstrated and in this we cite 'CAH' (who cited Eratosthenes) that
Heraclydidae were a descended from Mycenaean and it took place sometime in 1183
B.C. This Mycenaean descent may have actually witnessed Troy as a place
carefully emptied of its citizens. This does not mean they found it empty,
rather the association of the more Mycenaean IIIb destruction with Troy VII may
be due to such attacks by Dorian and a people who eventually occupied Corinth.
This theory is largely incorrect - not that the thesis about the Dorian
'incursion' into Troy could not have taken place, but going a few generation
backwards to Mycenaean IIIc was perhaps a result of the destruction wrought by
the Sea People
These Sea People number in nations and did
their worst attack on "Ugarit" and "Alalakha". Alalakha of
1180 and 1191 BCE was just devastated by Sea People; the damage to their
palaces was legendary. The Ugarit was just kaput and such fine culture went
down and under for just course. Since Heraclydids may have returned in 1183 or
thereabout, then like their Dorian may have been Sea People. Heraclydids may
have just been Dorian who were defeated in earlier in Ephesus and by Pelopids
and who waited and witnessed the destruction of Troy and almost a generation or
three later, returned to nearly abandoned City. The difference in Pottery
between Mycenae IIIb and Mycenae IIIc may just be a question of Pottery, a
matter of style with due reference to Pelopids who may have occupied Troy from
earlier on and the Homeric 'sack of Troy'. For the sake of argument there is a
connection between Dorian and the Eastern Greeks, many of whom are part of
Ionian league. It is worthwhile to also indicate that as far culture and
history is concerned, there has always been the difference.
This fact was
hinted on by T.F.R.G Braun but his position that the cultural history of East
Greece was influenced by the Dorian Halicarnassus called Herodotus may be taken
only literally. We may suggest that at least enough exist to prove that Greeks
are not one people or one nation, that their settlement in the Aegean can be
approached backwards from the first of the Grecians to settle there to others
that may arrived with the Sea People of 1080-1090 BC.
Furthermore, it should be considered
worthwhile that the cultures that permeate our understanding of East Greek, has
always have the elements of Africa on it, for that it seems clear that the
names of Greek Cities bearing African names, such as Thebes, Yavanah, Athens,
Minos, Mycenae, Boeotia or Po (Pe), Samos and Miletus, would suggest that they
came from Africa, and particularly speaking ‘Egypt’. It has been shown that
these Eastern Greeks where the civilizing force of Greek and are fact the same
people that occasional escaped their homelands and then made a return sometime
later. One of those people was the Dorians who as we know from history are the
descendants of Heraclydids – descendants of Mycenae. In retention to the
efforts made Herodotus of Halicarnassus towards history, we cannot clearly see
that Herodotus was writing a history of the Athenians and their Greeks of East
at a time that they were facing sustained challenges from all and asunder, and
at the twilight of a culture which started in Egypt. Egypt was Herodotus the
tap of his people and remained through the discourses of Herodotus an active
point of locus for framing Athenian history. It had to be the case before the
long and formidable age of the great centuries of the 6th and 5th BCE; for
after these, the Athenians were no longer the same and the league would in the
time of Persia fracture one after the other.
Dorian (A Picture
of Dorian Grey) if not in literature but in Arts, survive as testament to
specific expressions of a certain people made popular by Oscar Wilde. Oscar
Wilde was able to tune his audience to this character (Dorian) whom he
described as a 'Greek'. In retrospect, we may now wonder at the mind's eye of
Wilde, since Dorian is not a name that is far from Greek others called Dorian.
But here, the story like our literature turns a different form. There is a
great tradition about Doric order in Architecture which is supposed to have
descended from the Dorian as traditional builders of a particular Temple type.
They are regarded as Barbarians, meaning that their version of Greek were
slightly different. Like we have mentioned in several parts before, that the
version of Greek called Barbarian is a reference to Berbers who ancestral home
in Africa.
Looking at the
long list of interspersed discourses about Africa and the opposing groups such
as Stephen Howe and Mary Lefkowitz whose books I recommended among others,
there is no denying that this renegade group are not without merit, but to a small
benefit of Martin Bernal and others such as Dr. Ben, both parties need to
revisit Archeology and Arts to smoother some of the bumps with their historical
delivery.
In response to
George G.M James ‘Stolen Legacy” she
argues that “It is not hard to understand why James wishes to give credit for
the Greek Achievement to the Egyptians, even if there is little or no
historical foundation for his claims. Like the other nationalistic myths, the
story of a “Stolen legacy” both offers an explanation for past suffering and
provides a source of ethnic pride.” For the record she quoted some of the
assumptions in James’ ‘Stolen Legacy’
(1954), ditto; “the term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for
there is no such philosophy in existence”, and according to James, Greeks “did
not possess the native ability essential to the development of philosophy.”,
that “the Greeks were not the authors of Greek Philosophy, but the Black people
of North Africa, The Egyptians.” And for this argument she mirrored James’ Stolen Legacy to the Jewish writers such
Artapanus and Aristobulus, who insisted that Plato borrowed directly from the
Laws of Moses. There is a lot difficulty with these comparatives given the
weight of the materials involved between Greeks, Hebrews, and Egyptians.
That
Greeks are too recent to be considered major factors in world history is too
clear, that Judaism as a religion was not a factor until the returnees from
Babylon is not a small of oversight, that the Artapanus and Aristobolus
compared some of themes in Greek approach to learning to Hebrew and Religion of
Israel, could only be possible from the relative antiquity of Greek which is a
language and not one people or a league of Ionians, would put to the much wider
gaps between Hebrews and Egyptians. For if there was any hint that Hebrews
brought for instance the notion of one God to Africa, it would only remit the
problems of Hebrew language which was written by a man of God by name Moses who
was born and grew up in Africa.
In one of her
determined responses to Dr. Ben and others who she accused by putting down the
Greeks, the famous argument about the improbable presence of a school in Egypt
preceding the arrival of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, Mary Leftkowitz
regarded it as a ‘benign and ruthless conspiracy’. In (p124), she added that
“Not only was there never such a thing as an Egyptian Mystery System; there was
never an organized educational program or established canon of books of
Egyptian philosophy that the Greeks could steal or plagiarize.” That “Although
Greeks who went to Egypt learned something about Egyptian mythology, Greek
philosophy as it was developed in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C is
fundamentally a Greek invention.” Our interest on not when the Greeks became
Greeks which was in the fourth century rather whether or not, the whole
existence of world history could have given weight to its existence in the
fourth century CE by the Greeks, for sure, those seeking for an answer will not
pale from the materiality that the highest era of Greek philosophy and interest
in Sciences was between 5th and 4th centuries, and these
areas are entirely remembered for the sophistry of Ionian Arts which was East
of Greek Islands leading to Africa, that the people settled in East of Hellene
were mainly Barbarian whose speech differed ever so slightly from the Greeks
who remained in the North due to the coming of the Sea People and the sack of
Ephesus and Troy of much of earlier incarnations, the later made famous in the
Iliad and by the indisputable fame of Achilles.
The Hellenes were under the
long spell of influences from the East or Egypt, and pottery and plates show
increasing evolution of Greeks arts from the foreign sources that were mainly
Egyptian in origin. It is also in the East of Hellenes that Greek civilization
began and from here, there was a confluence of interest between new arrivals
from Northern Greek Cities and those from Eastern more Barbarian majority,
whereas the Barbarian are Berbers, many of whom are Phoenicians who founded
Crete who settled in Tunis but essentially Egyptians. But the advent of the Sea
people and others from Anatolia brought a dialect that isolated the old from
the new by the ss’ sound no more that
epsilon ee, for Latin away from
Aramaic developed for Persia by the Priests of Edfu.
By point, we
respect Herodotus and his citation of the Ionian League settling in North
Africa but we must point that the Sea People who also settled in Africa are
neither Phoenicians nor Greeks, and are not the Carians who like the Lydians
are Greek speakers, who are historical Greeks and who from all accounts of
History settled in their numbers in Memphis; the Karomemphika. This was a
dialect of Upper Egypt by the time of Psammatichus II and a problem that did not
actually fade away. Like I for one have mentioned that there is something about
their arrival in Egypt that provided reason for the name Greek which was used
first in the 4th century CE by Aristotle in describing the language
or the dialect of the people from the Aegean and Helena.
It may yet be
said that as much as historical needs are important in netting world history -
that Arts, especially Fine Arts - may lead to new areas and in terms of Black
history, Arts forms may yet deceive. If the like of Frank Snowden whose book is
an Authority in the field maintains a case of Blacks in antiquity via physical
types and images, it needs to be quickly maintained that the theory is very
old, but in recent times, the story is a bias associated with the work of a
Museum Artist and paper Historians.
The role of Frank
Snowden Jr., in propagating the Greek culture in context of Black presence
needs no additional introduction. But so perpetual are his deductions about
Black presence in Greco-Roman world that he's theories about Negro Tribes such
as Blemmyes, Megabari, Troglodytes, Nubae, are considered mainstay in Black
Studies. It may seem to most people that his books are arguments beyond doubts
given the physicality of the Museum pieces and the commentary by Snowden, but
his theories are by no means complete. For instance, the especial case of
Blacks from all Greco-Roman sources with extra those torch of flesh on the lips
and in the face. There was also a case of skin color whose audacity in Antique
Arts is visible, but yet skin color like the structure of the skull is nowhere
confined to Africa. He placed some
emphasis on scholarly sources and particularly Herodotus and throws some light
on why the Greeks and the Romans connected skin color to the tropics and the
tropics in this case would necessarily mean Africa. Some may even argue that opposing views on
the evidence of things seen from Museum pieces, would point to an attempt to
mitigate the seemingly obvious about human beings from all facets of human
race, people, and geography. But this is African history requiring the better
minds of the Races and the deeper commitment of world history, nature studies
and in any given day, human language.
In one recent
book by Joseph L. Graver, there is a moment in his book that deals with one of
the most important correction of American sciences, and such demonstration need
to be remembered, and in this moment there is the argument by Stephen Jay Gould
who tried piece by piece to break up the problems of Samuel Morton's theory on
the human skull. But the movement that also commands our attention is that many
skulls believed to be Negro may also be classified as others, and skulls with
peculiarities of others has as many African and Black features for it. Graver's
experimenting with mixed races brought down the argument to purely American
level, a level that now as then include the current American President, Barack
Obama and his daughters. His wife may show a certain version of the uniqueness
that is Negro, but her brother does not. Obama’s half-brother approaches an
Afro-Asiatic and look less an African than Barak himself despite the lizard’s
skull formation.
There is also
President George W. Bush who facial outline is more African than African
American, yet he is Nordic in descent as can be. Without the light skin and
nappy blond and brunet hair of former President Bill Clinton, he may be
confused by experts as Negro type. The whole issue with skulls and facial types
is that this Museum view of obvious Negro features discovered elsewhere in
Anthropology succeed in 21st century to migrate into Black Studies. It is the
emphasis on the skin and some of the extreme jugular version of Africans or other
types that has also given the wings to world history. These history are quite
useful and do show some power and ability.
Using the marginal inflection of the
status of Apollo as a standing object in vise of Merenre
ART
A History of
Painting. Sculpture. Architecture, By Frederick Harth
“Although this
statute offers only a slight challenge to then already two-thousand-year-old
Egyptian tradition of figure sculpture, it is, nevertheless, a powerful work.”
“The largest and
grandest, and one of the earliest, of the Kouros figures – a statute almost ten
feet high was at Sourion near Athens and is datable about 600 B.C. It shows
undeniable Egyptian influence in the rigid stance of the figure, with the arms
close to the sides and left leg advanced.”
“Second, while
the weight of an Egyptian figure rest largely on the weight (rear) leg?, that
of the Kourus Statute is always evenly distributed, so that the figure seems to
be striding rather standing.”
Among the oldest
items Arts forms of Greek or at least found in Greece are Kuoros emphasizing
muscles around knee caps and Torso but may have started from Wood imitations
necessary for apprenticeship, but may have originated from the Vase ceramics
such as the (1) Chigi Vase. But the emphasis on the Knee Cap and Torso did not
materialize any useful Greek Art until later. For sure, the Greek images
of (2) Lady of Auxerre – so named for
the Museum is which it is mast, is argued as early version of Venus but may
only be a phase in Greek Art giving the standing supine amelioration of
Egyptian Isis and Imaat which are usually hoisted as erect as possible. And
this Lady of Auxerre – so named - is a fine example of Egyptian-Greek hybrid,
may in fact be consider neo-classical Egypt but certainly the work of an amateur
considering what was obtainable in Egypt at the 7th BCE preceding the Saite
Kings, or what available in Africa in Libya and towards the 1st Cataract or
Western Cataract of the Nile at Sudan where the Blue and White Nile meet. It is
article of history that much of Persia – particularly Nineveh built (remolded)
by Egyptian Priest two centuries later, did not at this time contain a useful
structure that compared in limelight to Greece. As far as Egypt or at least
Africa, the experiment with Kuoros (life-like image) has reached new levels, it
was already at decay and was experiencing new life elsewhere.
