posted
It will take time for me to research the texts. Meanwhile, scrutinize the below maps noticing 1 - Anaximander's use of the Nile to divide Asia and Africa (A) 2 - Libya contained within Asia by two early geographers (B & C) 3 - the straddling location of Arabia (B & C) 4 - the 'A' in Asia located east of the Nile (D & E)
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: I suggest you read the Greco-Roman geographers before concluding what part of the world they thought Egypt belonged to. I would appreciate a quote implying other than what I wrote (and what the map shows).
They didn't have our point of view of Africans which word to them primarily meant the "Libyans" of what today is Tunisia.
They had the idea of Aithiopians. And their Aithiopians stretched all the way from the Indus to the Atlantic.
"After Asia comes Libya, which is a continuation of Egypt and Ethiopia. ever visit us, but what they tell is not trustworthy or complete either. But still the following is based on what they say. They call the most southerly peoples Ethiopians; those who live next north of the Ethiopians they call, in the main, Garamantians, Pharusians, and Nigritans." - Strabo
"The coast of Libya along the sea which washes it to the north, throughout its entire length from Egypt to Cape Soloeis,(Cape Spartel, Morocco) which is its furthest point, is inhabited by Libyans of many distinct tribes who possess the whole tract except certain portions which belong to the Phoenicians and the Greeks." - Herodotus
Ancient geographers viewed Egypt as part of "Lybia"(Africa). All "lighter" Northern Africans were called by the Greeks "the Libyans" while all "darker" Southern Africans were "the Ethiopians" generic terms because early Greeks were not familiar with most of the people who lived in Africa... other then the Egyptians whom they were familiar with. To the ancient Greeks geographers Libya was the name of the African continent as a whole, that Egypt was part of. Some more maps based upon ancient accounts from different geographers and different time periods:
Dan's three remaining maps coming up.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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My judgment as to the extent of Egypt is confirmed by an oracle delivered at the shrine of Ammon, of which I had no knowledge at all until after I had formed my opinion. It happened that the people of the cities Marea and Apis, who live in the part of Egypt that borders on Libya, took a dislike to the religious usages of the country concerning sacrificial animals, and wished no longer to be restricted from eating the flesh of cows. So, as they believed themselves to be Libyans and not Egyptians, they sent to the shrine to say that, having nothing in common with the Egyptians, neither inhabiting the Delta nor using the Egyptian tongue, they claimed to be allowed to eat whatever they pleased. Their request, however, was refused by the god, who declared in reply that Egypt was the entire tract of country which the Nile overspreads and irrigates, and the Egyptians were the people who lived below Elephantine, and drank the waters of that river.
Translated from Herodotus' Second History Book Euterpe by George Rawlinson sections 8 and 16-19
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Look again. Maybe this map visualizes what I've written time and again and have failed to make some see; everything west of the Nile was Asia to the originators of the idea that the Levant is Asia not Africa.
I refuse to follow them and give away the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, "Mesopotamia," Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibuti, Eritrea, and the eastern regions of Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt (well they actually posited that Egypt was neither Europe, Asia, nor Africa) into non-African hands.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti:
quote:Originally posted by dan5678:
But apparently the Greeks made no effort to seperate the Egyptians from the rest of Africa which is very much contrary to their modern so-called 'successors'.
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