Cheikh Anta Diop was awarded the Grand prix de la mémoire of the GPLA 2015; and the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar bears his name. [32], In 1974, Diop was one of about 20 participants in a UNESCO symposium in Cairo, where he presented his theories to specialists in Egyptology. Anthropology, Economics, Egyptology, History, Linguistics and Sociology are all genres or disciplines which he claims to have studied. While Diop holds that the Greeks learned from a superior Egyptian civilization, he does not argue that Greek culture is simply a derivative of Egypt. Diop strongly refused to enter into any negotiations until two conditions were met. Aug 13, 2018 - Explore Dee Pinkston's board "Cheikh Anta Diop", followed by 108 people on Pinterest. Diop consistently held that Africans could not be pigeonholed into a rigid type that existed somewhere south of the Sahara, but they varied widely in skin color, facial shape, hair type, height, and a number of additional factors, just like other human populations. This black, even if on the level of his cells he is closer to a Swede than Peter Botha, when he is in South Africa he will still live in Soweto. Though Diop is sometimes referred to as an Afrocentrist, he predates the concept and thus was not himself an Afrocentric scholar. This research has examined the ancient Badarian group, finding not only cultural and material linkages with those further south but physical correlations as well, including a southern modal cranial metric phentoype indicative of the Tropical African in the well-known Badarian group. They are all either concentrated on the pre-european invasion/occupation of the African people or pregnant with concepts on how Africans can regain its independence and be once again recognized as the greatest civilization in history. [25], After the B.M.S. eschew "southern" and "northern" camps and point to a narrower focus that demonstrates cultural, material and genetic connections between Egypt and other nearby African (Nubian, Saharan, and Sudanic) populations. Thank you for visiting! See more ideas about african history, black history, african. The African origin of civilization: myth or reality. Cheikh Anta Diop was a great Senegalese historian, anthropologist, philosopher, physicist and politician. Diop's view that the scholarship of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century was based on a racist view of Africans was regarded as controversial when he wrote in the 1950s through to the early 1970s, the field of African scholarship still being influenced by Carleton S. Coon and others. [107], The conclusion was that some of the oldest native populations in Egypt can trace part of their genetic ancestral heritage to East Africa. A scientist, mathematician, and historian/anthropologist. He alleged his critics were using the narrowest possible definition of "Blacks" in order to differentiate various African groups such as Nubians into a European or Caucasoid racial zone. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. Was the European invasion and subsequent occupation of the most lucrative African regions an advent of civilization or barbarism? To kill a mockingbird: Harper Lee,1960. Seligman's Hamitic hypothesis stated that: "... the civilizations of Africa are the civilizations of the Hamites, its history the record of these peoples and of their interaction with the two other African stocks, the Negro and the Bushman, whether this influence was exerted by highly civilized Egyptians or…pastoralists ...The incoming Hamites were pastoral 'Europeans'-arriving wave after wave – better armed as well as quicker witted than the dark agricultural Negroes. Théophile Obenga used this method to distinguish Berber from other African members of Greenberg's Afroasiatic family, particularly Egyptian and Coptic. Importantly it included not only francophone Africans, but English-speaking ones as well. This book, the first in a series of work on Africans, whose life and thought have left a major impact on the world, is devoted to the Senegalese physicist, historian and linguist, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, who was born in Diourbel, Senegal on December 29, 1923, and died in Dakar on February 7, 1986. "[96][97], Academic detractors charge Diop with racism, based particularly on his claim that the ancient Egyptians were black. At the same time, the statistical net is cast much more narrowly in the case of 'blacks', carefully defining them as an extreme type south of the Sahara and excluding related populations like Somalians, Nubians and Ethiopians,[46] as well as the ancient Badarians, a key indigenous group. In this regard, Blacks are not recognized as the forefathers of modern civilization and the pioneers of Science, the Egyptians are and in the Europeans’ concepts, they are not classified as Black Africans. Instead, he enrolled in the Faculty of the Arts in Sorbonne; considered to be the first university in the world, where he switched his focus to the study of Physics. Please visit our online store to purchase items commemorating the great honorable Cheik Anta Diop and other African Warrior Scholars. [93] In trying to remove Berber and Semitic languages from Greenberg's Afroasiatic family and ignoring real differences between African language groups, Diop and his collaborators have created an artificial language group. All these factors combined, based on the formation of a federated and unified Africa, culturally and otherwise, are surmised to be the only way for Africa to become the power in the world that she should rightfully be. Lam, Aboubacry Moussa. He holds that the range