![](../image/11book.jpg) |
|
Dr Kwame Nantambu
When Wellesley College, Boston, Mass, U.S.A., Professor, Mary Lefkowitz
published in her book, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse
to Teach Myth as History, (1996), she received tremendous accolades and
widespread newsprint from mainstream America. The notion that was bandied
about was that finally a renowned experienced Eurocentric scholar has
quieted the proponents of Afrocentrism; Dr. Mary Lefkowitz has destroyed the
Afrocentrists’ claim to the multifaceted originality of ancient Kemet
(Egypt) and its impact on Greece and Rome. However, a much deeper, closer
and sober look and analysis of this hysteria reveals a different historical
reality.
The salient reality is that no one can deny the historical truism that the
Greeks (the world’s first Europeans) went to ancient Kemet to study at the
Temple of Waset (later called Thebes by the Greeks and Luxor by the Arabs).
In his magnum opus, A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History,
(1995) Dr. Theophile Obenga quotes Aristotle ranking Egypt as “the most
ancient archeological reserve in the world” and “that is how the Egyptians,
whom we (Greeks) considered as the most ancient of the human race” (p. 45).
According to Dr. Obenga: “the ancient Greeks traced all human inventions to
the Egyptians, from Calculus, Geometry, Astronomy and Dice Games to
Writing...Since the time of Homer, Egyptian antiquity functioned strictly as
a highly memorialized component of Greek history. Herodotus said it, Plato
confirmed it, and Aristotle never denied it.” (p. 47). Indeed, in their
book, A History of the Modern World (1984), R. R. Palmer and Joel Colton,
corroborate this historical truism by contending that:
Europeans were by no means the pioneer of human civilization. Half of man’s
recorded history had passed before anyone in Europe could read or write. The
priests of Egypt began to keep written records between 4000 and 3000 B.C.,
but more than two thousand years later, the poems of Homer were still being
circulated in the Greek city-states by word of mouth. Shortly after 3000
B.C., while the pharaohs were building the first pyramids, Europeans were
creating nothing more distinguished than huge garbage heaps.
Furthermore, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) himself, writing in Metaphysics, not
only refutes Dr. Lefkowitz’s a historical and false assertions but also
confesses in Greek Hellenic language that: “Thus the mathematical sciences
first (proton) originated in Egypt.” Egypt is “the cradle of
mathematics-that is, the country of origin for Greek mathematics”. So,
according to Aristotle, “the mathematical arts had never before been formed,
constituted or elaborated anywhere else originating in Egypt only” (Obenga,
p. 47-48). Aristotle acknowledges the originality of the ancient Egyptians
in his own words. |
|
The Political & Spiritual Purpose of the
Holy Land
![](../image/ads.ht1.jpg) |
|
|
In addition, in Prologue to Prodlus’s Commentaries on Euclid’s Elements, a
disciple of Aristotle named Eudemus, who lived in the forth century B.C.,
confirms: “we shall say, following the general tradition, that the Egyptians
were the first to have invented Geometry, (that) Thales, the first Greek to
have been in Egypt, brought this theory thereof to Greece” (Obenga, p. 48).
The fact of the matter is that the famous, well known Greeks (Europeans)
whom we study and revere in school curricula today all studied at the feet
of the ancient Egyptians–Afrikans in the Nile Valley, Kemet. For example,
Plato studied at the Temple of Waset for 11 years; Aristotle was there for
11-13 years; Socrates 15 years Euclid stayed for 10-11 years; Pythegoras for
22 yeasrs; Hypocrates studies for 20 years; and the other Greeks who
matriculated at Waset included Diodorus, Solon, Thales, Archimides, and
Euripides. Indeed, the Greek, St. Clement of Alexanddria, once said that if
you were to write a book of 1,000 pages, you would not be able to put down
the names of all the Greeks who went to Kemet to be educated and even those
who did not surreptitiously claim they went because it was prestigious. “
Herodotus said it, Plato confirmed it and Aristotle never denied it”.
The fact of the matter is that it took 40 years to graduate/matriculate from
Waset; this then means that none of the Greeks graduated.
Dr. Obenga points out this significant Kemet-Greece linkage:
I Thales (624-547 B.C.) was the first (protos) Greek student to receive his
training from Egyptian priests in the Nile Valley.
II Plato (428-347 B.C.) records that Thales was educated in Egypt under the
priests.
III Proclus (Neoplationist, 420-485 A.D.) Reports that Thales introduced
science, philosophy and mathematics/geometry to Greece.
IV Greek intellectual life started with the Egyptian-trained student, Thales.
He was the founder of the first Greek school of philosophy and science.V Thales strongly recommended that Pythagoras travel to Egypt to receive his
basic education and to converse as often as possible with the priests of
Memphis and Thekes.
VI In the fall of 332 B.C. when Alexander invaded Egypt, Aristotle
accompanied him
VII Aristotle ranked the country of the Pharaohs (Egypt) the most ancient
archaeological reserve in the world. He wrote “That is how the Egyptians
whom we considered as the most ancient of the human race”. (Obenga, pp.
