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quote:

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Originally posted by dana marniche:
For all you focusing on genetics out there. I was wondering what if anything has been said about the relationship of the Bantu -speakers with more robust popoulations of ancient Egypt and Nubia (pre Badarian) as at Jebel Sahaba and Wadi Halfa. The latter had not undergone the gracilization the later inhabitants had, i.e. Badarians, Naqqada etc.

I have had a theory for some time now that these earlier more "robust" people may have been represented by some of the Bantu speakers.

Medjay

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The Medjay you pictured indeed, as do most sculpted figurines, have detailed facial profiles. The Medjay are supposed to be ancestors or related to ancestors of the modern Beja of the Eastern desert.

And your question of ancient egyptian appearing as a gracile-robust Nile and Western mix looking mix is interesting -- especially when you bring up the Teita, who have oft been mentioned by anthropologists as a deep South Eastern African group resembling Nile Valley inhabitants and ancient Egyptians in particular. Although, these resemblances could have been there before the Bantu.

The migrations of what are known today as Bantu speakers start when Kemetic civilization ends, not begins, and seem to have had two radiation epicenters -- Nigerian and Cameroonian regions i believe. There have been some interesting lingual comparisons though.

There were two ancient major migratory events that shape the way 90% of Africa is today other than the Bantu spreading pretty much throughout Southern Africa: a.) the Northward ones starting in South East Africa which became buttressed by Northward shifting rainfall belts and disappearance of a prior-to-then hyper-arid Sahara taking place place several millennium before the Pharaohnic Dynastic-era Kemetic Nation was founded and b.) the Southward one following the Sahara's re-desertification which sparked the dawn of the just-mentioned age of the pharaohs. The second, b), back migration is believed to have affected East Africa and the Horn of Africa, as genetics seems to say these regions have a lot of genes from Nubia but this seems to be no different than the rest of the Pharaohs frequented world they were in contact with and is even like this with speakers of Nilo-Saharan languages. I suspect the back-migration theory so accepted and so pushed for East Africa is also true for West Africa.

Algeria, Sefar Tassili n'Ajjer ancient rock art:



South, modern Mali





By the way, the aforesaid genes i write as "Nubian" are dubbed so on the fly here by me because the consensus is that their origins lay in the bottleneck that would have took place at the human refugiums near lake Nubia in Sudan during a hyper arid phase. This phase by the way preceded the Wet phase where the Nile was flooded and the Delta, and coastal North Africa beyond flooded were submerged swampland -- even in Dynastic times few inhabited these areas. Back to what i was going to say on the Nubian genes - and i'm talking about E1 -M78 and -M35 bytheway - these themselves derived from E1b1b* itself likely originating between The Horn and Tanzania, perhaps in population(s) directly ancestral to the Borana of Kenya. In other words this originates deeper South and i guess what happened was the highway that was re-opened and extended to all the Nile a few millenia before Dynastic Age Kemetian civ.

Ok but to definitively answer and address your question: if you're looking for a Western connection look no further than the groups in the Western Sahel today. Their ancestors built complexes with Kings and practices on par with Kemet that date to a similar time phrame, 4,000 years B.C.E. I figure the desert's trek back South slowed them down behind Kemet -- or perhaps it caused their emergence and transition from being happy game chasers in the paradise of sorts.

Moreover findings like those in Tassili n'Ajjer point to knowledge in astronomy, something there's a buzz about over the Dogon having (it was known Egyptians had such knowledge, but unexpected of the Dogon despite the clear skies these people must have lived under before all this shi- started being dumped in the air). The is Saharan rock art that depicts practices similar to what we find in the Western Sahel today. The Fulani's ancestors may have lived in an ancient Algerian region for instance. It's already accepted on the Eastern African end that the Sahara's re-emergence and trek back South caused some people and genes to move back South too (resources). Why not on the Western, in which there was no Northward flowing river but only that to the South (the Niger Valley), after the grasslands, forests, rivers and lakes all disappeared and turned to desert?

There's your West African connection though. One interesting Eastern (Libyan i believe) Saharan finding was Uan Muhuggiag, dubbed "the Black Mummy" which makes me wonder how exceptionally black he looked to be given such a title. You have to wonder how ancient Egyptian PHARAOHS got Benin sickle cell -- unless they had some kind now extinct it was the Benin variant, which their spread would explain its spread all over Greece, in Italy, and south-Western Asia in general.

Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Here are citations paying homage to some of the stuff i've talked about:

1. On West - East connections:
   
   Ray A. Kea, and Mauny, R. (1971), “The Western Sudan” in Shinnie: 66-87.
   
   Monteil, Charles (1953), “La Légende du Ouagadou et l’Origine des Soninke” in Mélanges Ethnologiques (Dakar: Bulletin del’Institut Francais del’Afrique Noir)
   
   

   quote:

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   "Before 2000 BC, what is today the southern Sahara was inhabited by significant numbers of herders and farmers. On the rocky promontories of the Tichitt-Walata (Birou) and Tagant Plateaus in modern day Mauritania, they built what are considered among the earliest known civilizations in western Africa. Composed of more than 400 stone masonry settlements, with clear street layouts, some settlements had massive surrounding walls while others were less fortified. In a deteriorating environment[/b], where arable land and pasturage were at a premium, the population grew and relatively large-scale political organizations emerged - factors which no doubt explain the homogeneity of architecture, settlement patterns, and material culture (e.g., lithic and ceramic traditions). This agro-pastoral society traded in jewelry and semi-precious stones from distant parts of the Sahara and Sahel, while crafts, hunting, and fishing were also important economic pursuits...Their elites built funerary monuments for themselves over a period extending from 4000 to 1000 BC."