of peoples and phenotypes under the designation "negre" included those with a wide range of physical variability, from light brown skin and aquiline noses to jet black skin and frizzy hair, well within the diversity of peoples of the Nilotic region. While acknowledging that the ancient Egyptian population was mixed, a fact confirmed by all the anthropological analyses, writers nevertheless speak of an Egyptian race, linking it to a well-defined human type, the white, Hamitic branch, also called Caucasoid, Mediterranean, Europid or Eurafricanid. As regards Egyptian religion for example, there appear to be more solid connections with the cultures of the Sudan and northeast Africa than Mesopotamia, according to mainstream research:[67], Diop considered that it was politically important to demonstrate the cultural and linguistic unity of Africa, and to base this unity on the Egyptian past. Thus, African history is full of “Negroids,” Hamites, semi-Hamites, Nilo-Hamitics, Ethiopoids, Sabaeans, even Caucasoids! Professor of Egyptology, University of Dakar, Senegal, 1961-86; founder and director, Radiocarbon Laboratory (first carbon-14 dating laboratory in Africa), Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire, University of Dakar; member of International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa, United Nations Educational, Scientif… In 1951 he registered a second thesis title "Who were the pre-dynastic Egyptians" under Professor Marcel Griaule. He studied Philosophy and Chemistry at the Sorbonne in Paris, after earning his bachelor’s degree in Senegal. He was general secretary of the RDA students in Paris from 1950 to 1953. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality by Cheikh Anta Diop, Mercer Cook (Translator/Editor) Ryan A. [2] His work was greatly controversial and throughout his career, Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time. Defenders maintain that Diop's critics routinely misrepresent his views, typically defining negroes as a 'true' type south of the Sahara to cast doubt on his work,[98] It has been claimed that questions such as "were the ancient Egyptians black?" Ancient Egyptians such as the Badarians show greater statistical affinities to tropical African types and are not identical to Europeans. Some scholars draw heavily from Diop's groundbreaking work,[4] while others in the Western academic world do not accept his theories. If you like this image, CLICK HERE to visit our online store. In 1956 he re-registered a new proposed thesis for Doctor of Letters with the title "The areas of matriarchy and patriarchy in ancient times." Who were the more aggressive people? All Rights Reserved © 2019, “Until now——No one has ever almost tried to find the key to unlock the door to the intelligence of African society.”, family on December 2, 1923, Diop was one of the few. Yet, if one stuck strictly to scientific data and archeological facts, the prototype of the White race would be sought in vain throughout the earliest years of present-day humanity.”― Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. "[26] (After his death the university was named in his honor: Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar.) Reacting to the prevail- ing Eurocentrism, he wanted to write a new world history to show the enormous contribution of blacks which had been obscured subsequently by the slave trade and colonialism. (1975). [101] Since he struggled against how racial classifications were used by the European academy in relation to African peoples, much of his work has a strong 'race-flavored' tint. He did not believe that such a population needed to be arbitrarily split into tribal or racial clusters. It gained a much wider audience for his work. He developed a method of testing which was able to accurately determine the melanin content in human pigmentation and proved his original theses beyond a doubt that ancient Egyptians were indeed Black or Africans. [30][31], Some critics have argued that Diop's melanin dosage test technique lacks sufficient evidence. This theory was later dubbed the Diopan Theory. This way of viewing the data rejected Diop's insistence on Blackness, but at the same time it acknowledged the inconsistency with which data on African peoples were manipulated and categorized. [45] A 2004 review of DNA research in African Archaeological Review supports some of Diop's criticisms. This has shown that most of human genetic variation (some 85–90%) occurs within localized population groups, and that race only can account for 6–10% of the variation. This modern research also confirms older analyses, (Arkell and Ucko 1956, Shaw 1976, Falkenburger 1947, Strouhal 1971, Blanc 1964, et al.,[112]). cit. Cheikh Anta Diop was not a bashful individual and although the documents to substantiate his claims may not be available, he claimed to have studied a wide range of subjects in Paris. Cheikh Anta Diop was a great Senegalese historian, anthropologist, philosopher, physicist and politician. Greenberg, Joseph H. (1950), "Studies in African Linguistic Classification: IV. The same method was applied by four of Diop's collaborators to Mbosi,[78] Duala,[79] Basa,[80] Fula[81][82] and a few other languages. S. O. Y. Keita, "Early Nile Valley Farmers, From El-Badari, Aboriginals or 'European' Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? While some may dispute his claims regarding the other “minor” achievements to which he laid claims purporting that there is not enough recorded proof of all his qualifications, there is also no records to prove otherwise. There is a contradiction here: all the anthropologists agree in stressing