This Lady of Auxerre a structure-standing in
Paris-dated 650 B.C, showing its missing eyes and hands is a structure combined
from Egyptian motif (650 .B.C) and perhaps earliest Greek experimentation. The
other sculptures; (3) Anavyssos Kuuros
(4) Sounion dates back to 600 BC coincides
with the rise of Saite Kings in Egypt and are obvious importation of Egyptian
Arts and influence. From these examples and consequent others, it means to
suggest that the center of Greek Art can easily be located around their more
ancient Ionian City which is the East of Greece, and it is in this precinct
that sculptures such as the above mentioned and the world famous (5) Calf
Bearer, (6) Hera from Samon (7) Peoplos Kore of Athens and the Acropolis of
c.530 B.C. These lifelike structures which are the oldest in Greeks show
remarkable and direct African Influences especially in that magnificent 6th
century.
The other lesser
known Greeks items and Arts such as (8) Charioteer of Apollo (9) Kritois Boy
made of Marble and the Marble of the Blonde Youth also from Acropolis are dated
much later and seem to explain the beginnings of what may be called Greek Arts
driven in large part by the use of Marble or other easier to work stones,
whereas Egypt and the Africans along the Nile where privy to the sensitive soft
to hard materials that were easier to obtain in the Helena. Of course the
beauty that was Greek and the perfections that inseminated the Romans are
serious late articles of history which feature Art forms that are ‘realized’
If it comes to what it actually sculpture and
what is actually architecture which we owe almost entirely to Egypt and what
came from Africa, we may suggest to ourselves how did the Greeks and eventually
Romans enter the picture, for if we can see through the History of Architecture
itself and the history Art and Art form from its primitive years to such
accomplished Art as Apollos, which begin in Africa as an imitation of a man
called Merenre(?), whose image approaching from the rear of Temple speak of the
false door in the Merenre'uka; Temple of Merenre. There is a lively quarrel
concerning this Merenre, who is supposed to have been a Pharaoh of some sort
and who may have had a Temple built in his honor in his tomb Chapel of Saqqara.
If it was possible that a language exist to throw light on the subject, that
Merenre’uka is a Temple for services associated with the ‘appearing’ other than
one man, than the puzzle on the Godlike origins of Apollo as a God of some sort
as opposed to an image of man carved from stone or wood as in xoanon or
sculpted images of man from Alabaster or clay will make sense. But no language
proves this point. To the degree that Apollo (a standing structure) is a no
more than structure designed in similar style to the ones in Egypt and no different
from the handsome image of Merenre’uka appearing from a false door, cracking
the ancient smile. Perhaps during the ceremony of the gods appearing, there is
imitation of living dead as we discover with Adapa of Persia and Adada of Rome
and all of this goes along with songs and rites, spells and so on, invocating
the pharaoh to ‘bust from under’ or ‘cast the sand from their face’, that the
tomb hold no grudge.
There is a group
of historians that are suggesting that based on the instruments or objects of worship
discovered in Temple of Merenruka that Merenruka is perhaps a Vizier or Judge.
Here we compare the lot of the instrument discovered by Merenre’uka, and differ
to I.E.S Edwards ‘Pyramids of Egypt’, p.302, we read of about the ‘House of
Benben’, that “In the temple of Heliopolis, for example, the building which
housed the ‘benben’ was named the ‘House of Benben’. The tomb, it has already
been remarked, was called the ‘Castle of Eternity’. Some of the elements within
the pyramid complex also possessed descriptive names: the causeway was called
‘place of the haul’ or ‘entrance of the haul’ (ra-seta) because it was the way
along which the sledges bearing the body of the dead king and his personal
possessions would be hauled at his funeral; the stone false door in the
sanctuary was named ‘entrance of the house’ (ra-per). M(e)r, a pyramid, could
belong to the same class of name if it could be established that it was a
compound consisting of he prefix m, found in Egyptian to convey the meaning
‘instrument’ or ‘place’, and the verb `r, ‘to ascend’, already mentioned; m(e)r
would then mean either the ‘place of ascension’ or the ‘object used for
ascension’. Other examples of similarly formed words are m(e)sw(e)r, ‘drinking
place’ or ‘drinking bowl’, m(e) khat, ‘balance, scales’ and m(e)rkh(e)t,
‘indicator’, literally ‘instrument of knowing’.
From Edwards’
records, there is a Merenre of the VI Dynasty whose Pyramid is at Saqqara, and
on his Pyramid we read ‘Merenre gleams and is beautiful’. It must be mentioned
that this Merenre is supposed to have existed between the Pepi I and Pepi II.
It must also be mentioned in terms of other pyramids of the VI Dynasty such as
Pepi I, there is also the saying, ‘Pepi is established and beautiful’ and after
that Pyramid there was the reading of the same Pyramid of Merenre. Following
the Pyramid of Merenre we now encounter the Pyramid of Pepi II, whose reading
is known as ‘Pepi established and alive’. Sometime later we find the Title of
the “Pyramid of Ammenemes I of XII is high and beautiful” and there is a
tendency towards suggesting that it does appear that these people and the
titles on the Pyramid are somewhat associated.
It is important
to cite this page largely for the fact that at the beginning of the book,
precisely on page 15 into introduction, we read from Edwards a comparative set
of spells each set in order of the Pharaoh. We read for instance one of the
spells of the king that the invitation of a departed king called Unas, and thus
the Spell 309 speaks “King Unas sits before him (Re’); King Unas opens his
chests (of papers); King Unas breaks open his edicts; King Unas opens his
documents; King Unas dispatches his messengers who weary not; King Unas do what
he (Re’) says to King Unas”. Then, there is the Spell 405 about Teti “O Re…thou
art Teti and Teti is thou…make Teti sound and Teti will make thee sound”, and
Spell 469 “King Pepi receives to himself his oar; he takes his seat; he sits in
the bow of the ship of the Two Enneads; he rows Re’ to the west”, Spell 518
“This King Pepi found the gods standing, wrapped in their garments, their white
sandals on their feet. They cast off their white sandals to the earth; they
threw off their garments. “Our heart was not glad until thy coming” they say’.
But then the
Edwards remarks reminds us of a comment by he reminds of the “Pyramid Texts of
Merenre, where the King is addressed thus; (Spell 606), “Thou embarkest there
is (the sun’s barque) like Re’; thou sittest down on the throne of Re’ that
thou mayest command the gods; for thou art Re’ who came forth from Nut, who
brings forth Re everyday”. What we notice is that in comparison with other
Pharaohs, Unas, Pepi I and II, and Teti of the same Dynastic and the same era,
there is no mention of Merenre. If what Edwards indicated about the
manifestation of ayin and ` in Egypt as equal to E in later times of Egypt,
then his suggestion that it seems to have travelled through the Semitic group
before reaching the Africans may held up for further investigating. Here, we
can make proper allusion to presence of that particular apostrophe which in the
line of all things does not make sense but seem to find itself at the center of
several controversies.
There is a better
consolidation of the main branches of Greeks from ancient times to the coming
Alexander the Great. In the event that we miss the point of the first two
paragraphs on the Dorian and the Greeks were two people separated by several
things including language. When we read of the Greeks that they heard some
people who sounded different and called Barbarians, we may be missing the point
about the hints of separation. There were a people that can be called Greeks of
the East whose language included the forms eventually known as Rhodes and
Corinth, parts of Thebes and then there is a Doric version whose dialect is
closer to the early Phoenician roots and then there is the third group called
the Mainland Greeks which is the last of three composed from other sources. The
general argument is that Greek language and Alphabets can be reduced to three
major points of interest, one of which is ‘(1) that of the Doric Islands of
Crete, Thera and Melos, which is closest to Phoenician, (2) that of the East Greeks
including Rhodes, Attica, Aegina, Corinth and Euboea, which colonists brought
to Italy and Sicily, and (3) that of much of mainland Greece’ (The Greeks in
the Middle East; CAH).
Whereas the major differentiating point between these
three Grecian groups include the use of alep as A, he as E, and ayin as O as
T.F.R.G Braun mentioned, he cited more important issue of the time of the
arrival of some of these scripts associated with these people. Whereas the
earliest East Greek inscription discovered in these places goes back to 8th
century BCE, the oldest seem to suggest the Doric Island of Crete, he added.
But the last point is quite important for it seems that the Doric of Crete who
were also called the Barbarians by the Greeks of mainland, are to be understood
as the front and center of the culture in which they came from. In all things
considered, the stories of the Minoans and Mycenae showing substantial levels
of Egyptian presence and artifacts of Pharaohs and his wives and sometimes
mother, indicate that the people we long consider to be Phoenicians are in fact
Egypt.
This is not so mute a point since Phoenicians
are Egyptian Mariners and per se Egyptian and are slightly mixed up with
lighter others who some may suggest entered the fray from the Sea People. The
Sea people are Egyptians which may indicate that they were light skinned or at
least slightly different but probably not as blonde as Gutium and their
conquered dynastic who Cyrus II (Cyrus the Great) of Persia set a standard for
their release. But in context of those who brought writing to the Greeks or
Athenians in particular, we must indicate that Phoenicians are there is the
issue of Danaus (Danaans) the Egypt who as history mentioned came from Egypt
with his fifty daughters to escape marrying them to the sons of Aegyptus. It is
also interesting that Danaans (Dnnym) – the people of Adana, are recorded
elsewhere in the Hittite as the descendants of a certain Mukshas or in terms of
Phoenician writing it may be called ‘mps’ or Moxos who some connect to
Merkelbach, the one who followed Danaus to Minoan and to Crete (CAH).
But who is this
man Merkelbach and why was he the only man to have followed the daughters of
Danaus to Crete and to the land became known as Greeks? This is a question that
must be understood from several departures in the outline of the arrival of
Danaus and Cadmus, that one, there was a man who left Africa and Egypt with his
fifty daughters to prevent them from marrying the Sons of Aegyptus. In all
consideration it is not hard to imagine that there is something dislocating
about the Egyptian Danaus and his refusal to allow his daughters the sons of
Egypt. It is quite right to suggest that the Danaus was himself as Egyptian as
we are told but it seems that he is only Egyptian to the degree that he was
opposed to his daughter marrying Egyptians. This is not ordering behavior. It
is something calculated and in spite of the man’s treachery as it is told that
her daughters left with him and Merkelbach followed suggest that a fracas
between Danaus and the bunch of senators or priest of Aegyptus may have taken
place. 3, it is possible to suggest that these Priests were perhaps from Thebes
because of the frequent mention of Belus – that is Belios and this place means
high place and is a meaning connected to Thebes and Edfu. But the more popular
Belu-ani, which mean in Igbo ‘top of the ground’ is mainly associated Assyrians
of 17th. The real term Eleusian indicate a familiarity with Elephantine which
is Edfu, and in respect to Aegyptus we find the connection between these places
and the mouth of the River.
Let be stated clearly that Danaus if the same
thing as Danaans of Egypt (Dnnym) could not possibly be a man’s name in terms
of Igbo language and in context of the 50 Daughters who flight from Egypt. In
essence, the people of Adana that is the Danaans after Danaus possibly refer to
‘daughters of the father’ or ‘father’s daughter’ which is the direct Igbo
meaning of the word Ada-na or Ada-nna, and the contemporary association of the
word Adanna in Igbo is Adanne meaning ‘mother’s daughter’. There is no doubt
that based on this that old Greek has nee as mother as a form of nah (nas) as
father that the story of Danaus and daughter is a theme no different from the
‘father’s daughter‘ or ‘father’s daughters’ and this incident may or may not
have given impetus to one singular daughter whose story is defrayed as one
without child –perhaps one that is no married who may be the ‘Ada-na’ or the
‘Ada-nne’ (possibly Daphne) was the matron of Temple of Athens. These daughters
of Africans and perhaps their father
We may cite the
presence of the word Daphne in faraway lands, that the use of the word and the
implication of the term Daphne in term of Delphi, suggest a beginning which is
insubordinate to the Greeks, and from Braun we move to state that, "Elephantine,
as we shall see, served as the base from which Greeks and non-Greeks set out on
the Nubian expedition of 591 B.C. Daphne cannot fail to be identical with Tell
Defenneh, excavated in 1886." (CAH)
It is clear that an early contention by this
author (I), that Delphi refers to mother or divine mother is now an undisputed
fact given this theory by Braun. The Delfi or Delphi oracles were represented
with a Cow or mother Cow which tend to represent creation, so also the
Defenneh, which gives in to the possibility that both Delphi (Greek, Igbo,
Hebrew word for a Cow is Eefi 'ehfi', efi, heifer, respectively) and Daphne
referring to a daughter in Greek may have a lot in common is not by accident.