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   Rock Artists [link]
   
   

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   "Examination of certain rock paintings in the Tassili-N'Ajjer suggests the presence of proto-Fulani cultural traits in the region by at least the fourth millennium B.C. Tassili-N'Ajjer in Algeria is one of the most famous North African sites of rock painting. Scholars specializing in Fulani culture believe that some of the imagery depicts rituals that are still practiced by contemporary Fulani people.
   
   At the Tin Tazarift site, for instance, historian Amadou Hampate Ba recognized a scene of the lotori ceremony, a celebration of the ox's aquatic origin. In a finger motif, Ba detected an allusion to the myth of the hand of the first Fulani herdsman, Kikala. At Tin Felki, Ba recognized a hexagonal carnelian jewel as related to the Agades cross, a fertility charm still used by Fulani women."

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2. On Northward Rainfall and Southward desertificatory migrations:
   
   Vincenza Battaglia et. al. 2009, Y-chromosomal evidence of the cultural diffusion of
   agriculture in southeast Europe
   
   references this text:
   
   Kuper R, Kro¨pelin S: Climate-controlled Holocene occupationin the Sahara: motor of Africa’s evolution. Science 2006; 313: 803 – 807.
   
   

   quote:

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   "A recent archaeological study reveals
   that during a desiccation period in North Africa, while the
   eastern Sahara was depopulated, a refugium existed on the
   border of present-day Sudan and Egypt, near Lake Nubia,
   until the onset of a humid phase around 8500 BC
   (radiocarbon-calibrated date). The rapid arrival of wet
   conditions during this Early Holocene period provided an
   impetus for population movement into habitat that was
   quickly settled afterwards. Hg E-M78* representatives,although rare overall, still occur in Egypt, which is a hub
   for the distribution of the various geographically localized
   M78-related sub-clades. The northward-moving rainfallbelts during this period could have also spurred a rapid
   migration of Mesolithic foragers northwards in Africa, the
   Levant and ultimately onwards to Asia Minor and Europe,
   where they each eventually differentiated into their
   regionally distinctive branches."

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   On this same M78:
   
   Hassan et. al. 2008, Y-Chromosome Variation Among Sudanese: Restricted Gene Flow, Concordance With Language, Geography, and History
   
   

   quote:

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   "Although this haplogroup is common to most Sudanese populations, it has exceptionally high frequency among populations like those of western Sudan (particularly Darfur) and the Beja in eastern Sudan.
   
   Sudden climate change
   might have forced several Neolithic cultures/people to
   shift northwards to the Mediterranean and southwards
   to the Sahel"

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   Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction, Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa, by Joseph O. Vogel, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California (1997), pp. 465-472
   
   

   quote:

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   "The period when sub-Saharan Africa was most influential in Egypt was a time when neither Egypt, as we understand it culturally, nor the Sahara, as we understand it geographically, existed. Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant. Egypt rapidly found a method of disciplining the river, the land, and the people to transform the country into a titanic garden. Egypt rapidly developed detailed cultural forms that dwarfed its forebears in urbanity and elaboration. Thus, when new details arrived, they were rapidly adapted to the vast cultural superstructure already present. On the other hand, pharaonic culture was so bound to its place near the Nile that its huge, interlocked religious, administrative, and formal structures could not be readily transferred to relatively mobile cultures of the desert, savanna, and forest. The influence of the mature pharaonic civilizations of Egypt and Kush was almost confined to their sophisticated trade goods and some significant elements of technology. Nevertheless, the religious substratum of Egypt and Kush was so similar to that of many cultures in southern Sudan today that it remains possible that fundamental elements derived from the two high cultures to the north live on."

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3. On Kemetian civilization being more than strictly Nile oriented
   
   On Nabta:
   
   [Source]
   
   

   quote:

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   "This sub-Saharan culture is likely to be the predecessor of the Egyptians."

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   Late Neolithic megalithic structures at Nabta Playa
   
   

   quote:

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   "The discoveries at Nabta Playa suggest the possibility of a previously unrecognized relationship between the Neolithic people living along the Nile and pastoralists in the adjacent Sahara which may have contributed to the rise of social complexity in ancient Egypt. This complexity, as expressed by different levels of authority within the society, forms the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and the Old Kingdom of Egypt. It was this authority at Nabta which made possible the planned arrangement of their villages, the excavation of large, deep wells, and the construction of complex stone structures made of large, shaped and unshaped stones. There are other Nabta features which are shared by the two areas, but which appear suddenly and without evident local antecedents in the late Predynastic and early Old Kingdom in the Nile Valley. These include the role of cattle to express differences of wealth, power and authority, the emphasis on cattle in religious beliefs, and the use of astronomical knowledge and devices to predict solar events. Many of these features have a prior and long history of development at Nabta."