the sizable proportion of the Negroid element—almost a third and sometimes more—in the ethnic [i.e. Keita, "Further studies of crania", op. Seligman's views on direct diffusion from Egypt are not generally supported to-day,[61] but were current when Diop started to write and may explain his wish to show that Egyptian and Black Africa culture had a common source, rather than that Egyptian influence was one way. African Origin: Cheikh Anta Diop, 1974 Diop worked hard to promote this concept in his fight to revive the pride and uplift the economic and social standards of the African Nation. (24) Jean Vercoutter at the 1974 UNESCO conference. Binding tight. These concepts are laid out in Diop's Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in Culture and Development, 1946–1960,[63] and The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity,,[64][65] These concepts can be summarized as follows: Zones of Confluence: Meeting or mingling area for the two cradles above, Most anthropologists see commonalities in African culture but only in a very broad, generic sense, intimately linked with economic systems, etc. This includes our images such as the sketch you see above created exclusively for our website. Rousseau, Madeleine and Cheikh Anta Diop (1948), "1848 Abolition de l'esclavage – 1948 evidence de la culture nègre". Conversely, Ancient Egyptian may be more closely related to languages that cannot be classed as black and/or African than to many négro-africain languages. [46] Diop always maintained that Somalians, Nubians, Ethiopians and Egyptians were all part of a related range of African peoples in the Nilotic zone that also included peoples of the Sudan and parts of the Sahara. The book shows some signs of wear from use but is a good readable copy. Under the "true negro" approach, Diop contended that those peoples who did not meet the stereotypical classification were attributed to mixture with outside peoples, or were split off and assigned to Caucasoid clusters. Contact seller Seller Rating: Condition: good. Alphonsobaptiste 02:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC) To few of Dr. Diop's books referenced . Senegalese politician, historian and scientist (1923-1986), Critique of previous scholarship on Africa, Physical variability of the African people, Cultural unity of African peoples as part of a southern cradle, Diop's thought and criticism of modern racial clustering, Diop and the arbitrary sorting of categories, Diop and criticism of the Saharan barrier thesis, Diop and criticism of true Negro classification schemes, Diop and criticism of mixed-race theories, Molefi Kete Asante, "Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual Portrait" (Univ of Sankore Press: December 30, 2007). The focal point of this particular edition was the centenary celebration of the abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies, also, highlighting the issues in the contemporary African society. The phenotype is a reality, physical appearance is a reality. Frank M. Snowden, Jr., "Bernal's 'Blacks', Herodotus, and the other classical evidence". [83] Obenga expressly rejected Greenberg's division of most African languages into the Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic families, treating all African languages except the Khoisan languages and Berber as a single unit, négro-africain. Demba Sy, Papa, "L'itinéraire Politique de Cheikh Anta Diop". Cheikh Anta Diop View in Apple Books. Seller: My Books Store, Tallahassee, FL, U.S.A. Modern linguistic analysis places the origin of the Afro-Asiatic languages in northeast Africa, and plausibly puts the origin of the Egyptian language in the Nile valley, between the apex of the Delta and the First of the Cataracts of the Nile.[94]. The last two titles he submitted had nothing to do with Egyptology, instead, they were concerned with types of organizations of African and European Societies and how they evolved. [70] Joseph Greenberg rejected Meinhof's and Seligman's views on "Hamite" cultural history, and argued that the term "Hamite" should be completely abandoned, and replaced in linguistics by Afroasiatic languages for the family of five coordinate branches (Semitic, Berber, Ancient Egyptian, Cushitic and Chadic), all of which but the Chadic languages had long been recognised as one group. Now in its 30th printing, this classic presents historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt was a black civilization. Egyptian architects were considered to be the most advanced artistic culture in earlier civilization. Without highlighting this aspect of his life the article is fundamentally incomplete. [95] In an interview in 1985, Diop argued that race was a relevant category and that phenotype or physical appearance is what matters in historic social relations. He initially enrolled to study higher mathematics, but then enrolled to study philosophy in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris. These connections appear not only in linguistics, (see Languages demonstrating section below) but in cultural areas such as religion. in order to disguise their flaws; the susceptibility of their skin to become bruised and discolored, statuesque form of the African male, the raw sexuality, attractiveness and childbearing ability of the nubian queen, white folks had to belittle black folks to appear superior. Sanders, Edith R. (1969), "The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective". He claimed this put African historical linguistics on a secure basis for the first time. Diop later shared the technique he used and the methodology for the melanin dosage in educational journals. What is The Two Cradle Theory?