Toby Wilkinson's "Genesis of the Pharaohs"

[truthcentric]

Cross-posted from the old Egyptsearch



I just got this book in the mail today. It's a terrific book about Egyptian prehistory and how Egyptian civilization evolved. Wilkinson's focus is on rock paintings found in Egypt's southeastern desert, although he also describes artifacts found in the upper Nile Valley. His thesis is that the ancient Egyptian culture evolved from that of semi-nomadic cattle pastoralists in southeastern Egypt who would shift location between the river valley and the savanna every year.

When reading this book and how it reconstructs prehistoric Egyptian culture, I was reminded of another book I read about the Dinka of today's southern Sudan, Warriors of the White Nile by John Ryle and Sarah Errington. The Dinka have the same preoccupation with cattle and semi-nomadic lifestyle that Wilkinson thinks the prehistoric Egyptians had! Unfortunately Wilkinson himself doesn't draw too many parallels between the proto-Egyptians and other African cultures, which disappointed me.

Also, while Wilkinson does claim there were a few Palestinian immigrant communities living in predynastic northern Egypt, he also makes it clear that northern Egypt was mostly an uninhabitable swamp in prehistory and that it was the southern Egyptians who laid the foundation for most of dynastic Egyptian culture. He's also very critical of the "Dynastic Race" theory and says at one point that Egypt can be considered an African development.

All in all, an excellent resource on prehistoric Egypt that I couldn't recommend more!

[imhotep06]

I have this book and reading it he attempts to leave the possibility open that it could have been some people who migrated from the East. These same icons can be found in the Sahara. I know eastern Africa was his focus, but to leave out that critical section is a bit limiting. I have his other book as well Early Dynastic Egypt and it doesn't appear as if he is of the belief that these were "Black" Africans in the traditional sense who created and maintained the culture of Egypt. I use his work for technical details. But a good resource none-the-less.

[zarahan]

^^ How does he "leave out the possibility" that it "could have been some people who migrated from the East?" There is no credible evidence of any mass migration of Europeans or Middle Easterners to ancient Egypt prior to the era of the Greeks, Romans, Hyskos, Persians etc.. SO what is there to "leave out??

And what are "Black Africans" in the traditional sense? Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Ethiopia, Somalia and large parts of the Sudan, is the most genetically diverse region in the world. The people who are the closest ethnically
to the ancient Egyptians are Nubians. The Nile Valley was peopled fundamentally by people from
south of the Sahara. The dynastic era was founded by people from the tropical south. So
what then are "black Africans" in the "traditional sense"?


Just askin...
www.zhs41.net/historyafrican/quotes.htm