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   Genesis of the Pharaohs: Genesis of the ‘Ka’ and Crowns?
   
   

   quote:

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   "In his Genesis of the Pharaohs, Toby Wilkinson shines new light on the Predynastic by demonstrating that the majority of rock drawings in the Eastern Desert of Upper Egypt date to Naqada I (c. 4000–3500 BC). Since the petroglyphs depict wild African fauna, hunters with bows and dogs, and men herding cattle, it is clear that the now nearly lifeless region up to 100 km east of the Nile between Quft and Hierakonpolis was at this time a well-watered, well-populated, game-rich savanna. That the rock artists were not mere isolated pastoralists but also part-time Nile dwellers is evident because their works commonly include boats. This implies that the artists probably moved from river to range in seasonal cycles. Because of this, and the fact that so many of the drawings echo subjects in later Egyptian art, Wilkinson makes a compelling case that the rock artists were the ancestors of the dynastic Egyptians. His conclusion: “the heavy reliance of these people on herding and hunting rather than agriculture suggests that their roots — and indeed the roots of Egyptian civilization — lay not so much along the Nile but in the pre-arid Sahara.”"

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   Christopher Ehret
   Professor of History, African Studies Chair
   University of California at Los Angeles
   
   

   quote:

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   "Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.
   
   The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.
   
   A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.
   
   During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period."

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Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

Thoughts: Pharaohs were found with a severe type of sickle cell, and the only severe type known was / the Benin type.



Daar S. et. al. 2000, Genetic epidemiology of HbS in Oman: multicentric origin for the betaS gene.

quote:

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"On the basis of a sample of 117 chromosomes, we have demonstrated the multicentric origin of the sickle mutation in Northern Oman. Three major haplotypes coexist: 52.1% Benin (typical and atypicals), 26.7% Arab-India, and 21.4% Bantu. These haplotypes are not autochthonous to Oman but originated elsewhere and arrived in Oman by gene flow. The distribution of haplotypes is in excellent agreement with the historical record, which establishes clear ancient contacts between Oman and sub-Sahara west Africa and explains the presence of the Benin haplotype; contacts with Iraq, Iran, present-day Pakistan, and India explain the presence of the Arab-India haplotype. More recent contacts with East Africa (Zanzibar/Mombasa) explain the presence of the Bantu haplotype. The pattern of the Arab-India haplotype in the populations of the Arabian peninsula reinforces the hypothesis that this particular mutation originated in the Harappa culture or in a nearby population and in addition reveals that the Sassanian Empire might have been the vehicle by which this Indo-European sickle mutation migrated (gene flow) to the present-day Arabian peninsula, including Oman."

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"The surprise is that the Neolithic peoples of Europe and their Bronze Age successors are not closely related to the modern inhabitants although the prehistoric/modern ties are somewhat more apparent in southern Europe. It is a further surprise that the Epipalaeolithic Natufian of Israel from whom the Neolithic realm was assumed to arise has a clear link to sub-Saharan Africa."

"The assessment of prehistoric and recent human craniofacial dimensions supports the picture documented by genetics that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westward to Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion (11–15). If the Late Pleistocene Natufian sample from Israel is the source from which that Neolithic spread was derived, then there was clearly a SubSaharan African element present of almost equal importance as the Late Prehistoric Eurasian element. At the same time, the failure of the Neolithic and Bronze Age samples in central and northern Europe to tie to the modern inhabitants supports the suggestion that, while a farming mode of subsistence was spread westward and also north to Crimea and east to Mongolia by actual movement of communities of farmers, the indigenous foragers in each of those areas ultimately absorbed both the agricultural subsistence strategy and also the people who had brought it. The interbreeding of the incoming Neolithic people with the in situ foragers diluted the Sub-Saharan traces that may have come with the Neolithic spread so that no discoverable element of that remained. This picture of a mixture between the incoming farmers and the in situ foragers had originally been supported by the archaeological record alone (6, 9, 33, 34, 48, 49), but this view is now reinforced by the analysis of the skeletal morphology of the people of those areas where prehistoric and recent remains can be metrically compared."

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More on that here, in WhatBox's first post (click here)

Ok so we know about the Nile's Eastern tributary, the Blue Nile, whose mouth is in Ethiopia. Then there's the White Nile, which stretches clear down to Rwanda. Few know about a Western Source, Wadi Howar:



[link]

[link 2]

quote:

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"Located at the southern fringes of the Libyan Desert, Wadi Howar is the largest dry river system in the presently hyper-arid and uninhabitable Eastern Sahara, stretching over 1,100 km from its source area in eastern Chad to the Nile. Geoscientific investigations have shown that during the early Holocene this wadi was the Nile's most important tributary from the Sahara. Later, it became a chain of freshwater lakes and marshes supported by local rainfall, until it ultimately became extinct about 2,000 years ago. A once ecologically favoured area of settlement and communication route between the inner regions of Africa and the Nile valley, Wadi Howar bears abundant prehistoric sites providing evidence of important population movements and interregional cultural contacts."

