The Black Pharaohs Response to National Geographic February 2008

by David Imhotep Ph.D.

One of my earliest and most enjoyable memories is going to my grandfather's library and taking one of the little yellow books down from the rack -- he had so many I believe his collection began when National Geographic was first published. I still remember National Geographic's remarkably vivid color pictures, a tradition that continues today. As I aged, another facet of National Geographic grew on me. It contained articles from all over the world with subjects ranging from apple growing to zebras galloping across some far-off landscape. I have always considered National Geographic a standard in educational data exterior to the walls of educational institutions with its informative and accurate flavors. With this type of background you must understand the absolute shock I experienced when I first read your article about "The Black Pharaohs" in February's National Geographic. As I paged through the magazine, the excitement of reading about my favorite subject began to build. As I got closer to the article, I remember thinking "what jewels will I uncover that I can use in one of my presentations?" When I turned the final page my enthusiasm exploded. To see Egypt's black Pharaohs displayed in this great magazine on page 34 was a dream come true for me. So that you do not get lost in my story, the reason for the emotional feelings is that I just spent the last five years of my life researching and writing a dissertation containing this subject matter. I thought to myself, "National Geographic is finally going to set the record straight for the world concerning Egypt's black Pharaohs." But as I turned the page to the battle scene illustrating the black Nubians with their peppercorn hair attacking an army of white Egyptians with straight hair, my dream was slammed to the floor and reappeared as a horrid nightmare. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. White Egyptians fighting black Nubians? Were the Egyptians white and the Nubians black? I thought to myself, "one of my favorite magazines -- that I had held so dear all of these years -- has joined the ranks of the Eurocentrics who have continually perpetrated this fraud even though evidence to the contrary is overwhelming." We are talking about primary evidence that is mounting almost daily, in several scientific disciplines, is available for anyone to see. The National Geographic article, written by Robert Draper, says that the these Nubian Pharaohs, "sprang from a robust African civilization that had flourished on the southern banks of the Nile for 2,500 years, going back at least as far as the first Egyptian dynasty" (Draper, 2008, p. 39). At least as far? Archaeologist Tim Kendall was mentioned in this article as an authority. The heading of an article in Time magazine featuring Kendall says, "Nubia, not Egypt, may have been the first true African civilization"(Macleod, 1997, p. 102). Further, the French archaeologists who made the excavation in this Time article say that, "They [the artifacts] are as old as any Neolithic sites in Africa and predate prehistoric finds in Egypt by a staggering 3,000 years" (p.105). The Nubian civilization of Ta-Seti/Qustul predates Egypt. So do their Pharaohs. On page 38, the first page of the article states that, "Piye was the first of the so-called black pharaohs..." What? The first Black Pharaoh? Wrong. The evidence does not support this thesis.

In this article the name Keith Seele was also mentioned. Seele was a professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. When the Aswan High Dam was built in Southern Egypt it flooded much of Nubia. There was a scramble by some nations to send excavating teams to dig behind the dam and salvage as many artifacts as they could, for when the dam was finished the artifacts would be under water. Seele was picked to direct the project for the Institute. The "salvage excavation" took place from 1960-1964. Many artifacts were discovered. The artifacts and information found by Seele were stored for more than two decades without recognition before Bruce Williams, a graduate of the University of Chicago -- affiliated with the Oriental Institute -- published eight monographs between 1986 and 1993 (Nubia Salvage project, 1996). To go into detail covering all the items found is beyond the scope of this paper. The most interesting find was "a cemetery with 33 large tombs, as large as the Egyptian tombs" (Van Sertima, 1989, p. 85, Williams, 1986, p. 9). Williams (1986) wrote: "The wealth in vessels (as well as many other objects) and these palace facades indicated clearly that we were dealing with royal tombs" (p. 1). One of the most valuable artifacts found was an incense burner/bowl with scenes carved into the surface. Let us see what evidence the incense burner has to offer: Apart from the composition, the Qustul incense burner is clearly linked to pharaonic civilization by many details, including the palace facade, the white crown, the [Horus representation as a] falconlabel, the falcon-standard, the feline [lion] it labels, the sacrifical victim, and probably the rosette. The barks [religious boats] are the major sacred barks of pharaonic Egypt that occur on a jar of Naqada III date in the British Museum, on numerous Early Dynastic objects, in the Hierkonpolis tomb painting, on ceilings, labels, plates, a seal from Nubia, and a jar from the Scandinavian concession as well as numerous rock drawings from southern Upper Egypt and Nubia .... The main figure in the vessel was the pharaoh, indicated by the white crown. The example here is the earliest definite occurrence of this regalia (Williams, 1987, pp.144,142). The pharaoh also wears the traditional pharaonic beard and holds a flail in his hand; exactly like the flail King Tutankhamun holds in his likeness on his famous gold coffin many years later. All of these exact pharaonic characteristics appear in Nubia/Ta-Seti/Qustul far before the Egyptian dynastic period began. Williams (1986) gives further evidence of the Qustul-Egyptian connection: 1. A direct progression in the size and design of royal complexes can be traced from Qustul to Hierakonpolis to Abydos. 2. Egyptian objects in the tombs date to Naqada IIIa-b, immediately before the Abydos complexes, which began in IIIb [Dynasty 0]. 3. The intensity of exploration for just such remains in Upper Egypt and especially at Abydos and Hierakonpolis makes the discovery of equivalent royal cemeteries of this period unlikely. 4. Naqada IIIa corresponds to a hiatus in Kaiser's progression of royal tombs from the scattered rulers of Naqada II to the unified tradition of Dynasty O (IIIb) at Abydos. This is some indication that an undiscovered unified tradition existed. 5. Qustul Cemetery L contained explicitly pharaonic monuments,

