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Toby Wilkinson: racism and the Kushites
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by claus3600: [QB] This is a review of another of Wilkinson's works which chimes with my own reading of his Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. It's by a a guy called Donald Peyton, who - perhaps rightfully so - is scathing when reviewing the work of most mainstream Egyptologists; 'Toby Wilkinson's "dramatic new discoveries" that were supposed to "rewrite the origins of Ancient Egypt" quickly morphs into a pathetic variation of the tired, worn out race-based "Egyptology" of the past, an Egyptology that forces all archeological, ethnological, linguistics, ancient Egyptian written documents-all scientific evidence -into a rigid intellectual paradigm. The UNSTATED premise of this rigid paradigm was that ancient Egypt was not a black African creation. On pages 21-22, Wilkinson writes of Winkler's "obsession" : was the great civilization of "ancient Egypt" the "creation, not of "savage Africans, but of enlightened invaders from the "Aryan' world of the east." This was not only Winkler's obsession-it remains the obsession of Toby Wilkerson and most euro-centric writers and thinkers. They simply never state the premise! But they respect it! They adhere to it! In this book Mr. Wilkinson engages in an orgy of speculation to support his hypotheses. It is a web of speculation deliberately contrived to mislead the general reader and to spread euro-centric myths in place of known facts. Mr. Wilkinson writes on page 14, this astonishingly, euro-centric, ethnocentric, false and misleading assertion: "To European archeologists, as to the ancient Egyptians themselves, Nubia was a strange and exotic place, not quite part of pharaonic Egypt." To imply that "European archeologist" and "ancient Egyptians" held similar opinions about Nubia is nonsense . In the texts from the tombs of Seti I, Merenptah, and from Ramses III(Book Of Gates) we find indisputable evidence written by the ancient Egyptians themselves which demonstrates that they considered themselves to be profoundly related to the peoples of Nubia. "The Semites(3mou), Sekhmet has transformed them,it is She that hammers their souls. You are those(Egyptians) that strike against them (Semites) for me. I am happy for the multitude that I gave birth to(or who came from me)among your name(those of the Egyptians) destined for the Nubian-Sudanese(nehasu),who are born with the favor of Horus. It is he who protects their souls." The passage is repeated with tamahou(Indo-Europeans) replacing 3mou(Semites/Asiatic). We know that etymologically the ancient Egyptian terms for Europeans and Asians are extremely pejorative, indicating a animal-like human, with a qualifying sign indicating something that walks on four paws like an animal. The word for Nubian (nehase) does not have any racial or pejorative connotation whatsoever in the ancient Egyptian language. To translate the word nehase as black or Negro is a deliberate mistranslation. It seems to be the name of some group of ancient Africa people just as Yam and WaWat, were names of other African peoples. Toby Wilkinson stumbles along attempting to create some kind of Apartheid Wall between these two ancient African peoples. Wilkinson often remarks about the use of hippopotamus figures in ancient Egyptian culture. Toby Wilkinson again attempts to separate, in the minds of his readers, ancient Africans from ancient Egyptians (p.64). He writes how the lumbering bulk and small ears of hippos amused the ancient Egyptians... "inspired wry amusement" in those who drew them. On the other hand he writes, "....to African people, hippos are not always figures of fun: they are dangerous wild animals that pose a threat to humans". If Mr. Wilkinson dared step out side his euro-centric intellectual prison; he would have been able to tell his readers that the hippo is inextricably connected to African cultures. For example, the river valley civilizations of Africa could shade much needed light on the customs of ancient Egypt. Among the Pulaar people who live along the Senegal River there is a Diba clan, which has the Hippo as a totem for fishermen. We know there are several words for hippo in ancient Egyptian:h3b,db and dib, each term is followed by a hippo determinative . Thus we have the diba clan or hippo clan among African people today(De L'orgine Egyptienne Des Peuls, by Dr.Aboubacry M. Lam p.211). We could cite many, many, many more examples from throughout Africa from culture, language and religion. So again Mr. Wilkinson clearly shows that his work is far from scholarly, and that he remains willingly captive to the tyrannical Euro centric paradigm. Perhaps Toby Wilkinson personifies the dilemma of the modern Euro-centric scholar who knows very well what happened to the late Sir E. A. Wallis Budge Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge,Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar, Keeper of The Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum. Even knighthood could not save Budge from the vicious and endless slander that was heaped upon him and all of his work after he wrote in V.1 of Osiris& The Egyptian Resurrection, Dover1971,(p.xvii,Preface)the following about the study of the Ancient Egyptians: "The modern Sudani beliefs are identical with those of ancient Egypt, because the Egyptians were Africans and the modern peoples of the Sudan are Africans". All hell broke loose and Budge's works were condemned and ridiculed-finally they were ignored. Budge became a pariah. So instead of "Dramatic New Discoveries to Rewrite the origins of Ancient Egypt", Mr. Wilkinson gives us an orgy of speculations, suggestions and assertions about African rock art from the Eastern desert. Again, all interpretations of the rock art is forced into the race-based euro-centric paradigm. Wilkinson does not tell his readers that all the periods and categories of rock art are found only in Africa. Poor Toby Wilkinson remains locked in his Euro-centric Cambridge-built intellectual prison. He has the key to unlock the door. But what he does not have is the intellectual courage to use the key to unlock the door and step out into the bright sunshine. Only then can he contribute to the rewriting of the true history of these fascinating African civilizations that we call "Ancient Egypt"! Alas poor Toby...!' [/QB][/QUOTE]
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