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quote:

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"Radiocarbon data from 150 archaeological excavations in the now hyper-arid Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Chad reveal close links between climatic variations and prehistoric occupation during the past 12,000 years. Synoptic multiple-indicator views for major time slices demonstrate the transition from initial settlement after the sudden onset of humid conditions at 8500 B.C.E. to the exodus resulting from gradual desiccation since 5300 B.C.E. Southward shifting of the desert margin helped trigger the emergence of pharaonic civilization along the Nile"

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quote:

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"The fact that these were shamans was supported by the presence of masks, an instrument often worn by shamans during religious ceremonies. If anyone still was not convinced that these people went “out of their minds” to paint these scenes, McKenna noted the geometric structures that surrounded the shamans, which for McKenna and other specialists was evidence of the trance state that the painters had entered for painting

Other researchers, notably Wim Zitman, have identified an astronomic connotation to the various figures. He specifically focuses his attention on the so-called “swimmer”, depicted at Ti-n-Tazarift, and argues that this is in fact the depiction of a constellation. He also argues for a connection between the rock paintings of the Tassili and the origin of the Egyptian civilisation, wondering whether the shamans of the Tassili might not have been the “Followers of Horus” that have been the subject of so much speculation in the past decade by the likes of Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock. Rather than from the mythical Atlantis, might they have come from a region southeast of the Atlas mountains, i.e. the Tassili?

...

For Wilkinson, these rock paintings show that pre-Pharaonic Egyptians were not settled flood-plain farmers, but semi-nomadic herders who drove their cattle in between the lush riverbanks and the drier grasslands. He also identified that several of these paintings were located around ancient trade routes. For a “semi-nomadic people”, it is by no means a long stretch of the imagination to argue that they trekked throughout the savannah, from east to west and backwards. And thus, in Pre-dynastic Egypt, Egypt and the Tassili were more than likely “one”.

...

Though the Tassili paintings are by far the best known, they are not the only area where such paintings can be found. Nearby areas such as Acacus and Messak have revealed similar rock paintings. It confirms that the Tassili was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger whole.

...

For Wilkinson, the rock paintings in southern Egypt provide proof that it is there that we should look for the “Genesis of the Pharaohs” (the title of his book). For Zitman, the origin of ancient Egypt can be found in a culture and area that stretches into the Tassili, where there is the pose painted on a cliff face in Sefar that would later adorn the front walls of several Egyptian temples. And that cannot be a coincidence. Furthermore, it also coincides with what Lhote wrote: “The most common profile suggested that of Ethiopians, and it was almost certainly from the east that these great waves of pastoralist immigrants came who invaded not only the Tassili but much of the Sahara.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by King Scorpion:

Release Date: April 1, 2011
384 Pages

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quote:

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Originally posted by dana marniche:
Until recently the early global presence of culturally- related people affiliated with sub-Saharan Africans has not been truly acknowledged, and Europeans have prefered to see the linkages in megalithic sites and pyramids around the world as due to UFOs or some archaic archetypal connection of primitive humanity.

Former construction engineer Robert Bauval on national radio in the U.S. "Coast to Coast" spoke early this morning of the black culture found at Nabta Playa in the Nubian desert which he says moved up into Egypt founding civilization there thousands of years ago.

The author of, Black Genesis and Fingerprints of the Gods, spoke on the national radio show Coast to Coast of how a Tibu woman was discovered by a United Arab Republican out in the desert south of Egypt in the early 20th century. The woman took him to see her "king" in Jebel Uweinat who told him about how his ancient people had a very ancient culture there.

In this way Western man came to learn about the rock art of Jebel Uweinat and its rock art which began when the area was still tropical. After discovering the rock art they were taken to Gilf Kebir where rock art thought to date from the neolithic displayed a tall and equally black people.

Bauval said it was found the ancient people of these neolithic cultures moved into Nabta Playa around 7-8000 years B.C. based on carbon dating and built early megalithic sites including a mini-stone henge thousands of years before the stone-henge of Britain. The sites included archeological evidence of a cattle cult once believed to have been restricted to later times in Egypt and Nubia.

The sites also showed they were constructed on an astronomical basis that used the same three constellations or "star systems" that were found in the structure of the great pyramid.

Bauval and other geolists and astro-physicists who have studied Nabta Playa also believe the great pyramid and sphinx were built much earlier than Egyptologists and especially Zahi Hawass would like to believe.

Bauval also said that Nabta Playa people may have come from Annadi (one of the earliest neolithic Saharan sites) and says archeologists studying the ancient megalithic sites around the world are coming to find many of the structures were built possessing similar alignments and other measurements that may perhaps be explained by the rise of a culture that spread around the globe between 10 - 15,000 BC

The radio show also mentioned a possibly earlier site found in south Africa with a similar astronomical founding.

Much of what Bauval said is of course in line with what earlier anthropologists spoke of. An archaic black civilization using a similar complex of cultural elements that "diffused" from Africa to Europe and western Asia and through there finally to southern Asia and Central America.


These elements included totemism, agriculture with the used of irrigational structures, megaliths based on astronomical knowledge, matrifocal societies and great mother Goddess worship, veneration of heavenly bodies i.e., consciousnesses of stars planets, the Sun and moon in relationship to the human soul or etheric body, "the dual organization" of society and deities, similar burial practices, and to a lesser degree divine kingship, mummification and a cattle cultus.