not only incense burners, but a jar (L 6) and a bowl (L 19) that refer to conflict in Upper Egypt. As reinterpreted elsewhere, the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman monument should also indicate such conflict. 6. One inscription of a ruler, schematically rendered Pe-Hor for convenience, is simply one stage earlier than corresponding inscriptions of Iry-Hor that occur at a pharaonic tomb at Abydos. 7. The series of ten to twelve rulers at Qustul plus one at Hierakonpolis (Scorpion, T1/T2) and three at Abydos would closely correspond to Kaiser's reconstruction of a late Naqada period 'historical' sequence from the lists (p. 177). The evidence above shows that it was the Nubian Pharaohs who created the Egyptian dynastic period were not just some "Johnny come latelys" that burst on the scene near Egypt's end. They were there at the beginning. It is a shame that the skin color of the Egyptians or Nubians should have to be discussed. The door, however, was opened when Draper wrote that several Western scholars insisted that "the Kushites [Nubians] 'belonged to the Caucasian race,'" and "the Kushite Pharaohs were actually 'white'" (Draper, 2008, pp. 39- 40). This is as ridiculous as "the prevalent assumption that Caucasoid influences were prominent in [ancient] East Africa" (Cole, 1963, p. 266) hundreds if not thousands of years before our first Caucasoid brothers ever stepped on African soil. Draper mention that, "Afrocentric Egyptologists, who argue that all ancient Egyptians, from King Tut to Cleopatra were black Africans" (pp. 40,44) As a matter of fact the evidence shows that black Africans from the south entered Egypt and gave them their civilization in the beginning and Africans from the same area Nubia (Ta-Seti) -- or Qustul as Emery called it -- were there at the end. The title of your article, The Black Pharaohs: Conquerors of Ancient Egypt implies that before Black Pharaohs "conquered Egypt" in 730 BCE, it was ruled by White Pharaohs. That is as ridiculous as saying there was a period in the British Empire when African kings ruled Britain. The pitiful argument attempted by Eurocentrics that Egypt's first Pharaohs were anything other than black Africans is ridiculous and has been answered by renowned researcher and author Cheikh Anta Diop and a host of others -- blacks and whites -- with hard evidence. What evidence can you produce that anyone other than Africans created and began Egypt's Dynastic as well as pre-dynastic period for that matter? None. For the record, the Nubian rule of Egypt ended in 656 BCE (Clayton, 1994, p. 193). The Assyrians and then the Persians conquer Egypt. Whites, however, do not rule Egypt until the Greek, Alexander, enters Egypt 332 BCE (p. 206). (The Assyrians and Persians were mulatto.) It is useless to say that the Hyksos who ruled Egypt for a few years were white for that does not settle your point. This is due to the fact that new evidence has found that the Hyksos were probably not white either. The Black Pharaohs created Dynastic Egypt in the beginning and were there at the end of this glorious empire. Historical accuracy should be the goal we all desire, even National Geographic.

Bibliography Clayton, P.A. (1994). Chronicle of the Pharaohs. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Draper, R. (2008). Black Pharaohs. Washington D.C.: The National geographic Society Cole, S. (1963). The Prehistory of Africa. New York: Macmillian Macleod, S. (1997). The Nile's other Kingdom. Time, Vol. 150, No. 11. "Nubia Salvage Project." (2007). Retrieved March 9, 2008 from http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/nub Van Sertima, I (1989). Black Dynasties and Rulers. In I. Van Sertima (Ed.), Egypt Revisited. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Williams, B.B. (1986). Part I: The A-Group Royal Cemetery At Qustul: Cemetery L. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago. Winters, C.A. (2005a). Afrocentrism. Chicago, IL: Clyde Winters. The African Aqualithic-This was the time period when the entire Sahara was wet with many river systems and water sheds. Not shown on the map below was an inland sea in Lybia as large as France called the "Triton Sea." A video of my African Aqualithic presentation to the "Diop Conference" can be seen on my Face Book page entitled David Imhotep. This picture was created by Roger Blench (with Nick Drake, KCL)

from the Kay Williamson Educational Foundation