1-Basic Database of Nile Valley Studies

[zarahan]

Some anthropology and forensic studies have often distorted African data and samples
when in comes to Ancient Egypt per mainstream scholars reexamining the evidence




Exclusion or reclassification of African samples

"Analyses of Egyptian crania are
numerous. Vercoutter (1978) notes that
ancient Egyptian crania have frequently
all been lumped (implicitly or explicitly)
as Mediterranean, although Negroid
remains are recorded in substantial
numbers by many workers... "Nutter
(1958), using the Penrose statistic,
demonstrated that Nagada I and Badari
crania, both regarded as Negroid, were
almost identical and that these were most
similar to the Negroid Nubian series from
Kerma studied by Collett (1933).
[Collett, not accepting variability,
excluded "clear negro" crania found in
the Kerma series from her analysis, as did
Morant (1925), implying that they were
foreign..."
--(S. Keita (1990) Studies of
Ancient Crania From Northern Africa.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
83:35-48)


Skewed stereotypical forensic "racial" databases- CRANID

While the CRANID anthro reference database is skewed towards Northern Egypt
and downplays the tropical south (Kemp 2005), some forensic analyses of mummies
on the same skewed data still indicates membership in the "Egyptian" group-
with the next closest match being African.
--QUOTE:

"A mummy of an Egyptian priestess dating from the 22nd dynasty (c. 770 BC),
completely enclosed in an anthropoid (human shaped) coffin, was scanned
on a CT scanner. An accurate reconstruction of the cranium was generated
from 115 × 2 mm CT images using AVS/Express on a SGI computer. Linear
measurements were obtained from six orthogonal cranial views and used
in a morphometric analysis software package (CRANID). The analyses
carried out were both linear and nearest neighbour discriminant analysis.
The results show that there is a 52.9% probability that the mummy is an
Egyptian female, with a 24.5% probability that the mummy is an African female."

--Hughes, Wright, and Barry (2005)Virtual reconstruction and morphological
analysis of the cranium of an ancient Egyptian mummy. Australas. Phys. Eng. Sci. Med.
Vol. 28, No 2, 2005


------------------------------------------------

Egyptologist Barry Kemp on the
worldwide CRANID database that used
northern samples near the Mediterranean
as "representative" of the ancient
Egyptians, and classifying them in a
"European" direction, while excluding
key historic sites further south..

"If, on the other hand, CRANID had
used one of the Elephantine populations
of the same period, the geographic
association would be much more with the
African groups to the south."
(Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt Anatomy of
a Civilisation, Routledge: 2005, p. 55)


Forensic misclassification of Africans 2- Nubians and FORDISC database

“If Fordisc 2.0 is revealing genetic admixture of Late Period
Dynastic Egypt and Meroitic Nubia, then one must also consider
these ancient Meroitic Nubians to be part of Hungarian, part Easter
Islander, part Norse, and part Australian Aborigine, with smaller
contributions from the Ainu, Teita, Zulu, Santa Cruz, Andaman Islands,
Arikara, Ayatal, and Hokkaido populations. In fact, all human groups
are essentially heterogeneous, including samples within Fordisc 2.0.

Using Fst heritability tests, Relethford (1994) demonstrated that Howells’s
cranial samples exhibit far more variation within than between skeletal
series. There is no reason to assume that the heterogeneity of the Late
Period Dynastic Egyptian population exceeds that characterizing our Nubian
sample. This heterogeneity may also characterize the populations in the
Forensic Data Bank; Fordisc 2.0 classified the Meroitic Nubians not
as either all black or all white but as black, white, Hispanic, Chinese,
Japanese, and Native American.” - Williams et al. 2005

Such is the result of preconceived attempts to force superficial population
variations to undeviating non-overlapping socio-ethnic or "racial" types."[/i]

Frank l'engle Williams, Robert L. Belcher, and George J . Armelagos,
"Forensic Misclassification of Ancient Nubian Crania: Implications for
Assumptions about Human Variation," Current Anthro. vol 46 (2005), pages 340-346

[zarahan]

Among the largest earth and stone constructions in human history- located in tropical, sub-Saharan Africa:




.
TEXT:

"Also important arc the so-called Benin City walls, the innermost of which has been demonstrated by radiocarbon dating, historical documentation, and oral tradition to have been constructed before European contact, possibly around the middle of the fifteenth century (Connah 1975). Consisting of a massive earthen bank and ditch, with a total vertical height, from the excavated bottom of the ditch to the top of the surviving bank, of as much as 17.4 metres and a circumference of 11.6 kilometres, this earthwork represents an enormous investment of human effort that must have been directed by a powerful centralized authority. Calculations have suggested that its construction would have absorbed 5,000 people occupied for ten hours a day, if it had been completed in one dry season, or 1,000 people if spread over five dry seasons. The direction of labour on such a massive project must have implications of the greatest significance for our enquiry into state formation.

That is not the whole story, however, because surveys by myself during the 1960s in the tangled vegetation around Benin City revealed a vast network of further interlocking enclosures, consisting of more than 145 kilometres of earthworks. These appeared to hint at a process of synoecism (‘the union of several towns or villages into or under one capital city’ (Oxford English Dictionary 1933)) by which a group of villages had developed into a city, at a date prior to the construction of the innermost and most massive of the ‘walls’.

Nevertheless, subsequent work by Darling (Darling 1974; 1976; 1982; 1984; [988; 1998) and by other researchers (Maliphant, Rees and Roc sc 1976; Roese 1981) showed that even this outer network that was mapped by me (Connah 1975) vas only ‘a small peripheral part of a much more extensive pattern of rural earth-vork enclosures’ (Darling 1982: Vol. 1, 387). This overall pattern has been found o cover an area of about 6500 square kilometres, and has been estimated to have a total length in excess of 16,000 kilometres (Fig. 5.8). It is thought to imply at least 150,000,000 person-hours of work over a period of several centuries (Darling [982: Vol. 1, 392). It is little wonder that the Benin earthworks, or iya as they are known locally, have got themselves into the Guinness Book Of Records McWhirter 1980: 125)!

FROM: Graham Connah 2015- African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective. p-62

------------------- ---------------------

"an intricate network of over 16,000 kilometers of banks and ditches (iya) enclosed a 4000 kilometer cluster of community lands- a vast legacy on earth.. The earthworks run four to five times longer than the Great Wall of China, and involve moving more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops."

—PJ Darling, A Legacy in Earth- Ancient Benin and Ishan, Southern Nigeria in: Historical Archaeology in Nigeria, 1998. ed k. Weaver. pl43

----------------------- --------------------

QUOTE:

"The early Askumites built in stone. They erected massive carved monoliths
over the graves of their leaders (one was 33 meters long and weighed over 700 tonnes,
arguably the largest single piece of worked stone ever hewn."
(John Reader, 1998. Africa: The Biography of the continent. pg 208).


"Perhaps the best -known symbols of the Aksumites' particular ideas and style are the great carved monoliths, some of which still stand, erected to commemorate their dead rulers; they also record the considerable skill of the Aksumite quarrymen, engineers, and stone-carvers, being in some cases among the largest single stones ever employed in ancient times."

—Stuart Munro-Hay 1991. Askum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity


"Perhaps the most spectacular achievements of the Aksumite kingdom were the construction of the great monoliths, of which the example taken by the Italians was the finest. Over 100 such monoliths once stood in Aksum. Carved from hard granite-like rock, the obelisks were erected as funerary markers, or stelae, for deceased members of the aristocracy. The seven largest and most intricately carved obelisks were erected by Ezana, the King of Aksum who converted to Christianity in 325 CE. The carvings depict windows and doors to create the illusion that the obelisks were, in fact, buildings. Funded by trade in such luxuries as turtle shells, ivory, obsidian, rhino horns, emeralds, cattle, and gold, the obelisks are testament to the skill of the Aksumite quarrymen, engineers, and stone carvers, as well as to the power of their rulers. The prosperity and reputation of Aksum was such that, by the third century CE, the Persian philosopher Mani described it as one of the four greatest kingdoms in the world, along with Rome, China, and Persia."
--Kate Prendergast 2005, After: Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Foundations of Aksumite Civilization and Its Christian Legacy (First–Seventh Centuries)” and Munro-Hay, Stuart, 1991. “Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity”
www.elginism.com/similar-cases/what-are-the-axum-obelisks/20050707/161/#sthash.rx8PgodH.dpuf

[anansi]

The only thing I have to disagree with is, that's not the Benin Wall, I've seen this used plenty of times, but it's simply wrong, the wall is not circular it is gridiron, the wall above looks like it is made of a large shrub, another seemed to be lifted from the sea wall of Carthage. 


This seem to be closer to the real thing.

[zarahan]

^^Nice. I know there is a bunch of stuff out there on Benin, but its good to see some new images.
I had to point out Benin the other day to someone making stereotypical claims about "sub-Saharan" Africa,
No you don't need to go to Egypt to get massive world record beating monumental architecture in Africa.

Where is the great pic below from? Historical or a modern painting?

[anansi]

This looked to be a modern painting, the bottom on may be old.




This appears to be more historic, btw African History Extra is a great resource.
link

[zarahan]

Some Nsibidi writings incorporate material objects such as cowry shells, beads etc and are readable

Jul 29, 2024 1:38:38 GMT -5 anansi said:

Originally posted by Anansi:



This was part of a discussion I had on African writing system

Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign.

The ancient images Professor Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz discovered on these stones in Central Africa are predecessors of the graphic writing system developed by the Kongo kingdom starting in the 14th century.

Seeing Human

By balancing written history with the African oral tradition, this book conceptualizes the integrations among diverse peoples of Africa and specifically among the Songhoy people. Drawing from a number of academic disciplines and original research that documents the oral and literate traditions of the Songhoy people, Hassimi Oumarou Maiga offers a unique interpretation of indigenous Songhoy-African perspectives on African history, culture and education from antiquity to the present day and from continental Africa to the worldwide African Diaspora. In explaining the cosmology, philosophy, values and process of indigenous, non-Muslim education, this book also corrects and balances the perception of the Songhoy as a wholly Muslim society. The legacy of the Songhoy Empire, Maiga argues, is as a model of African integration through its administrative and political organization, which remains relevant even today. This book is an essential addition for scholars and students of African history.
Central to Luba artistry, lukasa aids memory and the making of histories. Stools, staffs, figures, and complex choreographies complement the lukasa as Luba culture is remembered, produced, and transformed.

Lukasa memory boards are hourglass-shaped wooden tablets that are covered with multicolored beads, shells and bits of metal, or are incised or embossed with carved symbols.[1] The colors and configurations of beads or ideograms serve to stimulate the recollection of important people, places, things, relationships and events as court historians narrate the origins of Luba authority. A lukasa serves as an archive for the topographical and chronological mapping of political histories and other data sets

he preserved collection of Aroko ‘letters’ and message assembled by John Augustus Otunba-Payne and provided to the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1886. The messages were initially donated to Oxford University 130 years ago and are now part of the University of Aberdeen.

However, for a number of traditionally-educated Yoruba who were literate in ‘reading’ aroko messages, the assemblage of cowrie shells, feathers and ancillary objects could be as perfectly understood as the essay you are now reading:

“Six in the Jebu language is E-fa, which is derived from the verb /fa/, to draw; Africans are in the habit of cleaning their ears with a feather, and look upon it as the only instrument with which this can be effectually done; the whole message, therefore, is as follows.

Efa yi ni mo fi fa o mora, ki wo no si fa mo mi girigiri

“By these six cowries I do draw you to myself, and you should also draw closely to me.”

Iye yi ni mo fi nreti, ni kankansi ni si ni ki nri o.

“As by this feather only I can reach to your ears, so I am expecting you to come to me, or hoping to see you immediately.”

The revelation didn’t stop there, as Bloxam’s presentation quoted seven other aroko ‘symbolic letters’, including friendly notes indicating a missed friendship and another documenting a much longer and complex diplomatic message between two neighboring potentates (the /Awujale/, or principal ruler of Ijebu and Kosoko, his counterpart and the /Eleko/ of Lagos) in 1851.


llustrations of the eight aroko ‘letters’ provided by John Otunba-Payne and presented at the meeting of the Royal Anthropological Society on November 23, 1886. Image from the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 16, 1887.
www.quora.com/Did-Sub-Saharan-Africa-have-a-written-language-before-Europeans-arrived/answer/Mr-Nancy-1?ch=10&oid=1477743628771694&share=6a98d178&srid=8GzCi&target_type=answer