Assuming these two are not the same, there is always the case about the Greek
'daphne' daughter (pronounced daa'nyee) with the Nigerian Igbo language, for
instance, in Igbo 'Ada-nne' ;(pronounced ahdaa-nne or in some dialect
'eh’da-nne' - written ada-nne) literally means 'mother's daughter' or
daughters, show a connection Greek that reveals the stories of the 50 daughters
of a certain Danaans. That Daphne or Defenneh is actually Africa seems to
clearly indicate that the Aegean states such Athenian (Atens), Ionians, Thebes,
facing the East - Samians (Samos Islands) west of the Delta States Africa, are
probably an extension of Western district of Lower Egypt and a replica of Delta
States in Lower Egypt. Defenneh is probable the same as Nefer-nneh, and this
last is my addition since the word 'nefer' in Egypt refers to devotions or
worshipers and by way of Ne-erid or Nymph in current Egypt
Braun also
mentioned that "Here there were fragments of Greek painted pottery from
the late seventh century, found in two rooms of a massive square building,
either a fort or a store-house, dating from the reign of Psammeticus I. In the
sixth century non-Egyptians made their homes there. Jeremiah fled to Daphne -
Hebrew Tahpanes - with a Jewish contingent to escape the Babylonian captivity
in 582. Here he proclaimed (43; 6-7; cf.46) to his fellow-refugees the coming
Babylonian conquest...” this was no doubt Africa and nowhere else. Majority of
Greek materials discovered in Defenneh is suggested to have taken place that
dates from 570 B.C, pretty much in the 6th century which was the tail end of
second to the last great migration of Greeks - particularly Carians to Memphis
and the long Egyptian resistance to Carians and Greeks marrying Africans, but
it happened that the Memphis caved in to the long and eventually exhaustive
career of inter-marriage between Greeks, Asiatics and African Women and the
outcome is matter of one's judgment but Africans are no longer the center of
their own history and culture by modernity of 19th century.
What of the Igbo
word ‘Umu-nne’. We can compare the Igbo word 'Umu-nne' to the Greek mystic
about the 50 daughters of Selene and Endymion. It is all a legend damaged
completely by problem of translation. For sure, the daughters of Selene are not
50 for any reason. There is a contrast between the 50 daughters of Danaus who
became the priestess of Delphi oracle and the introduction of the Alphabets in
Greece. As we have mentioned elsewhere, these stories of Semele and Zeus is not
without reality only if we can show that Dionysus or Bach was the son of Zeus
and Semele. Legends of the Greek would indicate that Dionysus was born
premature and may have been ripped from his mother's womb. The connection
between the fifty sons of Aegyptus and the fifty daughters of Danaus occurring
at the same time as the story of the fifty daughters of Semele who were
begotten after her relationship with Endymion when Zeus was away suggests that
the fifty daughters if so understood are at least the very daughters of Zeus.
The story will self-emerge that Greeks between them and suggest at least that
Semele being the wife or one of the wives of Zeus was not the mother of the
fifty.
This new facility
of Igbo language comparing freely and easily with more ancient languages
Assyria and Persia show that the general assumption that languages of the world
evolved from a particularly neighborhood and according to geo-specific
necessity may no longer be considered accurate. For how can an African language
called Igbo situated at the end of the Nigerian spring such connection with
Persian language such as Elam and Aramaic, with Sanskrit and Coptic, with Greek
and Latin, with English and French, with Arabic and some Hausa and with Hebrew
that started it all. At least we can see that Umman Manda was not just a people
to be destroyed; that it may has to do with saving the peoples of word ‘umu
madu’ from destruction.
“The First
arrival of the moon, Egyptian name for the ‘new’, moon, ‘crescent’ second day,
the third day ‘arrival’ of the new moon….
“There was a
“second arrival” on day sixteen, heralding the completion of the full moon
(from day fifteen, the Egyptian “half month”) with “first quarter” and “last
quarter” (called “parts”) the terms for day seven and day twenty-three,
respectively. Finally, day thirty was associated with the god Min, owing in his
virility, in this case, it is clear that the association with Min indicates
procreation. Theologically, the following was considered the “moon in the
womb”, with its appearance – birth – occurring on day two of the following
lunar month”. (The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, PP. 226)
The connection is
not quite exact that a word such as ‘min’ or ‘mer’ may be connected a
reappearing should enlist other possibility that as far the statement ‘moon in
the womb’, it may connect to other things we are not very particularly sure
of.
It looks like the Temple is the form of Apollo, it is clear that the image
emerging from the dark is non-other than an Apollo, beginning and ending the
argument that Merenre-Uka is a Temple
of ceremony which influenced the attitude of others towards what was eventually
perceived as Apollo. It may seem to suggest that the earliest example of Apollo
is to be found in the merenre-uka,
and besides the facts of the bent pyramid, there is
The argument
about the faces of Egyptians and faces
of Africans from Homeric times till recently is just like Afrocentric and other
world historians have argued, junk discipline. There was no Greek until the 4th
century B.C.E, and Rome was only mentioned for the very first in the 2nd
Century B.C.E. It is a damage to say the least and in view of skeptic like
T.F.R.G Braun of our recent discourses, such books and theories about the
presence of Blacks in Antiquity should be abandoned as first class history.
Let us be clear
that we are saying from all these assumptions that no language existing now can
accurately tell us what the structure emerging from the dark is actually
saying. May we suggest that it is only with the Igbo can such words and such
confusion be corrected. It looks like the Temple is the form of Apollo, it is clear that the image
emerging from the dark is non-other than an Apollo, beginning and ending the
argument that Merenre-Uka is a Temple of ceremony which influenced the attitude
of others towards what was eventually perceived as Apollo.
In makes additional sense and perhaps a poor light that the
division over the Son of God and the Divine Logos was clearly a matter of
language and the returning ideologies of the nations such as Rome and Greek
Islands, the latter quite familiar with Egyptians rites and traditions were in
many ways a people gradually their own. For them, there is a connection between
the flesh and the spirit which events – no unlike those of others in historical
Egypt – mandates a god – not unlike Zeus. But to what extent a Dionysus is a
God or god in Greece and Romans is explicated by the light of the meaning of
Zeus who is historically same as Danaus, a priest of Barca from Dongola little
ways from Aswan, twin brother of Pharaoh – who should have been Amosis II – who
was himself a father of 50 sons whose infamous tragedy are now realized from
their fated murder by daughters of Zeus following their fathers instructions
saving a certain Linzur usually connected to El. That the Greeks call Edfu
Elusian, exposes the debt that the word Helena owes to the Gerbel Barka, since
going at the core of these intertwined histories, Gerbel is same as Jebel, it
is in many ways a mountain, ebelu, Helu.
Zeus left Egypt – most probably Sudan - over a quarrel with
Priestly clan (possible rejected as Pharaoh as custom dictates and more reason which may now seem to have been
reduced to his inability to father a son in lieu of his 50 daughters who
arrived Crete (Danaus) from Africa with him and also from the understanding
that Dionysus who will born twice from being covered and spared the sunlight as
born of Semele, is a son, tied to the laps and undergarment of his supposed
father, Zeus and perhaps in fear of his Cretan wife Thera, until Zeus returned
to Gerbel Barkal in order to deliver Dionysus to the Pool of Phillae and in
Nyssa, hence born twice as a Bach (Barka).) Such an act meant to fulfill the
regnal ordinance for a Priest, burying the rejection of Zeus of Gerbel Barka,
whose histories proves Gifted beyond others, was perhaps worthy and may have
also died there) during the matrimonial
nights.
The short story of the divinity of Dionysus, his meaning torching the
divinity of Nysa (not Nissan), a lake in Aswan where the Philis (Philadelphia)
of the Temple of Philae existed, and these Mountainous range (Gerbel Barka) compromised to the Nysa (a
Valley) is a place where a priestly group called Barka (Bachs; the untouchables
or holy or gifted ones ‘Philis’, may also be explicated through a famous saying
in the Bible, Philip who Christ said ‘a man who has no sin in him’.) and the
Chief Priest goes with the title Zeus (Ensi, Enzu, Zeun, Zein), so also the
Bachs who are historically the roots of Greek Sophist and families that were
known to be Phoenicians were partners in bringing to life the themes of and
Chiefs will remain anathema till very late in History. But like Zeus of Thebes,
and of Aswan, these institutions are provincially speaking no longer humans but
the other. From all measured theories of the sons of God either formed from the
translation years or within the walls of Jerusalem and in Egypt or Middle East
or in faraway nations, may or may not have been flesh and blood, but should no
longer matter since for many, the word of God can be spoken by any one, and as
such the flesh belongs to the flesh, and only an instrument of God.
Migration routes
and incursion into the Aegean may have also gone through direct routes from the
East, particularly the Phoenicians who may have laid their version of
foundation in Greek. And like the Greeks, these Phoenicians did not have kings,
had unusual loyalty to Egypt, and like the Greeks they mostly burn their dead.
Even if this is the fact after the Art discovered in these areas, there is a
higher understanding in terms of the penetration of these areas and why there
is a renewed tendency towards doubting their connection to the Greek culture at
any useful length. But the issue is not much a question of doubt as it is a
matter of the Art and Architecture and its history.
We have more than
enough to suggest that Archeological artifacts exist to condemn any
intellectual truancy about the origins of Crete and Mycenaean Art-forms.
Although the Archeology of Mycenaean and Crete can be grouped along the
Helladic I-IV, there is enough emphasis on the structure of the Art at various
departures of Helladic and 'typology' of the Pottery discovered in these areas,
from 'c.1400', to show a striking similarity between these levels of Archeology
and the history that is close to it. We may also find among these Art forms,
structures that not only reveal the size of the damage done to the area by
Hittite but perhaps others returning in later stages. There is no end to
speculation associated with the group of people called Hyksos or similar
reconnaissance group of the 16th BCE, who were perhaps entering Egypt for the
first time or more perhaps, departing Africa and above all, Avaris (Averroes)
from Africa into Canaan. W. F Albright who was mentioned that these expunged
Hykos from Avaris left a long chain of damage along the paths that appear in
the Bible, made it as far as Babylon and may have also created havoc as they
left – going at least by the damages which was dated to the 16th and
15th centuries BC, a period that largely coincides with
What happened
after this age is enough to create the legend that the famous letters of Amana
(El-Amana) in the age of Akhenaten (1379 - 1362 BC) may serve to be one of
those miracles. The argument about the faces of Egyptians and faces of Africans
from Homeric times till recently is just like Afrocentric and other world
historians have argued, is junk discipline. There was no Greek until the 4th
century B.C.E, and Rome was only mentioned for the very first in the 2nd
Century B.C.E. It is a damage to say the least… and in view of skeptic like
T.F.R.G Braun of our recent discourses, such books and theories should be about
the presence of Blacks in Antiquity should be abandoned as first class history.
When the T.F.R.G
Braun mentioned the once avoided emphasis on Egyptian status which were
'plotted out in advance on a grid of squares' and about the Grid on square
point of these Egyptian Arts and Sculptures, for a long time this grid on point
was associated with Greek Art and some people made a whole career out of these
grid points are essentially Doric in origin. It is not wrong to challenge some
of that assumptions based on what they have in the field since everything this
is now clearly associated with Greeks, is essentially a footnote to Egypt. We
may make a note on the structure of Dorian architecture which relied
extensively on Grid points and on working the details first before executing.
From the details of the number and the structures, it will seem to suggest that
what amounted to Architecture is perhaps borrowed from sculpture or the other
way round. Far more revealing is the so called role of Greek and Roman Art in
the history of Africa and its continent. When we compare this rise of the
Dorian art and Ionic order from set examples littered everywhere in Africa and
particularly Egypt, we are certain that the flow of world history needs
revisiting.
Concerning the
Dorian, there is a long standing tradition about this people dating back at
least to the destruction of Troy. It may be the sack of Troy "Homeric'
sack of Troy since it is believed to have taken place by at least "80
years" before the 'Return of the Heraclydidae'. The return of Heraclydidae
is very important for the light in shade on Ephesus which was sacked by
Pelopids, and historians has demonstrated and in this we cite 'CAH' (who cited
Eratosthenes) that Heraclydidae were a descended from Mycenaean and it took
place sometime in 1183 B.C. These Mycenaean descents may have actually
witnessed Troy as a place carefully emptied of its citizens. This does not mean
they found it empty, rather the association of the more Mycenaean IIIb
destruction with Troy VII may be due to such attacks by Dorian and a people who
eventually occupied Corinth. This theory is largely incorrect - not that the
thesis about the Dorian 'incursion' into Troy could not have taken place, but
going a few generation backwards to Mycenaean IIIc was perhaps a result of the
destruction wrought by the Sea People.