“Anthropologists have invented the ingenious, convenient, fictional notion of the “true Negro,” which allows them to consider, if need be, all the real Negroes on earth as fake Negroes, more or less approaching a kind of Platonic archetype, without ever attaining it. It is the physical appearance which counts. J. D. Walker, "The Misrepresentation of Diop's Views". [4], Diop argued above all that European archaeologists before and after the decolonization had understated and continued to understate the extent and possibility of Black civilizations. The reviewers found that some researchers seemed to have shifted their categories and methods to maintain this "special case" outlook. Eventually, he was able to translate parts of Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity into his ethnic language. The concept of black Egypt was introduced by Cheikh Anta Diop in 1952 and developed in 1954 in his book Nations nègres et culture. [43] Critics of this study in turn hold that it achieves its results by manipulation of data clusters and analysis categories, casting a wide net to achieve generic, general statistical similarities with populations such as Europeans and Indians. The party was shortly thereafter banned for opposing Senghor's efforts to consolidate power in his own hands. [106], As regards living peoples, the pattern of complexity repeats itself, calling into question the merging and splitting methods of Jensen, et al. [22] He singled out the contradiction of "the African historian who evades the problem of Egypt". [3], Diop's work has posed questions about cultural bias in scientific research. His cultural theory attempted to show that Egypt was part of the African environment as opposed to incorporating it into Mediterranean or Middle Eastern venues. These, he held, formed part of a tapestry that laid the basis for African cultural unity, which could assist in throwing off colonialism. It found that some European researchers had earlier tried to make Africans seem a special case, somehow different from the rest of the world's population flow and mix. cit. [37] Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research. Many cultures the world over show similar developments and a mixture of traits. To use an old hackneyed term, Dr Cheikh Anta Diop was a “man on a mission.” His mission was not to only establish the fact that Africans were the most intelligent people on earth, but also to try and find a principle that would be accepted by, and utilized in the unification of Africans across the diaspora.Affectionately called the “Pharaoh of Knowledge”, the university in Dakar, ( UCAD) was renamed Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in his honor. This approach is associated with scholars who question the validity of race as a biological concept. There are common patterns such as circumcision, matriarchy etc., but whether these are part of a unique, gentler, more positive "Southern cradle" of peoples, versus a more grasping, patriarchal-flavored "Northern cradle" are considered problematic[weasel words] by many scholars,[who?] Get this from a library! This ideology was spread with the help of considerable publicity and taught the world over, because it alone had the material and financial means for its own propagation.Thus imperialism, like the prehistoric hunter, first killed the being spiritually and culturally, before trying to eliminate it physically. However, at age 23 years he was matured enough to make his own choices although it appeared as if he may not have had enough maturity to settle on a definite career path at this juncture. They hold that such splitting is arbitrary insertion of data into pre-determined pigeonholes and the selective grouping of samples. Coon used racial rankings of inferiority and superiority, defined "true Blacks" as only those of cultures south of the Sahara, and grouped some Africans with advanced cultures with Caucasian clusters. For instance, Diop suggested that the uses of terminology like "Mediterranean" or "Middle Eastern", or statistically classifying all who did not meet the "true" Black stereotype as some other race, were all attempts to use race to differentiate among African peoples. [59] Under this approach, racial categories such as "Blacks" or "Caucasoids" are discarded in favor of localized populations showing a range of physical variation. University of California, Santa Barbara, and James M. Burns, a professor in history at Clemson University, have both referred to Diop's writings of Ancient Egypt and his theories, characterizing it as "revisionist". Tourneux, Henri (2010), "L'argument linguistique chez Cheikh Anta Diop et ses disciples", pp. [114] Diop's book "Civilization or Barbarism" was summarized as Afrocentric pseudohistory by academic and author Robert Todd Carroll.[8]. Known as the Diopan Theory, this theory promotes the concept that severe climatic and environmental differences impact biological and cultural changes in early human beings, thereby resulting in the loss of pigmentation. Cheikh Anta Diop was born on December 29, 1923 in Diourbel, Senegal. Diop, inspired by the efforts of Aimé Césaire toward these ends, but not being a literary man himself, took up the call to rebuild the African personality from a strictly scientific, socio-historical perspective. Cheikh Anta Diop could have chosen to live in luxury, ignoring the disparity in living standards, also the stratification of the people but he chose to get involved. On a bigger scale, the debate reflects the growing movement to minimize race as a biological construct in analyzing the origins of human populations.