G. Elliot Smith and other anthropologists determined the skeletons associated with these early sites to be of brown Mediterranean or "hamitic" type. Recent findings by Brace, Hinahara and others conclude on the basis of genetically determined traits of crania that these early agriculturalists were indeed connected both with Central Africans and East Africans or so called "hamites".

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posted                         

quote:

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"Other researchers, notably Wim Zitman, have identified an astronomic connotation to the various figures. He specifically focuses his attention on the so-called “swimmer”, depicted at Ti-n-Tazarift, and argues that this is in fact the depiction of a constellation. He also argues for a connection between the rock paintings of the Tassili and the origin of the Egyptian civilisation, wondering whether the shamans of the Tassili might not have been the “Followers of Horus” that have been the subject of so much speculation in the past decade by the likes of Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock. Rather than from the mythical Atlantis, might they have come from a region southeast of the Atlas mountains, i.e. the Tassili?

...

For Wilkinson, these rock paintings show that pre-Pharaonic Egyptians were not settled flood-plain farmers, but semi-nomadic herders who drove their cattle in between the lush riverbanks and the drier grasslands. He also identified that several of these paintings were located around ancient trade routes. For a “semi-nomadic people”, it is by no means a long stretch of the imagination to argue that they trekked throughout the savannah, from east to west and backwards. And thus, in Pre-dynastic Egypt, Egypt and the Tassili were more than likely “one”.

...

Though the Tassili paintings are by far the best known, they are not the only area where such paintings can be found. Nearby areas such as Acacus and Messak have revealed similar rock paintings. It confirms that the Tassili was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger whole.

...

For Wilkinson, the rock paintings in southern Egypt provide proof that it is there that we should look for the “Genesis of the Pharaohs” (the title of his book). For Zitman, the origin of ancient Egypt can be found in a culture and area that stretches into the Tassili, where there is the pose painted on a cliff face in Sefar that would later adorn the front walls of several Egyptian temples. And that cannot be a coincidence."

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Originally posted by Ebony Allen:
Anyone find it so odd that these two figures are nearly identical? Maybe there is a link between the Yoruba and Egypt/Kush. Anyhow these two are amazing.


The first one is a sculpture of a Yoruba figure called a Child of Obatala. Obatala is a Yoruba god. And the second one is the Egyptian god Bes. And they are both wearing a skull necklace.

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Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
This is clearly a Batwa figure. Here is the key, all of the Batwa (dwarf) figures, I should really say usually, have the tongue sticking out. Bes is always seen with his tongue out. It hard to see in the second image. Here is one that you may be able to see the tongue better:

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Originally posted by AswaniAswad:
Hey Aser do the Twa really call themselves Batwa i have never ever heard that term ever used.

I think that Bes and Ptah have a connection with the Twa who are Ptwah or Ptah people.

Those two have no connection and dont look similar at all first Bes is of course the body of a Twa but not the face of a full human that other one is of a real human face.

really much of ancient egypt is more similar to Western African Tradition than to Arab or North Africa. Much of there customs point to central and west africa and the sudan more than the Horn or arabia

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Originally posted by Brada-Anansi:
maybe so maybe not, but check out the skull necklace
AswaniAswad

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Those two have no connection and dont look similar at all first Bes is of course the body of a Twa but not the face of a full human that other one is of a real human face. really much of ancient egypt is more similar to Western African Tradition than to Arab or North Africa. Much of there customs point to central and west africa and the sudan more than the Horn or arabia

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And yes Kemet and some cultures in western Africa are similar because they both share the Sahara as a cultural incubator

Yoruba sandstone sculpture (click here)

compare that with any found in the Nile Valley Kemet or Kush.


Kemet and Yoruba ram sculptures

http://egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=egyto&action=display&thread=27&page=2
Go here read more.

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Originally posted by gluedtoES'snutz104:
Whatbox aka jeeves is trying to fit in with the rest of the loons like Wally and Clyde.

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Originally posted by argyle104:
It is interesting to see how "west Africa" is always spoken as if it is a country.


Whatbox aka Jeeves, is "west Africa" a country?

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Originally posted by Whatbox:

This thread is really about any and all their influences, especially foundational, and especially inner African and / or South West Asian.

To answer your question, i'd have to say: there are.

First let's take it back <-- West Africa and Ancient Egypt were likely "one" in PreDynastic times.

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This first one's re-posted with bolded areas for emphasis:

Philip Coppens, Investigative Journalist [link]

"Other researchers, notably Wim Zitman, have identified an astronomic connotation to the various figures. He specifically focuses his attention on the so-called “swimmer”, depicted at Ti-n-Tazarift, and argues that this is in fact the depiction of a constellation. He also argues for a connection between the rock paintings of the Tassili and the origin of the Egyptian civilisation, wondering whether the shamans of the Tassili might not have been the “Followers of Horus” that have been the subject of so much speculation in the past decade by the likes of Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock. Rather than from the mythical Atlantis, might they have come from a region southeast of the Atlas mountains, i.e. the Tassili?

...

