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I'd like to announce that the essay "Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko", is available at Myra's webpage, Ancient Africa's Black Kingdoms
The essay, written by Aaron Kamugisha, is a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Western scholarship as it relates to Ancient Egypt, the biological makeup of its people and its place in world history.
This essay has been posted before by Rasol on Nile Valley Forum. I asked Myra if she could post it on her page so it would have a stable link (as well as being easier to read )
Enjoy.
Posts: 1203 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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That's funny, I thought that article was posted on this forum before not once but twice maybe 3 times.
Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Curiously enough the same kind of arguments--i.e. "being at an intercontinetal crossroads with multiregional ethnic inputs, etc." is rarely, if ever, made about the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Greece.
But all in all the fundamental subtext question has always been whether a cranial phenotype of a particular configuration could produce "civilization".
To ensure that the "caucasoid thesis" would always win--European physical anthropologists saw fit to set up the ideal type "true negro" model from which any diversion would mean "caucasoid" genetic inputs.
Of course, the ideal type is just that--"ideal"--to which very few of the target populations of Africa conform.
Thus craniofacial measuremements that do no fit the ideal type model--wherever found in Africa--can safely be said to signify caucasoid genetic inputs.
The general model in all of this is that of the "Great Chain of Being"--i.e. that the European caucasoid craniofacial physiognomy is seen as the "most evolved" when compared to that of other "races" and primates at lower rungs of the "great evolutionary chain". See S.J. Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" for digrammatic examples of such.
Yet even though the average AE physiognomy demonstrates an evident facial angle of less than 90 degrees and obvious prognathism, etc. that is rationalized away by saying "the AES were not negroes". The appeal again is to the ideal type "true negro" model.
There is another flaw in the model in that the craniofacial measurements of East Asians approximate those of a large percentage of Africa's populations. The mitigating answer to that is the cranial volume of East Asians is significantly greater than that of Africans. But the question is: just how reliable and accurate are those comparative measurements.
"The Mismeasure of Man" explores the chicanery that was used by "scientists" like Morton and others to show that the crania of Africans were smaller than those of Europeans.
The same principle is at work today in all the discussions in Egyptology: The European craniofacial physiognomy is the most advanced and evolved of all the groups that make up Homo Sapiens and has been responsible for most of the human advances in modern civilization. On the other hand, the African craniofacial physiognomy by definition is the least advanced and is therefore comparatively incapable of advances in civilization.
Eurocentric Axiom: this was true of Africa in the past and therefore explains the African present. This is the racially motivated significance of the ideological term "sub-Saharan Africa" to which a nonstop barrage of implicitly racial propaganda is directed.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: To ensure that the "caucasoid thesis" would always win--European physical anthropologists saw fit to set up the ideal type "true negro" model from which any diversion would mean "caucasoid" genetic inputs.
The game is simple enough that the wonder is that so many continue to be vexed by it.
On the one hand a superexpansive catagory for 'my' race.
On the other hand a super restrictive catagory for 'yours'.
Under this scenerio, eventually my race encompasses all and yours encompasses nothing.
The scheme is simple once you break it down.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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^Indeed, but unfortunately many people do not realize this and so repeat the fallacy propagating it even more; thus ensuring a life support for the decrepid paradox that is Eurocentric white supremacy.
quote:Originally posted by lamin: Eurocentric Axiom: this was true of Africa in the past and therefore explains the African present. This is the racially motivated significance of the ideological term "sub-Saharan Africa" to which a nonstop barrage of implicitly racial propaganda is directed.
Yes and which some folks are too desperate to cling to. *cough* Arrow/Hore *cough* Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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That's funny, I thought that article was posted on this forum before not once but twice maybe 3 times.
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