Description
Almost 5000 BC, a complex, highly creative and an original civilisation arose in the Nile Valley. It was one of four major ancient civilisations of the world; the others being Chinese, Indian and Babylonian. Western scholars had argued that the Nile Valley civilisation was Eastern Mediterranean (and hence European) or Near Eastern (and hence Oriental), but definitely not African. However, when its roots were eventually established, there were desperate attempts by Western Scholars to play down as African and to elevate the European (Greece). Thus a new subject called Classics was introduced in schools and universities as the essence of education.
Egyptology then emerged as a new discipline which transformed Egyptians – the founders of philosophy, religion, science, mathematics and medicine – into a death-loving people incapable of abstract thought, thus providing an interesting study in the sociology of knowledge. Scholars were driven by various external pressures (in this case the external pressures were the intensity and pervasiveness of Northern European, American and other colonial racism from the 17th Century), to accept certain ideologies against the available evidence. The book shows that this is the false history that has been taught by western educational establishment for over 100 years; and this is the falsehood which we continue to teach in our schools and universities.
The author concludes that this African narrative, which predates Asian, Middle Eastern and European Histories by thousands of years, and which he has dealt with in the book, should be the subject of every history curriculum in African institutions. And just as European Classical Studies begin with Greece and Rome, and the Chinese Classical Studies begins with Confucius and his times, African Classical studies must begin with Egypt and Nubia.