For Wilkinson, these rock paintings show that pre-Pharaonic Egyptians were not settled flood-plain farmers, but semi-nomadic herders who drove their cattle in between the lush riverbanks and the drier grasslands. He also identified that several of these paintings were located around ancient trade routes. For a “semi-nomadic people”, it is by no means a long stretch of the imagination to argue that they trekked throughout the savannah, from east to west and backwards. And thus, in Pre-dynastic Egypt, Egypt and the Tassili were more than likely “one”.

...

Though the Tassili paintings are by far the best known, they are not the only area where such paintings can be found. Nearby areas such as Acacus and Messak have revealed similar rock paintings. It confirms that the Tassili was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger whole.

...

For Wilkinson, the rock paintings in southern Egypt provide proof that it is there that we should look for the “Genesis of the Pharaohs” (the title of his book). For Zitman, the origin of ancient Egypt can be found in a culture and area that stretches into the Tassili, where there is the pose painted on a cliff face in Sefar that would later adorn the front walls of several Egyptian temples. And that cannot be a coincidence."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ebony Allen:
Anyone find it so odd that these two figures are nearly identical? Maybe there is a link between the Yoruba and Egypt/Kush. Anyhow these two are amazing.


The first one is a sculpture of a Yoruba figure called a Child of Obatala. Obatala is a Yoruba god. And the second one is the Egyptian god Bes. And they are both wearing a skull necklace.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
This is clearly a Batwa figure. Here is the key, all of the Batwa (dwarf) figures, I should really say usually, have the tongue sticking out. Bes is always seen with his tongue out. It hard to see in the second image. Here is one that you may be able to see the tongue better:

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quote:

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Originally posted by AswaniAswad:
Hey Aser do the Twa really call themselves Batwa i have never ever heard that term ever used.

I think that Bes and Ptah have a connection with the Twa who are Ptwah or Ptah people.

Those two have no connection and dont look similar at all first Bes is of course the body of a Twa but not the face of a full human that other one is of a real human face.

really much of ancient egypt is more similar to Western African Tradition than to Arab or North Africa. Much of there customs point to central and west africa and the sudan more than the Horn or arabia

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Brada-Anansi:
maybe so maybe not, but check out the skull necklace
AswaniAswad

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Those two have no connection and dont look similar at all first Bes is of course the body of a Twa but not the face of a full human that other one is of a real human face. really much of ancient egypt is more similar to Western African Tradition than to Arab or North Africa. Much of there customs point to central and west africa and the sudan more than the Horn or arabia

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Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Whatbox:

Of the above mentioned civilization complexes the most contemporaneous with Kemet at the start would've been Sumer.

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To the West of the Middle East and South of the Mediterranean we have an entire region for which, excluding Kemet we have no written history of until the arrival of Islam to the region.

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Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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This is inaccurate. Dynastic Egypt in fact precedes dynastic Sumer.

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Posts: 1819 | From: odesco baba | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

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Originally posted by The Explorer:

quote:

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Originally posted by Whatbox:

Of the above mentioned civilization complexes the most contemporaneous with Kemet at the start would've been Sumer.

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This is inaccurate. Dynastic Egypt in fact precedes dynastic Sumer.

quote:

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To the West of the Middle East and South of the Mediterranean we have an entire region for which, excluding Kemet we have no written history of until the arrival of Islam to the region.

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This is also misleading. Tifinagh was the scripture used in the western Sahel and Maghreb.

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This is false. Tifinagh was used by the Berbers. The ancient Saharan people like the Mande wrote inscriptions in Libyco-Berber and Thinite.

Check out this video on the origin of writing in Africa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUGc2W06rgo


.

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

This is false. Tifinagh was used by the Berbers. The ancient Saharan people like the Mande wrote inscriptions in Libyco-Berber and Thinite.

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Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

quote:

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Originally posted by The Explorer:

quote:

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Originally posted by Whatbox:

Of the above mentioned civilization complexes the most contemporaneous with Kemet at the start would've been Sumer.

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This is inaccurate. Dynastic Egypt in fact precedes dynastic Sumer.

quote:

---

To the West of the Middle East and South of the Mediterranean we have an entire region for which, excluding Kemet we have no written history of until the arrival of Islam to the region.

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This is also misleading. Tifinagh was the scripture used in the western Sahel and Maghreb.

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This is false. Tifinagh was used by the Berbers. The ancient Saharan people like the Mande wrote inscriptions in Libyco-Berber and Thinite.

Check out this video on the origin of writing in Africa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUGc2W06rgo


.

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What is the connection here, if there is actually any?


Here is a Dogon mask. The mask is used during certain rituals.

This dancing ceremony is called the dhama. There would be many kanaga dancers during this ceremony; they were all members of a secret society called the awa.

This is in the shape of a symbol used by the Tuareg.


http://www.museum.cornell.edu/HFJ/edu/OMNI/Africa/slide2.html


The Tuareg script.




Tamasheq/ Tifinagh script letter "Z", JaZ.





National Berber symbol/ flag





It makes you wonder what wisdom other masks hold, which Europeans see as useless. Think about this one. Since the have stolen a lot of art and also masks. On which they think of as inferior.