28-45).
|
|
|
Moreover, contrary to public information, the first Olympics that was held
in Olympia, Greece, in776 B.C., was not held to reward sportsmanship,
physical brawn or brinkmanship but instead as a public ceremonial worship by
the Greeks of the Afrikan deity Amon, the “ruler of the Gods.” In fact,
history proves quite convincingly that the Gods and Goddesses of Europeans
were of Afrikan origin but given European names. For example, the Afrikan
God, Amun, was renamed Zeus by the Greeks and Jupiter by the Romans; the
Afrikan God, Heru (the son of God and associated with light and sun) was
called Apollo by both the Greeks and the Romans; the Afrikan God Imhotep
(the God of Healing and medicine) was renamed Asclepius by the Greeks and
Aesclapius by the Romans; the Afrikan God Djhuti/Thoth (God of Science,
Writing and Knowledge) was called Hermes by the Greeks and Mercury by the
Romans; the Afrikan God, Pluto, was called Pluto by both the Greeks and
Romans; the Afrikan God, Ausar, (the God of resurrection) was renamed Osiris
by the Greeks; whereas the Afrikan Goddess Hathor (the Goddess of love and
beauty) was called Aphrodite by the Greeks and Venus by the Romans; and the
Afrikan Goddess Ist (Aset), (Goddess of maternity), was renamed Isis and was
worshiped as the “Black Madonna.” This Afrikan Goddess has had such an
impact on Europe that if we were to decipher Paris, the capital city of
France, we get Per Isis: Per means Temple, while Isis means “House of Isis”;
so the capital of a major European country is named in honor and eternal
worship of an Afrikan Deity/Goddess. (See Figure I.)
One of the greatest contributions of the Nile Valley civilization in Egypt
to the world was its educational system. The ultimate aim of education in
ancient Kemet was for a person to become “one with God,” to “become like
God” or “to become godlike through the revision of one’s own ‘Neter’ of how
god is revealed in the person.” “Education in ancient Egypt was religious at
its base.” At age seven, the brightest boys in Egypt were selected for
training in the priesthood. This was the highest honor that could be
possibly bestowed on a family-the selection of a son for admission into a
caste of brilliant thinkers, the “guardians of the state” whom Plato so
greatly admired and wrote about. When the boys (Neophytes) entered the
Temple/schools (or Grand Lodge) they had to study for 40 years - subjects as
Grammar, Arithmetic, Rhetoric and Dialectic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music,
Architecture, Masonry, Carpentry, Engineering, Sculpture, Metallurgy,
Agriculture, Mining, Forestry, Art and Magic.
The Neophyte was vigorously trained in how to:
1. Control his thoughts
2. Control his actions
3. Have devotion of purpose
4. Have faith in the ability of his master to teach him the truth
5. Have faith in himself to assimilate the truth
6. Have faith in himself to wield the truth
7. Be free from resentment under the experience of persecution
8. Be free from resentment under experience of wrong
9. Cultivate the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal
(i.e., he must have a sense of values)
10. Cultivate the ability to distinguish between right and wrong
Plato, who greatly admired the Egyptian education system and actually
recommended that it be introduced into Greece, copied/imitated/derived his
three “cardinal virtues” from these ten goals the neophyte had to attain in
the Nile Valley. “Control of thoughts and action,” Plato called the “virtue
of wisdom;” “freedom of resentment under persecution” Plato called the
“virtue of fortitude;” “the ability to distinguish between right and wrong
and between the real and unreal,” Plato called the “virtues of justice and
temperance.”
In the area of medicine, the literature says that Hypocrates (born 460 B.C.)
is the “father of medicine,” but again history proves that the Afrikan
deity, Imhotep, (born 2700 B.C.) was worshiped by the Greeks as the “God of
Medicine” 2,000 years before the birth of Hypocrates. Nevertheless,
Hypocrates is portrayed as supreme in the area of medicine as reflected in
the “Hippocratic Oath” that graduates from medical schools must recite.
The “Oath” reads as follows:
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all
the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I fulfil according to
my ability and judgement this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my
life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a
share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male
lineage and to teach them this art-if they desire to learn it-without fee
and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the
other learning of my sons and to the sons of him who instructed me and to
pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to
medical law, but to no one else.
Now, as was mentioned earlier, Apollo is the Greek and Roman derivative of
the Afrikan deity, Heru and Asclepius is the Greek derivative of the Afrikan
deity, Imhotep. However, in this European medical “Oath,” no mention is made
of the truism that the revered Greek and Roman deities, Apollo and Asclepius,
are duplicates of the original Afrikan deities, Heru and Imhotep.
Furthermore, the “Oath” also callously omits evidence of “the Kemetic roots
and the personalities associated” with this ahistorical, Eurocentric medical
Oath. Instead of reciting the “Hippocratic Oath,” medical school graduates
should now recite the real, historical “Imhotep Oath.”
Egypt is indeed the light of the world. In the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
“Universal knowledge runs from the Nile Valley toward the rest of the world,
in particular, Greece, which served as an intermediary. As a result, no
thought, no ideology is foreign to Africa which was the land of their
birth.” And no amount of Eurocentric research can ever efface this Egyptian,
historical, contributive reality.
References
Lefkowitz, M. (1996). Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse
to Teach My as History, New York: Basic
Obenga, T. (1995). A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History,
Philadelphia, Pa.: The Source Editions.
Palmer, R.R. and Colton, J. (1984). A History of the Modern World, New York:
Knopf, Ltd.
Shem Hotep ("I go in peace").
|