One of the most influential Afrikan Scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, was the first person to scientifically prove not only that ancient Egyptians were descendants of black Afrikans, (that Egypt was a black society) but that the cultural achievements of that society predated and directly influenced the cultures of Greece and Rome, and consequently, modern Western civilization.
Cheikh Anta Diop, a modern champion of Afrikan identity, was born in Diourbel, Senegal on December 29, 1923. At the age of twenty-three, he went to Paris to continue his studies in physics. Within a very short time, however, he was drawn deeper and deeper into studies relating to the Afrikan origins of humanity and civilization. He was a nationalist and an advocate for Afrikan federalism. He returned to Senegal following independence in 1960 and dedicated himself to teaching, research and politics.
Diop revealed the cultural influence of earlier Afrikan peoples on the Egyptian civilization and he demonstrated that "ancient Egypt was Negro-Afrikan." Diop had degrees in chemistry and nuclear physics. In 1966 he created the first Afrikan laboratory for radiocarbon dating.
Diop had to face a great deal of scepticism in the academic world in addition to criticism based on racist prejudices inherited from colonialism. Some colleagues accused him of having a multidisciplinary approach that was sometimes chaotic, and some others of being influenced in his scientific work by his political activism.
It wasn't until 1974, during the international conference in Cairo, that the greatest Egyptologists praised his "visionary" theories. Since then they have been accepted as scientific truths.
Cheikh Anta Diop was one of about 20 participants in the UNESCO symposium, where alongside Theophile Obenga from DRC, and a few others he established the Afrikan origin of the ancient Egyptian civilization and led all the egyptologists and anthropologists to surrender.
Cheikh Anta Diop argues that:
• As humankind began in East Africa it was likely that people were black-skinned.
• People populated other continents by moving either through the Sahara or the Nile Valley.
• In the period before the start of the great Egyptian dynasties the whole of the Nile river basin was taken over by these negroid peoples.
To support his theory, Diop cited the writings of several Greek and Latin writers who had described the ancient Egyptians.
The Greek historian Herodotus, for example, described the Colchians of the Black Sea shores as "Egyptians by race" and pointed out they had "black skins and kinky hair."
Apollodorus, the Greek philosopher, described Egypt as "the country of the black-footed ones" and the Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus said, "the men of Egypt are mostly brown or black with a skinny desiccated look."
Diop also argued that the Egyptians themselves described their race as black and that there were close affinities between the ancient Egyptian tongue and the languages of Afrika. For a long time western countries used to classify the Egyptian world as "Mediterranean" or "Middle Eastern", these appellations did not meet the "true" Black stereotype. It was difficult for numerous scholars to admit that Egypt was in fact "Black Afrikan civilization".
Penetrating and controversial, Diop's theories also challenge the nineteenth-century notion that ancient Afrikan cultures were more depraved and uncivilized than their counterparts.
Named after the Senegalese physicist, historian and anthropologist UCAD ( Université Cheikh Anta Diop) was established in 1957. A huge public institution with 75,000 students and some 3,000 academics in six faculties, 10 institutions, six schools and a medical centre.
Diop dedication and love for Afrika and its people gave birth to a series of good research works and amazing books for young scholars interested in either a deep or concise but balanced overview of Afrikan History.
I personally would recommend Cheik Anta Diop's masterpiece "The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality" to every knowledge seeker and revolutionary seeking the factual genesis of Black History in refuting the fallacies, distortions and European prevarication about Afrika.
Cheikh Anta Diop is indeed a true Afrikan hero to whom we owe many of our scientific truths and knowledge of Afrikan ancient civilization.
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