Kanaga Mask in Three Pieces

Dancers perform with Kanaga masks at ceremonies honoring the dead. Rotating their upper bodies from the hips and swinging the masks in wide circles, the dancers imitate Amma, the creator god, who brought all things to life. Their outstretched movements spread the life force throughout the world.





Amma and Amon is only slitly different, considering the fact that language is dynamic. And according to the principles of linguistics, the root word is the same; AM.

Oddly Amon (AMEN) means the Hidden one. And the Kanaga masks at ceremonies is for honoring the dead (the Hidden).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_Sf_lZ9Z70

Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by adrianne:
Ancient Egyptians made the arduous trek to Chad new research suggests

Professor Schneider says that when this mix of archaeological, environmental, textual and linguistic evidence is combined together it suggests that there was contact between ancient Egypt and Chad. Royal expeditions could have travelled from the Dakhla oasis, through the mountains of Jebel Uweinat and entered into Chad – a land that, 4,000 years ago, was a rich lake country.
This is “a route where not just physical commodities (but) also ideas, concepts could have entered Egypt,” said Schneider.
“Egyptian intellectual history needs to be at one point re-written,” he said. “There are influences from regions that we never believed, 10 years ago, that there might have been influence.”


http://www.unreportedheritagenews.com/2011/03/ancient-egyptians-made-arduous-trek-to.html

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quote:

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Originally posted by ausar:
There was a famous trade route that connected Egypt with the interior of Africa known as Darb al Arbein. Archaeologist have also found Osiris statues in regions of Central Africa.

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Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

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Originally posted by L':
Thought this was interesting:

quote:

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Conclusion:
Thus, with a solid stratigraphie and chronological context at Ounjougou, there is no doubt
that ceramics appeared in sub-Saharan West Africa at least as early as in the Nile Valley,some time before 9400 cal BC. This innovation must be coupled with the re-establishment of the tropical grassland during the Early Holocene. Starting in the middle of the tenth millennium cal BC, the new technological complex may have rapidly diffused northwards,
together with the advancing monsoon front, the greening of the Sahara and the massive
expansion of edible Panicoid grasses

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Source: The emergence of pottery in Africa
during the tenth millennium cal BC:
new evidence from Ounjougou (Mali)

E. Huysecom^*, M. Rasse , L Lespez^, K. Neumann , A. Fahmy^,
A. Ballouche*-', S. Ozainne^ M. MaggettP, Ch. Tribolo** 6¿ S. Soriano'^ (2009)


I was unable to see how anybody could get free access to the above, so here is the Download link

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Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Authors:
Zink AR; Sola C; Reischl U; Grabner W; Rastogi N; Wolf H; Nerlich AG
Author Address:
Division of Palaeopathology, Institute of Pathology, Academic Teaching Hospital München-Bogenhausen, D-81925 Munich, Germany.
Source:
Journal Of Clinical Microbiology [J Clin Microbiol] 2003 Jan; Vol. 41 (1), pp. 359-67.
Publication Type:
Historical Article; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Language:
English
Journal Information:
Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 7505564 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0095-1137 (Print) Linking ISSN: 00951137 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J. Clin. Microbiol. Subsets: MEDLINE
MeSH Terms:
Mummies/*microbiology
Mycobacterium bovis/*isolation & purification
Mycobacterium tuberculosis/*isolation & purification
DNA, Bacterial/analysis; Databases, Factual; Egypt; History, Ancient; Humans; Paleopathology; Polymerase Chain Reaction
Abstract:
Bone and soft tissue samples from 85 ancient Egyptian mummies were analyzed for the presence of ancient Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA (aDNA) and further characterized by spoligotyping. The specimens were obtained from individuals from different tomb complexes in Thebes West, Upper Egypt, which were used for upper social class burials between the Middle Kingdom (since ca. 2050 BC) and the Late Period (until ca. 500 BC). A total of 25 samples provided a specific positive signal for the amplification of a 123-bp fragment of the repetitive element IS6110, indicating the presence of M. tuberculosis DNA. Further PCR-based tests for the identification of subspecies failed due to lack of specific amplification products in the historic tissue samples. Of these 25 positive specimens, 12 could be successfully characterized by spoligotyping. The spoligotyping signatures were compared to those in an international database. They all show either an M. tuberculosis or an M. africanum pattern, but none revealed an M. bovis-specific pattern. The results from a Middle Kingdom tomb (used exclusively between ca. 2050 and 1650 BC) suggest that these samples bear an M. africanum-type specific spoligotyping signature. The samples from later periods provided patterns typical for M. tuberculosis. This study clearly demonstrates that spoligotyping can be applied to historic tissue samples. In addition, our results do not support the theory that M. tuberculosis originated from the M. bovis type but, rather, suggest that human M. tuberculosis may have originated from a precursor complex probably related to M. africanum.