These Sea People
number in nations and did their worst attack on "Ugarit" and
"Alalakha". Alalakha of 1180 and 1191 BCE was just devastated by Sea
People; the damage to their palaces was legendary. The Ugarit was just kaput
and such fine culture went down and under for just course. Since Heraclydids
may returned in 1183 or thereabout, then like their Dorians, may have been Sea
People. Heraclydids may have just been Dorian who were defeated in earlier in
Ephesus and by Pelopidas and who waited and witnessed the destruction of Troy
and almost a generation or three later, returned to nearly abandoned City. The
difference in Pottery between Mycenae IIIb and Mycenae IIIc may just be a
question of Pottery, a matter of style with due reference to Pelopidas who may have
occupied Troy from earlier on and the Homeric 'sack of Troy'.
Charlse Picard attempted to discuss the roots of Doric spirit
which included Creto-Mycenaean Complex. He is credited with suggestion the
Dorian spirit and Dorian origin can be traced to Creto-Mycenaean Geometric
'Decorative' art. In essence, if we put the Indo-European Art of stylized
geometry and Proto 'Pan-Germanism'
arts of later periods, it will suggest that Charles Picard saw the success of
these proto-European Arts as part and similar forms of the Dorian Architecture
which survive as Creto-Mycenaean Art. These Arts and Art-forms characterized by
lines of Geometry as perhaps of the surviving Creto-Mycenaean Art has roots
elsewhere other than Mycenaean or thereabout, that the Danubian civilization
from Doric Temples at Corinth was essentially Greek Art.
To understand the difficulty associated with these theories or the
fault in these arguments, one must analyze the significant point in the whole
statement so far about skulls and human beings, and by necessity we must show
that human minds are best explained through the behaviors of a child, perhaps a
teenager.
That Picard mentioned Creto-Mycenaean, which is really Crete and
Mycenaean, as Art that survived means to pick his nose at Archeology - his
field. We are left with all kinds of problem in showing a continuation of
away from its Egyptian Arts in Mycenaean and in Crete, largely for the fact
that the Archeology from these areas has nothing but Egyptian Arts. Perhaps it
is common sense to indicate that as far as the Levant and the influence of the
Phoenicians at Qatna and Orontes; the 'Sea People' that occupied parts of the
old Palestinian - which many Historians of both Jewish and non-Jewish
background cited that it was not names after Philistines. The Peles is not
misnomer in the Bible, it speaks of a people and most probably refers to
Philistines. These Peles and Philistines of 'Sea People' may start their
journey as coevals of those who left Africa and possibly Avaris 400 years
earlier. On their way across the land of Palestine, the Hykkos or Asiatics
simply wasted every culture that is discovered on the path.
If these lots were remotely close to these deportees from Africa,
then the Philistines and the Sea people are not themselves, foreigners in the
more direct sense of the word. They, like many other people may have started
their lives as Seafarers, may take it upon themselves to do what they believed
was right and may go the distance to put as end to whatever is called
civilization, or put to test anything that is remotely Egyptian in terms of the
culture and cultures of the world. Above all, these people may have have
associated with other called Kaphtor, possibly meaning villagers, since
Kaphanaum essentially appear elsewhere as a Village in Middle East. It is
commentary the influence of Egyptian seem not to have come direct or mainly
from Egypt, their way of way may had its time, but its influence of many
cultures of world, particularly once they themselves created show
Thrace, Phrygian, Balkans, Anatolia, Lycia, Caria, Lydia, are
cities which seem to show up in the annals of world history with regards to the
Black Sea. It is easy to conclude the facts that these areas had a more than
lingering lifestyle at the around 15c BCE. Beginning with Cambridge Ancient
History; CAH 11.2, 253, 360-1, speaks of a famous battle by Ramses II against
the Hittites and their coalition. These Coalition included people what is
called 'Anatolia' and it appears that the Hittites claimed Victory or reached a
truce with Ramses II since hostility between Egypt and Hittite after these days
in the Battles of 'Muwattali at the Battle of Qadesh", where the Amorites
were to have smashed. According to several sources including (CAH) Carians who
are said to be very close to the Greeks, fought on the side of the Egyptians,
and Ramses may have won the day. Prove of this is that a people called
Athenians and the people called Trojans were able to survive on their own. Even
at that, much of the Archeology of Hittite show excessive presence of the
Egyptian Artifacts and high presence of Phoenician inscription suggest that the
Hittites and their Anatolia group were no match for Carians who seem to have
come originally from Lycia or at least originated from them.
It was interference in these areas that must led Carians and
Athenians to seek out Egypt and Ramses II and Egypt responded to the war. These
peoples were subjects of Minos and joined Ionian league which fought for Egypt
and were briefly settled in Egypt. Carians and Athenians also fought as
auxiliary for Psammtichus I and II and became part of the military and
biological units in Memphis. They were famous for taking interest in the Navy
which fetched a lot of Greeks the trouble of Guardians of Delta States 'Chiefs
of Me'. From that age, these Carians became part of Egyptians society.
O. Massons (CAH 3.334, page 674) in 591 B.C mentioned that Carians
wrote their names in Abu-Simbel as Egyptians. In respect to Psammetichus II
against the Nubians in 591 B.C., Carian soldiers carved their names at Abu
Simbel (besides those of Greeks and Phoenicians), and these same soldiers may
have left their marks still further afield, at Buhen" It is commonsense to
insert that this Buhen became crucible for later later priests of Astaghes, who
were the ancestors of Smendes, Cyrus, Cambysses and the Darius of the
Achamaenides. The priest of Astages were among those mentioned as the Tribes of
Me (Ma) who eventually stayed connected to Trojan Greeks and Sea people and who
infiltrated the Libya and may have given their support to Pharaoh Siamun - who
some historians also identity with Psusunne I. The relationship between Priest
of Me or Ma and the empire of the Sea called Medes, may have not been taken
seriously largely for the fact that Assyrians and Babylonians formed the
largest military unit of Persia at Opis under Cyrus. But the relationship
between Chief of Me and the Greeks and Phoenicians of Abu Simbel and Memphis,
led to development of Sea power further up and it was from this development at
the Delta States that Medes and Assyria were forged into an Empire. No doubt
that this people set at once to try their luck across the Red Sea, particularly
the
There was at the time of Ramses II and Ramses III, large presence
of Phoenicians and Hykhos but by the time of Persia who as they say came from
the East and penetrated Turkey by way of the Anti-Atlas and Zagros Mountains,
perhaps came together under the weight of the new force called Kush. In the
year 812 BCE, it is said that Babylon has no kings, that year started the reign
of Kushans over Egypt. It is a period that set the stage for the penetration of
Indus Valley by foreign entity once mistaken as Huns. There were white Huns,
but the word white Huns means that they were others who were actually
different. In retrospect, the art of India and the writings of Indus valley may
have shown that Indian society is quite old, to the enabled degree that the
absence of foreign materials other than the Dravidian show a culture that did
not shape up on time. It is no co-incidence that the Asoka Structure of the 3rd
century India is the only useful structure of the people, and the reason we may
associate with this is that..... Ceylon which is where Indian culture also
started, seem to have been associated with Kushana who are mentioned to have
sojourned as Indo-Chinese (Indo-Europeans) at least in the last two Centuries
before Christ.
If there is any remaining digging fork in the process, it may be
applied towards exposing the possibility that the Greeks or those became
Greeks, probably did not arrive Greek and Aegean directly from Africa, they
must have started their journey in Crete and in Mycenae which were Egyptian
provinces from the Age of the Hykkos'
expulsion, and may have met others there and yet others like the Hittites and
Anatolians and Urata from South Iran. Following the outbreak of the Sea People
and the age of devastation, new parties arose from the dislocated areas of
South East and Western Delta States. If it is possible to indicate that Hykkos and the Bazars, and the Kazars
who succeeded in ruling Babylon and becoming dynasties, were perhaps part of
envelop group from Avaris, then these Basars, Kazars, and Elam, were among the
disfranchised lot in.... The issue of Greeks with no overall Kings or
Kings chosen by election was naturally suitable for the coalition or the league
of Aegean and for that, they were probably harassed by others such as
Anatolians and Hittites from the South.
III
The essay of
T.F.R.G Braun 'The Greeks in Egypt'
(CAH) illustrates the presence of Greek in Egypt from ancient times till the
time of Ptolemy and based his argument on any the presence of large numbers of
plates ceramics in Greek which bear Egyptian inscriptions. The essay seems to
suggest that the Thebes of Africa (Egypt) from very early on had a profound
influence on Athenians and the Greeks in what is now Europe. It is important to
state that there was of course the usual discussion about the two Thebes from
either of the two continents which Braun dates as early as the Homeric poems
and the Trojan wars. Drawing from the Homeric epic we read from Braun's
citation from Iliad, a scene where Achilles rejects the gifts of Agamemnon,
saying that
"Not if he
offered me ten or twenty times as much as now he does - not even if more came
from elsewhere - as much as comes in to Orchomenus,
or to Thebes - Egyptian Thebes, where the most treasures lie in the houses and
which has a hundred gates, with two hundred men sallying through each with
their horses and chariots - not even if he gave me as much as the sand and the
dust - not even then could Agamemnon change my mood" (IX. 379-68).
The copious
re-citation of the lines above is set in order to help readers not used to
Iliad understand the near complex story of the Iliad. In one of the settings
involving the difficult relationship between the Achilles and King 'Agamemnon',
we notice this priced gift offered to Achilles who refuses Agamemnon gifts. Of
course the expansive way in which the author speaks of Thebes may suggest that
the popularity of Egypt and Thebes may have been quite profound at the time of
the Trojan Wars, enough to force an oratory from Homer concerning the Thebes of
a hundred gates. Our attention is on the two Thebes which appear somewhere in
the whole setting, and we shall discover that Thebes of Egypt and Thebes of
Greek exist, to known reason that Orchomenus
has been linked to the place.
In reality, the
exact location is not known for these would be Orchomenus, but we may regard
the rest of the story as a pen in reality of the facts after the circumstances
of the Thebes from the mouth of Achilles. Braun explains the quagmire by
indicating that “Orchomenus should normally go with Boeotian Thebes; the
surprise switch to Egyptian Thebes provides the only mention of Egypt in the
Iliad" he added. Braun also forced
an argument on the age of the writing since Thebes was only fable in the age
preceding the Pre-Saite 7th century B.C. It seems that earlier on the route to
Egypt is made possible through the Crete. If Braun mentions 'Boeotian Thebes'
as no different from the Orchomenus, then these people who came from Thebes of
Egypt must have traveled the route leading east from Crete. In reality the
Cretans may have stayed connected with Egypt - the land of the River as it was
called, and as far that the Athenians could remember. It may seem that the
first penetration of the Greek may started from these Thebes of Greek.
It is very
important to mention the presence of the place Boeotian (Boeotia) as they are
called in much of their history and for much of their history we may insert
that Thebes has remained a forceful presence. One cannot pretend to show that
the people we might call Greeks, are not one people by any stretch of human
imagination. Greeks are no doubt citizens with the same name or people that
speak the same language. In some instances and not many, there is a people who
the Greeks called 'Barbarians' and in recent interpretation, these people.
These were settlers in Memphis - carved their names. Among these Boeotian
'Thebes' (mainly Carians) were a people that also made up their mark in Memphis
and along the Delta States such as the Sais called 'Carians of Caunus' - who
Masson compared to Kaninu.
The occupation of
these Delta States by Greeks flocking into Africa for the second time, led to
the culture of imitation and the struggle for a better place for Greeks. This
combination is seem to have given birth to several Sea communities of mixed
races and nationalities along the Western Delta and along the Red Sea and their
origins as culture and races particularly similar with White and others from
Africa and Asia, and how they survived in Africa beginning with which are now
clearly available to us from Herodotus and his teaching. Braun however argued
that the theory that there was another set of Carians who arrived from
'Stratopeda' and were used as body guards by Amasis seem to have been called
Ioniansa and Carians. This point will relieve us of the worry that the people
we call Greek are in fact many people and such speak independently of their
history and are bound by languages from the 4th century B.C.E.
Whereas people
who witnessed the last days of migrants from Aegean such as the Ionians and
Carians and describe them as people probably related but most probably
different people. If we put every available word into perspective, there is no
hiding place for the silence of Spartans in Egypt, there is however abundant
presence of the Athenians or those who may be described as Athenians in Greek and
in Western Delta of Africa. Perhaps the writing in Greek gave birth to a form
of idolizing about Greeks to be same and similar as the Athenians where as
these people are all things considered, a league which included Spartans and
pockets of others from what would have been Italian Peninsula.
There is no doubt
that the place is connected to several myths of Greeks, particularly with
arrival of Kadmus who is believed to a Phoenician while others simply cite him
as Egyptian. We remember the presence of Dionysus who was supposed to have
arisen from the thighs of Zeus and Semele and there are other tales concerning
the Boeotian Greek that make a lot of difference with its more Western
neighbors, some of which are called fictions. It is from these myths, especially
the incident of Alphabets from Danaus and Kadman that we may begin to peel away
the top soil of Greek sculptural Antique and from the assembled materials, the
evolution of Greek forces its connection to Africa.
We remember that
Corinth is very much associated with Boeotia and like we mentioned, the area we
regard as Corinth may be a name after the 'clay' that replaced Egyptian
Alabaster and limestone proper; the Alabaster was used extensively Egypt for
delicate objects involving imitation, for sure we may have noticed that that
among the Eber Medical citations of human models and body types that was
wrought in Alabaster. The problem unlike other clays in Egypt is that it is
very fit for stylized dramas of Art, not that the Egyptians didn't cope - in fact
they did fairly well with their best forms of clay, including the Red Art used
for ceramics. The types of materials used by these Egyptians may also explain
why the objects were mostly still and disciplines of the Art was for the
Egyptians so vital that a beautiful piece of Art could lend its a damage by
excessive force. Until perhaps the rise of Corinthians before Athenians, the
rise of Sculptural School of the Samos, the Egyptians were the beginning and
the end.
But then there
are places, particularly Corinth and the Aegean, were clays of all types could
be obtained, are It is not clear when
the shift began to take place but it seem to have gradually happened resulting
in one of the best experimentation of sculpture with clay. It is equally
obvious that the Greeks became dominant production house in sculpture largely
for the material available and also due to the power of creating sculptural
pieces with efficiency that rivaled the Africans. It is not fair that we chose
to play the Greeks against such monumental continent of ten thousand, it is
also silly to advertise Egyptian superiority of Art and learning with due
respect to Greek, as if we are going to burst an misleading idea that is
already old age.
But if this error
is old is not the fault of the Africans, if the comparison is hard to avoid it
is not due to the new facility of alternative explanation, it is because the
influence is real.
Greeks were
simply an item to be cited in History for history sake. They never in the
course of world history dominate the affairs of man, never believed they did
rather lived to affirm their faith in freedom, in the right of choose and
defense of their Aegean. In essence, the influence of Greeks in this day and
time is received from the rise of Europe and their triumph over the Muslims.
Between the Greeks and the Egyptians or any other Africans, are several world
powers including Persia and Babylon who has more than enough to say about world
history than Greeks. Greeks suggested as the curators of civilization is
through the triumph of Christianity and Rome, and from these people, the issue
of who brought civilization to Africa and the exact history of the Greeks
become problematic.
If we fail to
show how the Greeks - if ever there was one - came to be, it is all due to the
faith that modern Europe and our American places on Rome and Greek, for without
these forces of Art, some of their living will cease to have meaning in and for
spite of Slave Trade. It had to be Greeks and Romans that brought the civilization
to Africa and to Egypt. It must be Europe that brought Thebes of Greeks to
Africa, it was perhaps the same Indo-Europeans that brought elements of fire to
the 6th cataract and some of them were the indigenes of the lost Atlantis
nation that has often proved a burden for Athens, and when all respect is given
to Greek and the Athenians, they were only as good as the 5th century on wards
and among them were the Boeotian Thebes of Orchomenus.
Yet above the statement
covers Greek in Ancient History, there was always the grips with a house of
history built of paper and from paper, for here on we may be tempted to
consider this paper construction as a piece of Art no different from Sculpture
and from sculpture we look at the earliest extant materials from Greek which is
the Python Apollo, the Adonis of some artistic weight and begin to connect a
standing object to a sitting object, begin to observe that Athena was not
always seated and her image is formed elsewhere. There is then the image of a
standing king, another with hands Akimbo and others with clasped hands. These
art like the Greek society that followed last were all incarnations of older
Arts scattered around the world, older and the more available are among these
Egyptians, then and now students who of the ever-evolving world Art.
It is not wrong
to blame this whole thing on the European search of identity to the degree that
when we met such people as the 'Apollo' after the Hapi (Polis), we wonder at
origin, how a piece of art dated to fourth century BCE would have by magic
outcome existed in the 6th century BCE not to talk of Art at least a 1000 years
older than Greek. It is no wonder that the oldest and most lifelike pieces of
Apollo that reached Greek as an Art-form were discovered in Corinth and around
Boeotia.
We may cite the
presence of the word Daphne in faraway lands, that the use of the word and the
implication of the term Daphne in term of Delphi, suggest a beginning which is
insubordinate to the Greeks, and from Braun we move to state that, "Elephantine,
as we shall see, served as the base from which Greeks and non-Greeks set out on
the Nubian expedition of 591 B.C. Daphne cannot fail to be identical with Tell
Defenneh, excavated in 1886." (CAH). (R.2)
It is clear that
an early contention by this author (my-self) that Delphi refers to mother or divine mother represented by a Cow in Egypt and in Helena is a now
an undisputed fact given this theory by Braun. The Delfi or Delphi oracles were
represented with a Cow or mother Cow which tend to represent creation, so also
the Defenneh, which gives in to the possibility that both Delphi (n/b, that Greek,
Igbo, Hebrew word for a Cow is Eefi 'ehfi', efi, heifer, respectively) and
Daphne referring to a daughter in Greek may have a lot in common with initial
oracles hat appeared in Crete. Assuming these two are not the same, there is
always the case about the Greek 'daphne' daughter (pronounced daa'nyee) with
the Nigerian Igbo language, for instance, in Igbo 'Ada-nne' ;(pronounced
ahdaa-nne or in some dialect 'ehda-nne' - written ada-nne) literally means
'mother's daughter'. But whether Daphne or Defenneh is actually Africa seems to
clearly indicate that the Aegean states such Athenian (Atens), Ionians, Thebes,
facing the East - Samians (Samos Islands) West of the Delta States Africa are
perhaps extensions of Western district of Lower Egypt, and that news of many
Greek towns or what became Greeks towns seem to be a replica of Delta States in
Lower Egypt.
We shall add that
the Greeks at this period in history were not that dissimilar from Africans
(Egyptians) of the Western Delta and may have also began their journey from
Western Delta as they extended into what may now be called Europe, and
gradually discovered other arrivals from Mittani and Anatolia, settlers of the
known Philistine destroyers or the Sea People and others from old Phoenician
cities and towns. It is therefore wise to argue that they were more than one
kind of Greeks in the Greece or Helena, that at least were to privy to the
group of Greeks tribes whose dialects are different from others and these are
called Barbarians by other Greeks one of these would be the Halicarnassus and it
is interesting since these group of Greeks lived by the Carians who along with
Lydia formed a quorum of legate that accompanied Egypt in the many wars against
outsiders. As we know, the Carians settled in their numbers in Memphis Egypt
and also Greeks as they later called from Halicarnassus, among the latter was a
certain traitor to Egypt by Phanes of Halicarnassus in the war between Cambyses
of Persia and Psammaticus II. Phanes was a famous navigator under the tutelage
of his fellow Carians and others who would later make up the Meriotic (Meroe),
but switched to Cambyses at the last days of the war, providing Persia with a
plan to fight Egypt on group than Sea. In doing this, he betrayed Egypt to
Persia. Both the Carians and Halicarnassians and other Greeks hunted Phanes
down and killed him and his family to assuage the gods of the treachery but it
did not save the day.
It is now common
sense that the damage to Halicarnassus may have been enormous and may in itself
prove the reasons why Herodotus who was himself from Halicarnassus and related
to the Dorian would be moved to set the accounts of the Greeks and Barbarians
straight. For in the end, we observe that the whole process and historical
premise of Herodotus was to show the ancestral roots of the high culture that
was Greeks, whose roots is Eastern - then and always – and this East (Misri) is
in reality Egypt. Herodotus begins his
long history, in this manner "what Herodotus the Halicarnassian has
learned by inquiry is here set forth; so that the memory of the past may not be
blotted out from humankind by time, and that great and marvelous deeds done by
Greeks and foreigners, and especially the reason they warred against each other
may not lack renown (LCL).” The point is that the word Greek was not used by
Herodotus; he used Ionians (Helena) in his composition. It needs to be said
that the term ‘foreigners’ used by Herodotus refers to Barbarians. In this
opening statement the point of the history is to show how the two or more than two
Greeks warred against each other, and not only how but also why.
It seems that
the saying ‘…deeds done by Greeks and foreigners, and especially the reason
they warred against each other…” will point to a pre-existing Greek State,
where as it was Solon who as they said studied in Egypt along with Pythagoras,
that forged the Laws of Helas (Helena). The conflict was not so much a war
between Greeks and non-Greeks, rather the Ionian League from time to time had
major fracas within the League and there was more than enough reasons why a
group of one fought against another. It seems that in comparison to what later
took place in Helena (Greece) and what would amount to the problems of unity
among the Aegean is the story about who and who is Greek and what some will
regard others as Barbarian. The Barbarians if they be the foreigners in this as
opposed to the main Greeks would have a history that could not have been in
twilight at the rise of Persia in the 6th century BCE.
For in the end,
the foreigner from the translations of Herodotus is no other than remnant of
the Sea People or others such as the Anatolians or the Hyksos from Avaris that
left the Fertile Crescent desecrated as they left Africa. From the birth of
Alphabets as the Greeks understood it and Greek language, it seems that the
stories has long continued about the persons of a certain Kadmus called
Phoenician (who are also Egyptians) as the man who brought to Alphabets to
Crete, to Linzur (Lizur) who was supposed the first daughter of the Egyptian
Priest of 50 daughters who is now identified as Zeus, priest and priestess of
Delphi oracles in Atens but first built in Linzur as Temple of Zeus by Kadmus,
would seem to indicate that the Priest of Delphi that advised Kadmus to forego
the search of his sister Semele, captured by Zeus, is the same woman as Linzur,
hence the issue of Alphabets from the combined sources of Zeus or Danaus,
Linzur the first of the 50 daughters, Kadmus the brother of Semele captured by
Danaus and carried to Crete to Idomene King of Crete and the arrival of Icarus
and birth of Dionysus by Semele, are stories that happened in one life time –
perhaps a 25 year period and all associated with the introduction of Alphabets
to the Aegean. These groups of Greeks were also among the Barbarians – perhaps
with hints of Phoenicia.
A second group of
Barbarian would be the Dorians, who like others around them place their
ancestral hiatus on Egypt. Among the more accomplished Barbarians of all times
would be Alexander of a Barbarian town at the outskirts of Greece called
Macedonia (Makedonia/Makedah). as they
were eventually called originally came from the Ist and 2nd cataract of Aswan
(Elephantine) where the names Thebes (Thebes),
Yavana (Aswan), Iona (Oanas; possible a kind of house/s or
Temple/s by a Sea Side); Athens (Aten), Boeotian (Buto), Daphne (Tell
Defenneh), Eleusian/Eleufian (Elephantine), Abyss (Abydos), Mare (Marea,
Merenre), and with Carians and Memphis Egyptian was the new name Karomemphitai. Defenneh is probable the same as Nefer-nneh,
and this last is my addition since the word 'nefer' in Egypt refers to devotions or worshipers. For instance,
nefetiti meaning devoted or wife of Teti (Titi), or Teti is my Lord. It seems
to me that meaning of this word nefer (nefe) and by way of Ne-erid or Nymph in
current Egypt
Braun also
mentioned that "Here there were fragments of Greek painted pottery from
the late seventh century, found in two rooms of a massive square building,
either a fort or a store-house, dating from the reign of Psammeticus I. In the
sixth century BC non-Egyptians made their homes in Africa and along the Niles
and ended up intermarrying with Africans. Although the accounts of Herodotus
that these children of mixed parentage were eventually thrown into the Nile by Pharaohs
decrees and by Egyptians who accused them of contamination, it did not stop the
tide that gradually engulfed Africa along the Nile. There are other problems, for instance, we
read in many other places that Jeremiah fled to Daphne - Hebrew Tahpanes - with
a Jewish contingent to escape the Babylonian captivity in 582. Here he
proclaimed (43; 6-7; cf.46) to his fellow-refugees the coming Babylonian
conquest...", this was no doubt Africa and nowhere else. Majority of Greek
materials discovered in Defenneh is suggested to have taken place that dates
from 570 B.C, pretty much in the 6th century which was the tail end of second
to the last great migration of Greeks - particularly Carians to Memphis and the
long Egyptian resistance to Carians and Greeks marrying Africans, but it
happened that the Memphis caved in to the long and eventually exhaustive career
of inter-marriage between Greeks, Asiatic and African Women and the outcome is
matter of one's judgment but Africans are no longer the center of their own
history and culture by modernity of 19th century.
Braun mentioned
that "The hieroglyphics inscriptions sometimes give an Egyptian name for
deceased, but sometimes a name which might be Antolian. At the base of a status
of Neith from Sais gives the genealogy of a certain Pedineith who was evidently
the son of a Carian man, KRR, and of an Egyptian woman, Neithemhat." We
need to inject that the word 'Neith' and Neithermhay' almost suggest a general
term for a woman. This relationship between these Greeks, Hittites, Anatolians
and Egyptians, reproduced in Braun's terms at least seven different groups of
people, many of whom came from different parts of Europe occupying the known
precinct of the culture of Egypt. Marrying Egyptian women or descendants thereof
- Greeks, Hittites, Anatolians, etc. - and becoming one of the seven classes of
Egypt was a way to state their claim on the continent, but conducted their
lifestyles outside what is perhaps Egyptian of the day. This migration into
Africa brought cultures that didn't quite respect 'Egyptians Lore’s' and some
of these cultures paid the price for it. It is these times that a certain
people now informally identified as Dorians began to emerge from Egypt, and may
have been part of the rebel against the restored Egyptian Pharaoh Psammaticus.
We arrive therewith at the point where the stories that the Greeks represented
the Africans in their Arts according to how they saw them, would not for all
pebbles in language be considered true. The difference for a start between the
Greeks and the Africans in Naucratis seem to disappear on single account that
these people are by all accounts one group, one a primitive realia of older
Barbarians (Berbers) and the a dissociated group that straddle East Greek and
the East, a kind of hybrid that extends in fractured lime from one ends of
Greece to another – almost without break both in persons and in ideas.
IV.
Kadmus (Kadmus)
is ultimately African either of a direct Egyptian descent or Phoenician who
were mainly Egyptian Sea Fearers and not a separate nation. But he is also
known as a Phoenician. If we care to suggest that the presence of large
Egyptian materials in Greek is probably due to the quality of clay that was
available in that area, that these clays made 'lifelike' objects -Kouros, seem
easier to work with it we are not making any mistakes. It is commonsense to
indicate that Phoenicians were just the first of these Greeks who may settle in
Athens or Aegean, and were supremely interested in plates and ceramics. In one
instance, T.F.R.G Braun, mentioned in his essay that there was a group of
people who are called interpreters, that "The 'interpreters', supposedly
descended from those taught by the first Greek and Carian mercenaries...and
forming
Braun argued that
the Greeks ended up making fun of the language and the foreign dialect but
Herodotus who seems to be a chief. Such act of translation and interpretation
at the 6th through 5th century B.C were so late that no doubt that the attempt
at the two languages seem to have arrived from common heritage. The name alone
may justify a connection to its counterpart in Africa, saving for the more
supreme fact that besides the Apollo imitation of Hapi statutes of Egypt, there
is also Thebes and its Temples.
It will amount to
nothing if we cannot compare these Egyptian terms such as 'Nuit-Hapi' which Dr.
Ben translated or lifted its Greek translation as 'Nilo-polis', to Igbo
language. We may have noticed that the word 'Hapi' which should be 'api' for
polis or horns, like the horns of Africa, referring to a junction of two
rivers. Apis in Greek is Polis as in Horns, and the emphasis in on Philae which
is a megapolis or necro-polis after a certain Trajan. We may have also noted
that the term hapi which is api in Kimit or Kemit, also refers to polis or
Pillars as in Pillars of Phillae, who according Dr. Ben in this concert and in
consonant with other examples, is dedicated to lower and upper Egypt. We are
beginning to unravel the forgotten ancestors of some of the Greek cities and
towns and some of the Greek cultures surrounding priest and not kings, which
these Greek cultures began as a borrowed hiatus of the elder states and Temples
of Sais, Philae, and Thebes in Africa. When we behold the claims of Polis as
Pillar, we do not hide form the Kemit words 'Nuit-Hapi' (Nilo-Polis; Point of
the Nile), for sure we shall encounter these words such as 'nui' as a form of
water - that is 'nii' in regular instances, that perhaps Dr. Ben's error in the
book or the errors of translators of the word 'nui' is derived from the
inscription found at the Temple of Philae called Inui (inuu) - translated as
'Pillars of Philae' where as it may just be referring perhaps to the Temple
itself and not particularly the Pillar. For the word Pillars in English we must
think of the term 'Hapi' or 'api' Kemit for horns as the same or synonymous
with ..., which for Greek is 'Hapis' and 'apis'
Buto is the
capital of Lower Egypt and was also called Pe or Po. It is sort of hard to deny
that there is no connection between the Africans of Lower Egypt and the
Africans of Upper Egypt. By the fact of the presence of Buto in Lower Egypt
than Upper Egypt, we experience a situation. If we have Aswan in the Upper
Egypt which is the beginning of the first cataract and we have Thebes around
the second (2nd) cataract and Buto towards the 6th (sixth) cataract, it becomes
impossible to connect with Braun's description of Orchomenus as Boeotian
Thebes. The people - if they so exist - exist to the degree that the appearing
of Kuoros and the other lifelike imitation of the 6th style, seem to have begun
its journey from Thebes or as Thebians, or at least may have become those who
were essentially part of Thebian arrivals in Aegean.
Apparently, we
may survive with the suggestion that yawan is as much the same thing as Aswan,
may in fact elaborate that those who the Indians regarded as Yonas (Ionas) may
well be different from Yavana, and prove of this is the people we call Ionas -
who are not a tribe is also different from people associated with Yawan as the
Hebrew speak of them. Together in terms of the Thebes of Africa, we are easily
at home with the theory that the Yavanahs are the same Yawan as the same as
Aswan which is the 1st cataract of Egypt.
A.D.H Bivar in
('The Indus Lands; CAH) levitates on
this word Yavanas in terms of classics from Sanskrit, "Other passages from
the Mahabharata link the Kambojas with the Bahlikas 'Bactrians', the Yavanas
'Greeks' , the Sakas (Indo-) Scythians and 'Grandharans'. Likewise in Asoka's
Third Rock Edict the Kambojas are coupled with the yonas 'Greeks' and the
gamdharas 'Gandharans'. E.Benveniste, in his discussion of the Asokan Greco-Aramaic
inscription from Kandahar, suggested that it may have been addressed to the
Yonas and Kambojas in that region, though no mention of such peoples is made in
the text."
In the context of
Ionians and Greek, 'Absent Voices; The Story of Writing systems in the West';
2004' by Rochelle Altman, also mentioned that the "Homeric name for the
Ionians is Yawon (es)". The W represents a digamma (literally, double -
gamma, the name given the graph in the 1st century BCE); the graph is a
reflected Phoenician "Vav". The Phone and symbol fell into disuse by
the third century BCE. Like a "vav" a digamma could have been
pronounced v as in "vest' for as in "fest", or whu as in
"woo" - depending upon locale and dialect. The Hebrew word for Greece
is "Yavan" - which is a literal phonetic transcription of
"Yawon" with the digamma pronounced v. Persian transcribes the name
as "yuana".
And she described
eikon as the 'image'.
Even if this is
the fact after the Art discovered from these places, there is a higher
understanding in terms of the penetration of these areas and why there is a
renewed tendency towards doubting their connection to the Greek culture at any
useful length. But the issue is not much a question of doubt as it is a matter
of the Art and Architecture and its history.
Braun also
mentioned that some of the Hieroglyphics show obvious Carian influence but th
format was Egyptian. This was a culturally assimilated group whose origins are
not without the expulsion of Hykkos - assuming the translations is correct -
and the foundation of Minos and Mycenae, both of whom were Egyptian Pharaohs of
the First Kingdom, are well documented . The Middle kingdom and artifacts of
the mother of Amosis I had been discovered. Amosis I (Ahmense) and his brother,
Tyrone (Kamose), who probably didn't survive the war with Asiatics, conducted
the expulsion of 'Asiatics' (foreigners) as the Egyptians called them in Kemit,
from Avaris and from Lower Egypt. On their way out of Africa and through the
Palestine 'Land of the Bible' to anywhere but Africa, these Asiatics - who may
include among a certain breed called Apiru and a certain others called Hykkos -
attacked Egyptian garrisons in Palestine and Middle East, perhaps raided small
religious provinces such as Ugarit and Ai en-route to anywhere but Egypt.
With the
documentary evidence of history and eventual era of Palestine Archeology will
seem to suggest that the destruction of the 24 lands of Canaan by Israelis and
Joshua may have already suffered from dangerous assault by these disappearing
lots from Africa. In any case, the story of Joshua destroying the Hittites, the
Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites (Awites), Jebusites, parts of Negev,
parts of Jordan and Jericho (Joshua 12; 7-24) may take place possibly a century
or two after these Hykkos left Egypt. Palestinian school of Archeology believe
that these people may have constituted a first full assault of the land of
Palestinian and that Exodus possibly happened more than once and if Joshua 13;
1-7 mentions the five cities of the Philistines who came after the age of
Ramses III (1186-1155 BCE), the writer would have written the book sometime
later. Then the people of Indo-Europeans around the Canaan and along with the,
whereas these Hykkos are precisely related to Afro-Asiatic and Afro-Europeans
of Red Sea and Arabian Desert….
Amosis (Ahmes) is one of the greatest Pharaohs
of Egypt and if there was an intermediary between him and Thutmosis I, it will
the father of Thutmosis I possibly on
the same rank with his grandson/great grandson 'Thutmosis III' in humanity and
devotion to Egypt, he was also faithful in many of his endeavors as Pharaoh.
Late British Museum Curator and Editor of Cambridge Ancient History, I.E.S
Edwards, also named a certain Amenemses I as one of the Greatest Pharaohs.
Amenemses I (Amenemhuet) was not only a master sculptor in his younger years;
he was also an accomplished technician interested in details. Amenemses I
supervised a lot of national projects under the Pharaoh Sesostris and
eventually became Pharaoh himself. The Story of Sesostris I as Pharaoh seem to
suggest that a certain Sesostris associated with Amenemses (Amenemhuet) was
probably not a Pharaoh, but this could not have been the case since Amenemses
mistaken as Amenemheut are two different people and above all, there was a
Menemheut preceding the father of Sesostris I.
These men had
only a brief moment in their life and after so many years their character still
show and like the legendary Sesostris III, and a personal favorite Pharaoh
'Userkaf the Pure', they left too soon. Of course, the culture would seem now
to make sense that Egyptians were severely religious people who may or may have
wondered at the whole purpose of life, may and may not noticed that ended too
quickly. We shouldn't overlook great pyramid builders and Pharaoh such as
'Zozer', Senefu, Cheops, then there is of course the strictly military
Thutmosis III (mislabeled 'Napoleon of Egypt'), Ramses II (mislabeled the
greatest pharaoh), Painky or Py, and Shabako (tyrant), and expeditionary as in
Necho II (who survived the most turbulent years of Egypt), and queen Hatshepsut
among others of familiar history.
So the Carians,
and those described as Ionians and Dorians were plainly immigrants from Aegean,
and their long association with this
Western Delta, leads us to believe that they saw in places further off
the fields of Greek a type of clay, Kouros (Kouroi), that made sculpture much
more easier. Although the town that will become famous, Corinthians, had a long
standing history, it is the Kouros that will make them popular.
The rest of the
stories about the tenuous connection between Samos Islands and Egypt, about the
arrival of Solon, Pythagoras, to Naucratis, and Thales, Polycrates, Miletus,
travels and studies in Egypt and Africa need people interested in the whole
business to study for them.
The Kouros is a
fine reason why sculpture took on an added form in the Aegean. If the clay over
there was described as the best for sculpture, the works of Apollos and his
image standing Polis or Hapi may be reason why the correlation between Greeks
and Egyptians started earlier along the lines of Apollo which I think is the
same as the word ‘Polis’ or a Pol, meaning standing upright, an Art performed
with image of man as model. The Apis Bull would not be mistaken as a Apis Bull,
hence a bull with horn is Apis, a synonyms for a pole or pillar, or referring
to a standing object. There were also concerned about eikon, meaning the body
of the man or the image of man, and like Karikon - (Kari-ikon) which is not
Kouros, which is the term that has made errors about the interpretation of
early Greek male nude Art. We must clearly indicate that the term eikon in
Greek which refer to the image - particularly image of man, is not a term that
can only be found in Greece alone. There is a term in Igbo that refers to man
or to men, and this term is called 'ikom', meaning men.
This word is
different from 'iko' which is Igbo for English term cup. These words are also
different from Igbo word 'iiko' refering to promiscuity. For instance, 'ikwa
iko' literally has to do with fornication. If the Igbos also called foreigners
'ndi siesi', with particular emphasis on 'siesi' meaning they came 'from
elsewhere' - as if to give meaning to the word 'else' or 'else’s', we can
suggest that a form similarity exist between the word 'Asiatics' foreigners in
Kemit and 'si-esi' in Igbo referring to
foreigners (ha siesi), then in spite of the 't' in the Asiatics, we may not be
far from each other in the root meaning of Asia, or far from each other in
comparative philology of Igbo to Greek in terms Hyksos. These Hyksos, in terms
of Igbo words such as 'iikoh' meaning 'fornication' or 'promiscuity', may be so
considered are comparatively similar and perhaps the same in meaning, and in
respect to everything said so far about these Hykkos, the term - now with Igbo
- may define ‘hykkos’ as perhaps 'foreigners' known for promiscuity and
infidelity. This new facility will likely throw the Egyptian society into a
severely religious society. It may be the case that they were no different from
Christian others or Muslims, or perhaps Jew, whose extreme religious views
described others as infidels.
That a certain
group of foreigners were also described as 'Asiatics' suggest a period of
transgression that became common transfixed in history by the Egyptian attitude
towards a promiscuous people that were popular in Babylon and in latter ages
and may have also influenced this nude persuasion of a young Apollo. Perhaps
this was not the case, perhaps there was something else, a form of rebel
against the restriction or free and maddened Artistic persuasion. But we cannot
pretend that the effective destruction of civilization wrought by a self-loving
'hedonistic' called 'Sea People', almost to suggest a people without name like
'foreigners', does not spare a second look at the possibility that the rise of
Greek Art and the rise of the Ionian league and boy loving Trojan Heroes are
not unrelated to these people. Their spate on hate for even Israel and Arab
others in Palestine, was not without a social ire that lasted for nearly a
thousand.
Yet again, we
have a third word in Igbo meaning 'ikom', for instance 'ndi ikom' meaning 'men'
should in no wise be different from the word 'ikon' or 'eikon' in Greek for
men, or for image of the man 'eikon' and in modern tongue 'icon'. But to make
sure that comparative relational between Hebrew and Igbo and Igbo and Greek is
not taken for granted in this case, we may try some new examples. For instance,
Greek for wine is 'mayim', Hebrew 'mayim' (some claim it is close to hayim(?)),
and Igbo for word for English word 'wine' is 'm'mayi' or 'm'miyi'. There is
something happening here since Egypt in terms of what we know of it also seem
to indicate the mayim or mai, is wine. This Igbo words are different from
others for water (mini, miyi), river (iyi) plus demonstrate that the maternity
of these word for wine in Igbo, m’mayi or m’miyi. Such example also brings the
issue of 'water' which we have used elsewhere as an example. In the
circumstance we may have in Igbo 'miri' or 'm'mini' or 'm'miri' for water and
in Greek we have 'meios' for water and we have similar sort of word for 'meios'
'mii' for Phoenician and we have in Hebrew 'mew' for water.
What is also
happening in the above statement is that Egyptians also use the term 'miri'
(after Dr. Ben. 'mirit') for water. For instance the Kemit will say 'mirit
nihit' for Lower Nile - that is also translated 'Mirit Quisat' for Upper Nile.
Dr. Yosef Ben-Yochannan example in his book (Africa; Mother of Western
Civilization; 1971) states it like this "mirit qimait" > 'of
the Upper Nile Nubia', "mirit mihit'' > 'lower Nile, Kimit'. It is
all correct since it may also refer to White Nile and Blue Nile. At least in
Igbo (miri) and in Kimit 'Kemit' (mirit) all refer to water/s, yet in Igbo, the
word 'ocha' 'ucha' refer to 'white' or 'bright' and whereas 'ihi' 'ihii'
(sometimes izhii) may mean first or (ihii) hidden - possible hidden and
probably not the corollary for 'mihit'. But then the comparison between Greek
and Igbo, between Igbo and Hebrew and as in many cases 'Kemit, Kimi/t', should
arm us with enough faith in the fact that Igbo using 'iyi' for rivers and Igbo
using 'anyim' for sea or 'big river' or 'osimiri' for 'sea' or 's(t)ream', or
even 'oshu-anyim' for 'ocean' cannot possible differ from similar Egyptian such
as 'Nii' for Nile, 'Nui' is occasionally used for the Nile but it mainly refers
to Abyss 'or water deep of Abydos where a certain Osiris is supposed to rule.
The Greek term
'zoa' 'zoon' which appear in Revelation, does not just refer to the animals
seated according to their order in God's presence, it refers to what we know
too well in English as a 'zoo', while the second Greek term 'zoon' is closer to
the word 'zone'. Apparently Greek 'zoa' 'zoon' has to do with the zoo in
English. In Hebrew there is a term that is also similar to the above mentioned.
It goes by the saying 'zoh' 'zor', as we have the example 'zoha', which in the
particular context of the book spoken here means quite an assortment of names
and places and title names of God (Zoha for Hebrew). In Igbo, we have a word
that is quite close in sound and meaning to these languages and these words and
it goes like this, 'ozo' which refers to (1) a title (2) a zone, and then there
ohzu 'coffin for the death' or corpse. In the circumstances of zoo, zone, and
title (ozo) we may use the example a sentence in terms of illustration, for
instance, ozo aha, meaning 'title names' in Igbo, may also appeal to the rest
of us as zoha, referring to title names of God. Yet in Igbo, as in Greek, as in
English, we may look 'zone' as a word that is just the same with the Igbo word
'ozo'. For example, 'ozo rice' in Igbo means 'rice zone' - usually said in a
general market. The third word in Igbo 'ohzu' may be used in the following way
'ohzu okuko' 'ohzu madu' and; a whole body of dead chicken; 'a whole body of
human being'.
The Twilight of
Ancient Egypt….First Millenium B.C.E, by Karol Mysliwiec , discourses the discovery
of Serapeum, (Sacred Apis Bull; 1998; 2000) "Though Apis had originally
been connected with the Memphite god Ptah, his cult quickly spread throughout
Egypt and became of one of the most important in the religion of the
land." That, the "…Pyramid texts identity the Phallus of Apis with
that of the King so as to assure the latter continued potency in the afterlife.
Pharaoh was traditionally called Mighty Bull, and this epithet was often
included in the royal titular. This
association doubtless sprang from the fertility cult practiced by tribes of
hunters in the Nile Valley before the emergence of the Egyptian State" The
Apis bull is the Serah-Apis, which is a derivative of two names such
Aseri-Apis, that is the Bull with the horns or the chosen bull. The bull as a
Phallus which from Hebrew and Igbo means ‘Idol’, is maintained as a term
similar to what is rooted in the meaning of the Temple
That the
"Apis was not the only Sacred bull worshiped in Egypt. Not far from
Memphis, at Heliopolis on the opposite bank of the Nile, the archaic period saw
the cult of the Mnevus bull, who was regarded as the herald of the Sun god
Atum. Towards the end of the dynastic period, in the fourth century B.C.E,
another rival of Apis appeared in the form of the Buchis Bull, whose home was
at Hermonthus (modern Armant) in Upper Egypt, and who was identified with the
local god Montu"
Charles S Finch
(Imhotep the Physician; Archetype of the Great Man') affirms that the Serpuem
is dedicated to the god Serapis. He argued that the Romans identified
Christianity with the worship of Seraphis
(Serapis), an argument which many not be exactly correct. But he went to
suggest, that "Imhotep and Seraphis were closely associated and this latter
represented a late syncretization of Osiris and the divine Apis bull of Memphis
who was a form of Ptah." Three main places that was worshiped included (1)
Memphis (2) Philae (3) Thebes and seems that from earlier on the word for
Pillars is similar to the word for Temples.
Before we move on
to the rest of the story, it is fitting to suggest that in Kemit as in Greek as
in Hebrew as in Igbo and to some degree English, there is a word that refers to
'mother' which connect them all. This word in English is 'nee' or in Igbo 'nne'.
We shall begin with Kemit 'Neith' which has excess t and h of the consonants as
in dialects, and refers to the three forms of goddess; the Sekhmet, the image
of Isis, and the image of Nephythys. These are perhaps mothers of Egypt or
thereabout. It is common sense to also suggest that their names may require the
status of the word mother; 'Neith' and the goddesses are perhaps 'title
mothers'. In retrospect, we may also argue that Neken or Neiken as old Khemit,
suggest a lot to the rest of the word 'mne' - as if the letter m is derived
from 'nn'. In Igbo the word for the mother is 'nne' and grandmother is 'nnenne'
(nene) and these terms are not that far from the 'nee' for mother in English
and Classic Greeks used terms such as 'nee' or 'ne' for mother. Older English
use nee for a woman before she married, and in Hebrew we may say 'nena' for the
'grandmother', a word which also appear in Spanish 'nina' (nena) ; grandmother.
In Igbo, the term for a grandmother is 'nnenne' as he mentioned, but the
'nnenna' in Igbo refers 'mother of the father'.
The exercise of
these words leads us into another word which is primary to our course. This is
word we must consider is the 'Mnevis Bull' that is sometimes referred to as a
'sacred cow'. This cow is fraternally associated with the creation myth in
Egypt and similar - if not same as a Cow. It is possible to say that this
creature is not a cow. In Igbo, there is a word for a certain hybrid of cow and
bull by name 'efi' and the mother is called 'nne efi'. There is nothing misplaced
about nne-efi in Igbo as 'mother cow' but the word for 'mother cow' in Igbo is
perhaps borrowed as 'narmer', but it does appear that the Igbos know their left
and right about this hybrid of bull and cow, which the Igbos by tradition use
for offering. There is nothing displaced about the term 'mnevis' in terms of
Latinized version of 'nei-efi' in relation to Igbo 'nne-efi'. Efi is Igbo is
not directly a cow but a kind of cow that is quite rare these days. The term
efi in Igbo may also lead us to understand the reason why the Greeks has
'Delphi' as a mother cow and why the Temple is associated with 'Aten'. I one
used Hathor as a word that have started its journey as 'atum', but in terms of
what I know consider obvious Igbo retention in some Greek words and Kemit,
there is nothing wrong in speaking of 'atu' from igbo perspective since in line
with these creatures in Igbo atturro (Sheep - not Taurus), Ebule (Bull), Mkpi
(Ram), Ewu (goat), efi (cow/bull hybrid),
and atu as a version of these creatures also compares very well.
According to the
information that Braun provided us on the relationship between Egyptian and
Architecture and what became Greek, he tried to show that in Art, visual Art,
Egyptian influence on "Greece was immediate and profound" and this is
"especially true of sculpture." This point does not impress new found
ground and the facts are not new. It is common historical opinion that those
who began the movement of what is considered Greek Art came from Egypt, the
question that naturally follow this line of reason is not when but who, and now
we can also go beyond the question of Art. Braun compared all the Neo-Hittite
and Assyrian statutes that were visible at any history and particularly the 6th
and 5th century B.C, does not measure up to Egypt at any time of its history.
In terms of
Greek, the author mention that the Greeks "who came in numbers to Egypt in
the mid-seventh century were much impressed by Egyptian life-size statutes.
These obviously inspired the Kouroi that appear from now on in the Greek
homelands, carved out of island marble." He argued as well that that in as
far as the imitation of Art between Egyptian and Greek Art is concerned,
"The resemblances are striking; a similar stance, clenched hands at the
sides instead of the outstretched ones of the figurines.", that the
difference between Egyptian Art and Greek Art is that Egyptians wore 'wigs' and
'Aprons' the Greek Kuroi 'are naked.' Of course, the author may have mentioned
this point as a great point to consider in terms of the difference between
Greek and Egypt, but fails to hint that the earliest art forms which the
Athenians learned from Egypt is in many ways than one, the image of Apollo and
statute of the standing polis which was copied in everywhere and with every imagination
from Egypt and Africa. The nature of copy work suggest that the Greeks and the
people that ruled had to interest whatsoever in doing anything different, may
also mean that the people who led the foundation for Aegean Arts such as
Corinth and Athens, didn't begin these projects with the view of doing it
separately.
Greek Delphi
oracles is the oracles of the 'mother cow' and in its meaning is the letter 'D'
which replaces the pyramid or place of worship, exposing the root of the word
'Delphi' as 'elfi' (efi/efik) for Cow in Greek. There is also Hebrew 'heifer'
with excessive 'h' letter for a cow or a certain hybrid verity not unlike their
Igbo counterparts. Igbo for cow is efi. We may gradually begin to argue that
the role of Cow is Temples of Aten or Ptah as the earth-mother is not the
different from Athenian Temples of Zeus and the Delphi oracles. There is a
movement from the Apis Bull of Greek to a Mnevis Bull as in Egypt, both of
which may have started as a response to
the necessity of accommodation But these
Temples of Athens; Acropolis, Jupiter, Zeus, were all characterized with
excessive 'Polis' (Pillars'). They came from directly from Egypt without
question and the Greeks are not that different from Thebes in Africa and so on.
What started this hint of difference between Greeks, Italian Islanders and
Egypts, is the history of the African continent which evolved along the lines
of the goats and bulls, cows and cattles, used in offering. All for reasons
which as far Egyptian Temples are concerned we may notice that as you move from
the Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt till the Point of the Nile (Nuit/Nui Hapis)
popular for the Pillars of Philae, we notice a disappearing hint of
originality.
……………………………………………….
It is not wrong
to transpose of these theories by the above mentioned indexing from one Greek
formative year to another. It is eagerness to dispose some of the assumptions
about the Greek past from the connective tissues of the Archeological
discoveries in the 19th century. Some of the articles for instance
discovered by Evans and his group pointed to a period that relates the first
pottery in Crete to the Egyptians Dynastic of the IV through VI. This earliest
products such as the plates and products of the ceramic gives all new interpretations
about the origins of the Greek society, largely for the fact the absence of
large repository of these ceramics in Helena, points to its comparative to
Egypt in the larger weight of the materials that were discovered in the Egypt.
The problems of plates and ceramic location at the time of excavations and the
premise of the preeminent association of say a temple in a land as a foundation
for a city, seems to have played a hand in forcing the many histories of the
Aegean to looked upon from myths of the Cyclops and others of lesser import
around what would become the Crete. The most important aspects of these
confusion is these plates no less the sculpture of large Cyclops, fail to give
any hint of the problems that the Greeks themselves encountered when for
instance the Hyksos left Avaris and entered or re-entered Canaan or the Fertile
Crescent (Land of God).
To be clear, the word Canaan literally means ‘Land of
God (el)’ K-ani-nu, which co-insides with the stories of Israelites who may
have been in Africa and were now on their to the ‘promise land’ which in
comparative performance to a ‘fertile crescent’ flowing with milk and money is
non-other than ‘Canaan’ or what is now Palestine. We abbreviate here that Canaan would
therefore include sections of Africa, at least up to the mid to Northern Belt
of the Continent, but from all intended and unintended review of history,
Canaan is understood as a place not in Africa.
This also point to the fact that the Israelites were themselves new
comers to Canaan, that those who live in this Canaan were perhaps not that
dissimilar from settlers in the later years, and above all, the story of Canaan
who from accounts of Bible and other Semitic sources including some Egyptian
text, is a story relating a group of others perhaps like the Bible abandoned or
forsaken, but were from older times until the settling of the Phoenicians
inside Africa drifted from place to another, including perhaps the Ugarit. At
least once more, the culture of Canaan is nowhere confined to Ham who is the
father, whereas Shemezu – high priest of Amun or Shem, is non-other than the
Priest of Thebes. Shemezu appears in the
Egyptian Calendar as occurring sometime in April, or others point to late April
perhaps in consensus to the Greek’s use of Bull as the image of Zeus (Shemezu;
Mezu) who is supposedly the head of the Gods. But of course Shem is the high
priest of Memphis (divine cow) which falls in April and historically the head
of the Zodiac (Seth) but not used for Pharaoh argued as the Bull, the son of
Rah.
Here we can use
the spectacle of these of these Hebrews and others who may have visited Africa,
to throw enough light on what is may have taken place in many part of the
Northern Frontiers, for sure, the relapse of Israelites and the Amorites into
Canaan, or other such as the Hyksos is proof that the retention of the others
such as the Helene; the Greeks cannot be any different in experience and in
history. There is no denying that the Egypt holds a long list of variable
connection between African and Arabian Peninsula, between Israelites and
Syrians and much of Asia Minor. But it is only Egypt but also other along the
littoral that is Libya and further East such as Sudan and Ethiopia. From all
points therefore, the history of Africa within the central magnets of the
Frederick Harth (A
History of Painting. Sculpture. Architecture) discusses the problems of the
Greek presence in Africa from the standpipe of the more interesting relational
endowment of Egypt to Greece.
“Although this
statute offers only a slight challenge to then already two-thousand-year-old
Egyptian tradition of figure sculpture, it is, nevertheless, a powerful work.”
“The largest and
grandest, and one of the earliest, of the Kouros figures – a statute almost ten
feet high was at Sourion near Athens and is datable about 600 B.C. It shows
undeniable Egyptian influence in the rigid stance of the figure, with the arms
close to the sides and left leg advanced.”
“Second, while
the weight of an Egyptian figure rest largely on the weight (rear) leg? That of
the Kourus Statute is always evenly distributed, so that the figure seems to be
striding rather standing.”
Among the oldest
items of Greek or at least found in Greece are Kuoros emphasizing muscles around
knee caps and Torso but may have started from Wood imitations necessary for
apprenticeship, but may have originated from the Vase ceramics such as the (1)
Chigi Vase. But the emphasis on the Knee Cap and Torso did not materialize any
useful Greek Art until later. For sure, the Greek images of (2) Lady of Auxerre – so named for the Museum
is which it is mast, is argued as early version of Venus but may only be a
phase in Greek Art giving the standing supine amelioration of Egyptian Isis and
Imaat which are usually hoisted as erect as possible. And this Lady of Auxerre
– so named - is a fine example of Egyptian-Greek hybrid, may in fact be
consider neo-classical Egypt but certainly the work of an amateur considering
what was obtainable in Egypt at the 7th BCE preceding the Saite Kings, or what
available in Africa in Libya and towards the 1st Cataract or Western Cataract
of the Nile at Sudan where the Blue and White Nile meet. It is article of
history that much of Persia – particularly Nineveh built (remolded) by Egyptian
Priest two centuries later, did not at this time contain a useful structure
that compared in limelight to Greece. As far as Egypt or at least Africa, the
experiment with Kouros (life-like image) has reached new levels, it was already
at decay and was experiencing new life elsewhere.
This Lady of
Auxerre a structure-standing in Paris-dated 650 B.C, showing its missing eyes
and hands is a structure combined from Egyptian motif (650 .B.C) and perhaps
earliest Greek experimentation. The other sculptures; (3) Anavyssos Kouros (4)
Sounion dates back to 600 BC coincides with the rise of Saite Kings in Egypt
and are obvious importation of Egyptian Arts and influence. From these examples
and consequent others, it means to suggest that the center of Greek Art can
easily be located around their more ancient Ionian City which is the East of
Greece, and it is in this precinct that sculptures such as the above mentioned
and the world famous (5) Calf Bearer, (6) Hera from Samon (7) Peoplos Kore of Athens
and the Acropolis of c.530 B.C. These lifelike structures which are the oldest
in Greeks show remarkable and direct African Influences especially in that
magnificent 6th century.
The other lesser
known Greeks items and Arts such as (8) Charioteer of Apollo (9) Kritois Boy
made of Marble and the Marble of the Blonde Youth also from Acropolis are dated
much later and seem to explain the beginnings of what may be called Greek Arts
driven in large part by the use of Marble or other easier to work stones,
whereas Egypt and the Africans along the Nile where privy to the sensitive soft
to hard materials that were easier to obtain in the Helena. Of course the
beauty that was Greek and the perfections that inseminated the Romans are
serious late articles of history which feature Art forms that are ‘realized’
Like the rest of
the Greek society, their intention was to duplicate the pieces of Art that came
from Africa and with that intention goes another one that these life forms were
perhaps intended for profit, was begun by these African themselves, of the
resources that are available and in respect to the claim that the Greeks 'who
came in numbers in the mid-seventh century were much impressed by Egyptian
life-sizes statutes' would
Citing Diodorus,
Braun related the story of "Theodorus of Samos, the most celebrated
architect and statue-maker of the sixth century, with his brother (or more
probably his father) Telecles, learned a technique from Egypt which enabled
them each to make a vertical half of the same statue independently, the one in
Samos and the other Ephesus. When brought together the two halves fitted
perfectly." And in the formal words of Diodoros, we can write about the
By Braun and
Diodorus, and with amelioration Herodotus, we take from these testimonies that
evidence of scriptural styles and technics which are used in Ephesus and in
Samos Island were taken from Egypt. There are no mistakes that what is known as
in Saite and in Egypt could not have been discovered in Aegean, in Ephesus, and
in Samos, without these methods and these art forms being taught by Egyptians
themselves. The process must have been so thorough that it was relatively clear
that the toast of artist like the Theodorus of Samos simply had to learn his
new Art forms using measurements in Africa.
The
characteristics of Ephesus includes the oldest Temple called 'Temple of
Artemis' and it is one of those wonders of the world whose monuments are an ode
to the Delphi oracle and it was home of some of the remaining Carians who were
very few in number at the 5th BCE, who were eventually taken out of the
process. It was one the first Ionian cities to have fallen to the
Achaemenides. As far as Samos, there is
no short coming on the influence of Egypt on Samos that a Tomb painting at Siwa
Oasis on the Tomb Siamun is dated to 5th century B.C, with Greek hairdo and
Egyptian dress does not mean that Siamun was as new to the 5th century as the
oldest Temple of Samos does proclaim.
But the Art
mirrors the period of commonsensical comparative between Artist from Samos
living in the Oasis of Siwa, paying their respect to Saimun – a Pharaoh of
Egypt -, all of them devoted to Ammon and to Thebes, and the artist who seem to
have lived in this area by the zeal of the Egyptians. It is also striking that
the Pharaoh Siamun is reported to have come from Thebes of Egypt and was
himself affiliated with chiefs of La, some of who may have arrived there
through the depression of Cyrene. It is this connection between the Tomb of
Siamun and Siwa Oasis, between Siwa Oasis and the Thebes, between Thebes and
Ammon, between Ammon and Samos, which establishes the new vistas on how constitutes
some of the Grecian Aegean if not much of it can be made. When we consider the
fact that there a Libyan Desert connecting to Egypt, the issue about the Greek
presence in Africa becomes a matter of Greek states as unintended states till
the coming of Persians.
Samos Island of
Greek is popular for any number of things. It is most commonly known for the
first intact Apollo. Samos is one of the first places in Greek that contain the
earliest extant Kouros of Apollo. Pythagoras, Aristarchus, and Epicurus, were
among the Greeks associated with Samos Island, and according to the Egyptians
Priest, these were also people who came to be trained in Africa. There is no
hiding that a tenuous relationship between the Athenians and the Samians, where
the Athenians were reasonably Greek but their position in 'oasis of Western
Desert' which East of the Greek Islands slightly makes them outsiders.
Herodotus speaks
of the 'Samains of the Aeschrionian
tribe' living along the Islands of the East ('Land of the Blest' (?))
and in the Tomb of Pharaoh Saimon, there is the painting that looks adapts to
Greek in hairstyle but adapts to Egyptian in style in rendition. The Oasis is
controlled by the Libyans. There in fact a second phase of the Greek Art and
Philosophy. We are talking in terms of Magna Grecian which has been since the
last century, a theme within the theme of Greco-Europe art and civilization.
Apparently, there is no such Magna Grecian as we now conceive of it, for sure
all effort to uncover the left and right of some of these
It is not
complicated to say that Greeks took 'what they learned from the Egyptian' and
we shall discover in many part of world history and philosophy, there is first
and fore mostly the beginning of these Arts from 'Wooden Statute' called
'Xoanon' and this example of the earliest Greek imitation of African Arts has
always served its purpose in many ways than one.
"Xoanon, the
Early Wooden Statute still so like the original tree-trunk, caught up with that
stage in sculpture (where the Egyptians had stopped) in which the artist could
carve the left leg of a statue posed as
though it were about to take a step forward, now with the Archaic smile, which
soon appeared on the lips, they were to make progress, stage by stage, towards
that living perfection which no people before then had been able to attain. But
before a new art could emerge, composed of these three elements
(proto-mycenaean survivals, the Barbaric Dorian contribution and the lessons
learned from the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians) Greece had to enter a new
phase of human society."(Larousse Encyclopedia of Pre-Historic and Ancient
Art)
All these amount
to something quite reasonably accurate that a shift in cultural emphasis took
place between the Egyptian and the Greeks and the shift took place gradually
and not over night.
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