"WHAT'S UP WITH THE COVER-UP"

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   For about 15 centuries, people, fascinated, gazed upon Egyptian hieroglyphics without comprehending their meaning. 

In 1799, LT Pierre Bouchard discovered the Rosetta Stone (below) while building Fort Julian (see to left--now Fort Rashid) on the west bank of the Nile during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. the proclamation carved on it, praising Ptolemy V in 196 B.C., is of relatively little significance; what is important is that the inscription appears in three texts: Hieroglyphics, Egyptian Demotic Script and Greek. (click here to read entire text)

   Jean Francois Champollion (below) was a brilliant linguist who worked from an 1808 copy of the Rosetta Stone's inscription. He labored on it for 14 years without ever seeing the stone itself. In 1822, Champollion finally decided that "Ptolemy" might be read phonetically -- patiently reconstructing the name, sound by sound from the Greek and Coptic.  Twenty-three years passed before the Rosetta Stone finally surrendered its secret which began with the deciphering of "Ptolemy's" name. (Click on the Rosetta Stone image below for information about ordering a full-size, 3-D replica.)

"The Colchians, Ethiopians and Egyptians have thick lips,
broad nose, woolly hair and they are burnt of skin."
                                                     -- Herodotus, 450 BC

My Opinion
by Dr. Joel A. Freeman

Egypt has always been a place of fascination for the ancients outside the region of Egypt. For instance, two of the seven wonders of the World were situated in Egypt.

The Rosetta Stone was discovered during the Napoleonic Egyptian Campaign in 1799. In 1822 Jean Champollion was able to crack the code of hieroglyphics. Once the code of hieroglyphics had been cracked, it brought a renewed interest to that region of the world.

For the first time in thousands of years, utilizing the new-found skills of reading Egyptian hieroglyphics, people could corroborate certain historical events, people and places. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone and subsequent understanding of the esoteric hieroglyph language was the connection that brought everything to the forefront for "modern" people to wrestle with some realities.

European archaeologists, anthropologists and historians were in a catch-22 situation. On one hand they were seeing images of people with clear Afroid features as they traveled around Egypt.

On the other hand, there was the terrible history of the slave trade that had been going on for approximately 350 years prior. For Europeans to justify the economic drive of the slave trade, there had to be the denigration of people of African descent. (Also, let's not forget the complicity of African Kings in bringing their warring neighbors to the slave traders.) Since the slave trade had been going on for some 350 years, the negative view of Black people had permeated much of Europe, South and North America and the rest of the world.

There was a crisis of conscience, especially in the mid 1800s. How are the European archaeologists going to interpret what they are seeing and understanding, to an eager outside world? In my opinion, they blew a wonderful opportunity to share the truth. Instead most went to all sorts of ends to try to present Egyptians as though they were not of African descent. The book, Black Spark, White Fire (Richard Poe) addresses the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians in a most ingenious manner.

The one-drop rule worked in the US -- one drop of black blood makes one black. Let's reverse the standards for archaeologists and anthropologists when viewing ancient history -- one drop of white blood makes you white, no matter how curly the hair or thick the lips.

All of this impacted the world -- brought on by a specific event. In my opinion, the re-discovery of the Rosetta Stone was the catalyst that brought about the series of events that ultimately reshaped the thinking of people around the world regarding the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians.

See for yourself. The photos you are about to view in a few moments are not so much "Afro Centric" as they are "Truth Centric".  See powerful visual images that reveal much more than words could ever communicate. Here's a quick example:

In many sectors there seems to be some controversy about the racial make-up of the Egyptian people, i.e. whether they were White or Black. This is a simplistic approach to a much more complicated set of circumstances since Egypt's strategic location brought people in from the south with Nubian and equatorial African influence and from the northern coast of Africa and the Middle East with Afro-Mediterranean and Semitic influences. The Biblical record places Egypt among the "Black" countries. Melanin dosage tests of mummified remains (controversial due to damage caused by the embalming process) seem to indicate a level of melanocytes consistent with a people of a semi tropical to temperate climate zone. 

Egypt continues to dominate the focus of our African oriented studies. These studies have clearly demonstrated that not only were early Egypt's origins African, but that through the whole of Egypt's Dynastic Era (the age of the Pharaohs), and during all of her many periods of national splendor, men and women with black skin complexions, broad noses, full lips, and tightly curled hair, were dominant in both the general population and governing elite.

In the intense and unrelenting struggle to establish scientifically the African foundations of Egyptian civilization, the late Senegalese scholar Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop remains a most fierce and ardent champion. Dr. Diop (1923-1986) was without a doubt one of the world's leading Egyptologist and held the position of Director of the Radiocarbon Laboratory at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa in Dakar, Senegal. In stating the importance of the work, Diop noted emphatically and early on that, "The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt."

The solid range of methodologies employed by Dr. Diop in the course of his extensive Afro-Egyptian labors included: examinations of the epidermis of the mummies of Egyptian kings for verification of their melanin content; precise osteological measurements and meticulous studies in the various relevant areas of anatomy and physical anthropology; careful examinations and comparisons of modern Upper Egyptian and West African blood-types; detailed Afro-Egyptian linguistic studies and the corroboration of distinct Afro-Egyptian cultural traits; documents of racial designations employed by the early Africans themselves; Biblical testimonies and references that address the ancient Egyptian's ethnicity, race and culture; and the writings of early Greek and Roman travelers and scholars describing the physical characteristics of the ancient Egyptians.

The original Egyptians were unmixed pure black folks. When they were at the pinnacle of their glory they were not a mixed group by any means. During the middle dynasties especially (and later) when people migrated to this great land there was some intermarrying. This is natural and doesn't need to be debated. It was even done within royalty lines at times to solidify alliances, which was a common practice between powers during that period of history. Chancellor Williams refers to this phenomenon in his book "The Destruction of Black Civilization." And frankly, he theorizes that this mixing was part of the reason for the fall of Black Civilization. Nevertheless, there was never so much of this that at any time the ancient Egyptians could ever be classified as other than a black people. 

It's reasonable to say that Egypt was a gateway for the meeting and interchange of goods, ideas, and people; and that the Egyptians were themselves a unique expression of human strength, beauty, intelligence and diversification. Ancient Egypt was an African civilization. It is also interesting to note that the Biblical record states "Israel also came into Egypt...the land of Ham." (Psalm 105: 23).

Plus we need to be reminded that Egypt is in Africa (not the Middle East) and that all of  the Pharaohs (up to and including the 25th Dynasty) would have been required to "sit at the back of a bus" in the 1940s in Montgomery Alabama. Let's allow the pictures to speak for themselves...Ready?

Why Not Link to This Page? Copy and paste this address:
www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGhistory.htm
 

M O R E   R E S O U R C E S:
The Lemba: The Black Jews of Southern Africa
Table of Nations--Ham, Shem and Japheth
Badagry, Nigeria -- Slave Trade History
Historical Timeline of Ancient Egypt
The Mitochondrial "Eve" Theory
Joseph, Egypt & The Hyksos
Tutankhamen & Akhenaton
Ancient Egyptian Religions
The Colonization of Africa
Map of Ancient Africa
Text on Rosetta Stone
The Pyramid Puzzle
Rosetta Stone
Ancient Nubia