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quote:

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Use of the amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) in the study of HbS in predynastic Egyptian remains.
Authors:
Marin A; Cerutti N; Massa ER
Author Address:
Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e dell'Uomo, Università degli Studi di Torino.
Source:
Bollettino Della Società Italiana Di Biologia Sperimentale [Boll Soc Ital Biol Sper] 1999 May-Jun; Vol. 75 (5-6), pp. 27-30.
Publication Type:
Journal Article
Language:
English
Journal Information:
Country of Publication: Italy NLM ID: 7506962 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0037-8771 (Print) Linking ISSN: 00378771 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Boll. Soc. Ital. Biol. Sper. Subsets: MEDLINE
MeSH Terms:
Mummies*/pathology
Anemia, Sickle Cell/*genetics
DNA/*analysis
Hemoglobin, Sickle/*genetics
Polymerase Chain Reaction/*methods
Anemia, Sickle Cell/ethnology; Anemia, Sickle Cell/pathology; DNA/isolation & purification; Egypt/ethnology; Humans; Mutation; Tooth/chemistry
Abstract:
We conducted a molecular investigation of the presence of sicklemia in six predynastic Egyptian mummies (about 3200 BC) from the Anthropological and Ethnographic Museum of Turin. Previous studies of these remains showed the presence of severe anemia, while histological preparations of mummified tissues revealed hemolytic disorders. DNA was extracted from dental samples with a silica-gel method specific for ancient DNA. A modification of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), called amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) was then applied. ARMS is based on specific priming of the PCR and it permits diagnosis of single nucleotide mutations. In this method, amplification can occur only in the presence of the specific mutation being studied. The amplified DNA was analyzed by electrophoresis. In samples of three individuals, there was a band at the level of the HbS mutated fragment, indicating that they were affected by sicklemia. On the basis of our results, we discuss the possible uses of new molecular investigation systems in paleopathological diagnoses of genetic diseases and viral, bacterial and fungal infections.

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quote:

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Sometimes haplotype IV (and the M2
lineage) is seen as being associated with the “Bantu expansion” (~2000-
3000 bp), but this does not mean that it is not much older, since expansion
and origin times cannot be conflated. Haplotype IV has substantial
frequencies in upper Egypt and Nubia , greater than VII and VIII, and
even V. Bantu languages were never spoken in these regions or Senegal,
where M2 is greater than 90 percent in some studies.

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

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Authors:
Timmann, Christian
Meyer, Christian G.
Source:
Tropical Medicine & International Health; Nov2010, Vol. 15 Issue 11, p1278-1280, 3p
Publication Year:
2010
Subject Terms:
MALARIA
DEATH
SICKLE cell anemia
GAUCHER'S disease
Author-Supplied Keywords:
Gaucher's disease
Köhler's disease
malaria
sickle cell disease
People:
TUTANKHAMEN, King of Egypt
Abstract:
The cause of death of the Egyptian pharoah Tutankhamun has now for decades been matter of speculation and various hypotheses. A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) provided new evidence and suggested malaria, together with Köhler's disease, as the most probable cause of death of the boy king. We are sceptical towards this elucidation of the cause of death of King Tut and discuss alternative and differential diagnoses, among them, in particular, sickle cell disease and Gauche's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Sickle cell again; just like the earlier referenced article

Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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King Tutankhamun died from sickle-cell disease, not malaria, say experts.


A team from Hamburg's Bernhard Noct Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI) claim the disease is a far likelier cause of death than the combination of bone disorders and malaria put forward by Egyptian experts earlier this year.


The BNI team argues that theories offered by Egyptian experts, led by antiquities tsar Zahi Hawass, are based on data that can be interpreted otherwise. They say further analysis of the data will confirm or deny their work. Hawass' claim, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this February, and followed by a swarm of accompanying television shows, claimed King Tut suffered from Kohler's disease, a bone disorder prohibiting blood flow, before succumbing to malaria.


Multiple bone disorders, including one in Tutankhamun's left foot, led to the Kohler's diagnosis, while segments of a malarial parasite were found via DNA testing. Yet the BNI team claims the latter results are incorrect. “Malaria in combination with Köhler's disease causing Tutankhamun's early death seems unlikely to us,” say Prof Christian Meyer and Dr Christian Timmann.


Instead the BNI team feels sickle-cell disease (SCD), a genetic blood disorder, is a more likely reason for the Pharaoh's death aged just 19. The disease occurs in 9 to 22 per cent of people living in the Egyptian oases, and gives a better chance of surviving malaria; the infestation halted by sickled cells.


They say the disease occurs frequently in malarial regions like the River Nile, and that it would account for the bone defects found on his body.


“The genetic predisposition for (SCD) can be found in regions where malaria frequently occurs, including ancient and modern Egypt.” says Meyer. “The disease can only manifest itself when a sickle cell trait is inherited from both parents: it is a so-called 'recessive inheritance'.” A family tree for the Pharaoh suggested by Hawass himself appears to back the BNI team's case.


The relatively old age of Tutankhamun's parents and relatives – up to 50 years – means they could very well have carried sickle-cell traits, and could therefore have been highly resistant to malaria. The high likelihood that King Tut's parents were siblings means he could have inherited the sickle cell trait from both and suffered from SCD.


“Sickle-cell disease is an important differential diagnosis: one that existing DNA material can probably confirm or rule out,” conclude Timmann and Meyer. They suggest that further testing of ancient Egyptian royal mummies should bear their conclusions in mind.


King Tut's young demise has long been a source of speculation. As well as malaria, recent decades have seen scholars argue that he was murdered, and that he died from infection caused by a broken leg.

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Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged |