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21.01.2018 Feature Article

West Africa, Egypt & Prehistory: Across the Sands

West Africa, Egypt  Prehistory: Across the Sands
21.01.2018 LISTEN

A major factor in how a large part of Africa looks today is what formed deserts prevalent over so much of the continent. An excellent for instance that is generally overlooked is Lake Makgadikgadi that once covered much of southern Africa before desiccation turned the bulk of it into mainly the Kalahari Desert. Its one-time extent is felt be attested by the ancestral form of the small fish called a cichlid. From the common ancestor there evolved a myriad of forms that are known to swim in the Rivers Limpopo, Zambezi, etc, in the east of Africa and the Rivers Okavango plus Congo of mainly the west of the continent.

Whether this can be attributed to the long-distant nuclear war(s) sought in books by such as Zecharia Sitchen, Catherine Acholonu plus many others, the reader will have to decide for his/her-self. The more likely climatic deterioration is well illustrated by the turning of large areas of the north of Africa that we might term as the Magreb (= most of north Africa west of Egypt) into what is described by the Arabic term of sahara (= desert).

This desertification seemingly accelerates after circa (= ca.) 7000/6500 Before Present (= B.P.) and does not cease with what is seen here as the crossover from B.P. dates to Anno Domini (=A.D.) ones at ca. 1500 B.P./ ca. 500 A.D. Satellite plus aerial photographs attest extensive waterways in the Magreb/Sahara in the past. As do accounts by Classical or Greco/Roman writers. The Greek plus Roman texts refer to the reduced size of these waterways.

Examples of the one-time greater size of these expanses of water are attested by lakes called Mega-Chad plus Triton. The term of Lake Mega-Chad was coined to demonstrate that what is now named Lake Chad was once very much greater than it is now. Despite the Classical reports showing that large parts of what today are southern Tunisia/northeast Libya were covered by Lake Triton, all that seems left of this lake is what are now the marshlands called the Shotts/Chotts in south Tunisia.

Another indication of the reduction of the watery areas of the Sahara are more Arabic terms of playas (= now-dry lake-beds) plus wadis (= now-dry river-beds) applied to one-time lakes plus rivers respectively. Scenes depicted on rocks across the Sahara serve to literally illustrate the point.

It may be difficult to visualise now but Saharan rock-art shows the presence of such as hippopotami, crocodiles, marsh-dwelling antelopes, etc. They are all water-loving creatures that would not now survive in the desert. The point is further made by scenes of beds of reeds, boats made from those reeds, men fishing from the boats, etc. Harpoons used to catch some of the fish have been found in excavations across the Sahara Desert.

An especially famous piece of Magrebi/Saharan rock-art is the so-called Great Fish-god of Sefar (Algeria). This may accord with what is regarded by Clyde Winters (Proto-Sahara online; Proto Saharan Religion online; Atlantis in Mexico 2005) as a Sahara-wide deity of half-fish/half-man form. Another hint heading in the same direction is the finding of a dugout-canoe on the western edge of the theorised Lake Mega-Chad at Dufuna (Nigeria).

There have been various attempts at establishing a chronology for this Saharan rock-art. Readers of my other papers in this series will recall it being said that all remain uncertain. One attempt rests on perceived dominant animals in the scenes being depicted.

This leads to the terms of Bubaline from buffaloes or wild cattle; Bovidian from domesticated cattle; Equidian from the depiction of chariots drawn by horses. Richard Smith (What Happened to Ancient Libyans?: Chasing Sources across the Sahara from Herodotus to Ibn Khaldun online) made a further sub-division of the Equidian period that he made obvious was equally tentative. This attached the Bovidian to the people later seen as the Tibu/Tibbu, Tebu/Tebbu, Toubou, Tedda, etc.

Smith (ib.) looked to attribute the easterly of the so-called Equidian or chariot routes to continue with the Garamantes then the Tuaregs. The westerly Equidian/chariot-routes were associated with a sequence of the Gaituli then the Mauri/Moors. The eastern Equidian/chariot-routes run from a bifurcated trail from Garama (= capital of the Garamantes) plus Gadames (another Garamantian town) towards the Agadez (Niger) region and the River Niger. The Western Equidian/chariot-route ran from the Oued or Wadi (== River Draa, Morocco) evidently starting in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and again stretch towards the Niger according to a map of messrs Fage & Oliver (A Short History of Africa 1962).

A well known aspect of the depictions of Saharan chariots is the flying gallop motif. There are various explanations as to where the motif originated. Probably the most famous attribution is to the Aegean art of Creto/Mycenaean date and here the galloping motif attaches to several animals. Another suggestion is that it has nothing to do with the Mycenaean Greeks but to much later Greeks and came via the Greek colony at Cyrene (Libya). Yet another associates the Saharan chariot in full gallop with the introduction of the Roman chariot-racing into north Africa.

Henry Michaux (Journal of Black History 1997) shows that the motif occurs in southern Africa, as does the almost identical type of chariot and which has prompted claims of Indian sources. This all means this is a lot more complicated than might appear at first sight. If the attribution to more than one animal truly indicates the sources of the motif, then Jean-Loic le Quellec (What’s New in the Sahara online) doing so in the Sahara Desert must have interest.

The obvious intention was to give the impression of speed and it is difficult to understand why those using the trails stretching deep into west Africa would need outside agencies to come up with this concept. Making this even more complex is that the kind of chariot depicted at Wadi Zarzi is the quadriga (= four-horsed chariot) said by Herodotus (ca. 2450 B.P. Greek) have been introduced from Libya to the Aegean islands plus the Greek mainland.

Herodotus also tells us about youths from a people called the Nasamones. Nasamonia apparently occupied most of what today is Tunisia and the youths from there are described by Herodotus as having crossed the Sahara. Having done so, they were captured by small blacks. This is usually interpreted by modern authors as indicating the Nasamonian youths had probably reached the headwaters of the River Niger and that their captors were Twa (= Pygmies) or a Twa-like people. The implications of this for our understanding of what was happening in areas immediately north of where Saharan Africa becomes what Cheikh Anta Diop (The African Origin of Civilisation 1984) plus others have called Sub-Saharan Africa are not usually touched on.

It can be assumed that the Nasamones negotiated their way of captivity and in turn should tell us that they were able to converse with their captors. This fact of the Nasamones being able to converse with the Twa should at the very least make us wonder at the frequency of how many times the supposedly impassable Sahara was actually crossed. This can be seen as analogous as to how many times Africa was anciently circumnavigated, especially as this too can be gleaned from details given by Herodotus. Nor is this the only parallel with sea-going voyages.

In reigns of Pharoahs of the 11th/12th or mainly Ramessid Dynasties, Egypt came under attack by groups that the Egyptians labelled by the umbrella term of the Peoples of the Sea. It has long been a suspicion that these Sea-Peoples mostly consisted of dispossessed Hittites plus Mycenaean Greeks. Sea-Peoples in alliance with the Rebu/Lebu, Meshwesh plus other Libyan tribes apparently led by King Meryre came west as invaders of Egypt. Meryre came with not just troops but with his court, family and even his crown jewels. This was not just an army on the march but a nation on the move, the Libyans came not just as would-be conquerors but intended to stay in Egypt.

Alfred Muzzolini (in The origin & development African livestock edd. messrs. Blench & McDonald 2000) evidently feels the Egyptian defeat of these allies did not materially affect events to the west of Egypt. However, Michael Brass (The similarities & differences between the rise of complex societies in west & east Africa online) seemingly indicates otherwise. One consequence of the various repulses of the Sea-Peoples by Egypt was their dispersal across the Mediterranean and greater occurrence of earlier defence-types correspondingly. In the Magreb/Sahara, it seems the Lybico/Berber turned their attention westwards. Here too, prior-built defences also appear to increase in number.

This is especially true of the Dhar Tichitt/Tichitt Culture of mainly Mauritania plus Mali itself the subject of being seen as a harbinger of the great imperial states of west Africa in later centuries. As to what turned this unwanted Lybico/Berber attention westwards plus the resources behind what led to the greater number of Tichitt-era defensive settlements in the form of the walled-villages called ksour (the plural of kour).

Not too much later than the kour-building would be the appearance of what was seen above as having been called the flying gallop motif of Saharan rock-art. It was also seen already that there is considerable ambiguity about this motif but if those looking for this to indicate movement across the desert are correct, there is a difficulty provided by the lack of evidence supporting this Much of this may be due to that evidence still lying buried under the sands of the Sahara.

However, having seen too is some scholars suggest traders were what lay behind the resources for the building of the walled villages. It can probably also be said these traders would need protection. Having seen the suggestion that the chariots illustrating the flying gallop are demonstrating the impression of speed, this fits neatly with the apparently light-framed form of the chariots. This means they were ill-suited for carrying goods of any weight. Herodotus tells us the Garamantes in chariots chased Troglodytes into what are assumed to have been the Tibesti Mountains (mainly Chad); Hanno seems to be saying the same of unnamed charioteers chasing Troglodytes into what is assumed to the Atlas Mountains; Ibn Said wrote of something similar about presumed Tuaregs but this time it is the jungle that is the place of refuge for the pursued.

One thing they have in common is of presumed slave-raids and of intended victims often outrunning their pursuers be they Garamantian or other charioteers or Tuareg horsemen. Another shared feature is of Negroids that were often very light-skinned chasing those with very much darker skins. In short, the mulatto lording it over their dark-skinned brethren, as occurs the world over (& still does in the Sahara).

Here then is another indication of the need for speed. If those wanting the chariot-trails across the Sahara to indicate commerce across the desert are correct, it may be that the charioteers provided shotgun-duty for the traders. On this count, the linkage of the Garamantes with traders across the desert is implicit in the title of “The Garamantes & Trans-Saharan Enterprise across the Sahara in Classical Times” for an article by Roger Law (JAH 1967). More of the same comes with the probable Garamantian connection with the Mande who were also called Wangara which was a west African synonym for traders.

What this seems to show is the continuation of a long-established commerce. Both the Nasamones plus the Garamantes were seen as Children of Garama itself a Grecisisation of Wangara/Wa nGara (= Children of Gara) and further seen in Garama already seen as the Garamantian capital. In Nasamones territory was the shrine of Amon/Ammon at Siwa (Egypt). Herodotus tells us that the Greek legends had it that the shrines to Jupiter here equated with Amon/Ammon at Siwa and Dodona (Greece) were founded by black birds.

What lay behind this is also touched on by Herodotus. He wrote that the Troglodytes (= Men of the Caves) equated above with the Tibu/Tibbu (= Men of the Rocks) had a bat/bird-like mode of speech that was also recorded of the Tibu in the 19th c. Thus it was black humans who were responsible for the establishing the temples of Jupiter Ammon at Siwa plus Dodona. This is strengthened by Charles Meek (Journal of African History = JAH 1960) being one those translating Nasamones as “Negroes of Amon”

Various online sites inform us Ma/Amma/Ammon/Amon/Amin/Amun are but variants of what appear to be among African names/part-names across Africa. The presumably related Ny-ami/ame is regarded as the name of a god of the Akan ethnia of Ghana, of the Lozi of Zambia plus the Luyena people stretching from Angola to Zambia according to the article on Nyame on Wikipedia. Nyami/Nyame (plus variants) is also comparable to the Nyambe/Nyambi that Traditional African Religions (online) says is distributed from Botswana to Cameroon.

In turn we now see that this is relevant for what Classical plus Islamic writers state about various Saharan groups. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus (2050 B.P.) were writing about various groups trying to the Siwa shrine in west Egypt. Herodotus says Cambyses was a Persian conqueror of Egypt who sent an army to demolish Siwa and that it was destroyed by desert sandstorms. Diodorus wrote of Greeks led by Alexander the Great coming to honour Siwa getting lost but led to the shrine at Siwa by black birds.

From what was shown just above, these “birds” were very plainly black humans. To these Greek sources is added to by Islamic writers. One Islamic source is that called Toffut al-Alabi. It is cited by Ivan Van Sertima (They Came Before Columbus 1976) as showing Blacks were still guiding groups across the Sahara between Egypt and Mali. Chihab al-Umari (14th c. Syrian) and it is this same non-African who tells us about both the journey of Abubakri II from Mali across the Atlantic to Mexico plus that of Musa (his brother & successor) from Mali across the Sahara to Egypt and back. Another non-African but Islamic source is al-Masudi (10th c. A. D. Iraqi). He cites the story of an Egyptian Pharoah reaching somewhere in west Africa. In like vein should be the Islamic text named Tarikh es-Sudan (= History of the Soudan) telling of magicians from west Africa called by Egypt to participate in the Egyptian belief system.

What Herodotus says about Nasamones who had gone south of the Sahara and were captured by Africans who were evidently taken to as far west as the sources of the River Niger was raised already. To this added are the journeys of Mago from Carthage across the desert recorded by Athanasius (ca. 1600-ca. 1550B.P.). In other papers of this series, there is reference to Romans having several such crossings recorded. At the very least, this should bring us back to once again to wondering just how often the Sahara was crossed in antiquity, in much the same way that it was wondered just how frequently Africa was rounded in antiquity.

MORE LONG-DISTANCE TRAVELLERS
More long-distance migrations would be shown by the comparisons of material from both sides of the Atlantic dating from geologists would label as the Late Pleistocene and archaeologists would name the Late Upper Palaeolithic. On the European side this would mean the Solutrian Culture of Iberia (= Spain & Portugal) and the Pre-Clovis Culture of North America. This has prompted criticism that has often been harsh. One simple point raised by Jack Forbes (Americans Discover Europe 2007) is why would would-be migrants turn west to risk the dangers of migration going west via refugia of Pleistocene ice-floes when the warmer south in Africa beckoned? The supporters of the comparisons would explain differences between the Solutrian and the Pre-Clovis/Early Clovis sequences by the slow movement(s) across the Atlantic.

This would make it an example of what have come to be termed third-party regions. All too frequently, archaeologists have accepted traits at some distance between them yet attest large differences. It will be shown shortly that archaeology does not provide the only markers of migration, as particularly shown by intellectual exchanges/cultural diffusion or so-called “Empires of the Mind”. Another line is folklore (sometimes called the archaeology of the mind) and to this can be added linguistics plus genetics. The genetics do reinforce many of the arguments of an Asian origin for the bulk of tongues of the American Indians/Native Americans (= Amerinds) with differences perhaps made explicable by a third-party region. In the case of the Asia-to-Americas, the likely third-party region was a land-bridge where the Bering Sea/Straits now exist for Stephen Oppenheimer (East of Eden 2003).

Oppenheimer (ib.) also refers to more Pleistocene (= last Ice Age) migrants but this time eastwards as part of what have been called Out-of-Africa movements. This has been variously labelled as the Route of Strandloopers, Beachcombers or Oceanic Negroes. Differences along so great a distance are not unexpected and genetics show that interactions with groups already settled led to dilution of the African component.

However, the phenotype remains stubbornly African almost the length of the Beachcomber/Oceanic Negro Trail. This is reinforced by the terms of “Aethiopian (= African)” to the black/dark-skinned populations from east Africa to much of India; the Dravidians being shown as having the African/Africoid snub-nose; their Tamil relatives being included among the Sudroids (= Blacks) of India; the west African term of Guinea applied to the large Pacific island of New Guinea; Papuan meaning black and curly-haired for many of its peoples; Melanesia (= Black Islands, esp. Fiji); Blackfellas being a former name for the Koori/Aborigines of Australia; Kun-lun apparently being a Chinese equivalent of the Arabic Zanj/Malay Papuan.

Dravido/Harappan ships then the Tamil kattumaran plus sangara or shangadam continued this. These Tamil rafts took Indians eastwards to their Austronesian neighbours in Indonesia. Small mammals from India (?) on Madagascar shown by messrs. Hingston et al (Reconstruction of the colonisation of southern Madagascar online) and Blench (New Palaeozoological evidence for the settlement of Madagascar online) seemingly shows they took their rafts westwards. So too does the “The Story of the Half-Drowned Sailor” showing the Indians knew the use of the monsoon system. As does Cyril Hromnik (Indo-Africa 1984) saying Indian musum-basa (= monsoon-boats) led to the east African name of Mozambique (?)

Austronesians going east of Austronesia/Indonesia founded colonies on remote Pacific islands at first using rafts then canoes according to Arthur Haddon plus James Hornell (The Canoes of Oceania 1936-8). Combining Pliny noting rati (= rafts) and what Roger Blench (Austronesians in Madagascar & on the East African coast online), there is some reason to assume this pattern was echoed on the Indian Ocean west of Indonesia to as far west as Madagascar . The Austronesian presence here seems proven not by archaeology but by linguistics plus folklore. This is especially demonstrated by the Austronesian basis of the Malagasy language of Madagascar.

Phoenicians were sent by Pharoah Nekau/Necho to explore east African coasts and about the same time the Phoenician colony of Carthage (= Poeni/Puni in Latin) sent Himilco to west Europe and Hanno west Africa. Another Phoenician colony was at Gdr/Gadir (= Gades in Lat. = Cadiz, Spain) and one of its vessels was wrecked somewhere on the east African coast. According to Strabo (ca. 2050 B.P. Greek) it was found long after this by Eudoxus (ca. 2200 B.P. Greek). According to messrs. Cary and Warmington (The Ancient Explorers 1963), the findspot was what the Greeks called Prason (= Cape Delgado shared between Moz. & Tanz.)

The closeness in date strongly suggests collusion. That of Hanno along west Africa is held by Pliny, Martianus Capella, etc, to have gone round Africa but by no-one else. That sent by Necho was crewed by Phoenicians who said that for part of the journey, the sun was on their right. This was doubted by Herodotus but convinces modern opinion that they rounded Africa. The Phoenicians stopped en route to thrice sew and harvest crops.

The Periplus (= Voyage) of Hanno is thought to have happened. This agreement is not universal but nearly so. The collusion argument suggests ancient voyages round Africa may have occurred rather more frequently than the Classical texts allow us to indicate. So too does the fact the Phoenicians were apparently able to stop and sow crops in areas with growing seasons totally opposite to those of the Phoenico/Punic homelands. That they then did and waited for the crops without raising local hostility, should be taken as showing prior contacts and also feeds into the suggested greater frequency of the circumnavigations of Africa than usually reported and described.

The emphasis on the frequency of the ancient roundings of Africa is to call attention to the “primitive” nature of the vessels held to have been involved. Nor is it generally acknowledged just what the being able to converse with the locals that whether Nasamones and Saharan Blacks or Phoenico/Punics with other Africans means this can be set alongside one of the harsher criticisms of the alleged Afrocentricism of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena series of books.

This particular criticism is one that has it that because a Pharoah on occasion came back from attacking Kush/Nubia with a Kushite ruler tied to the front of his ship, there can have been no kinship between Egypt and Kush. Ignoring the various other lines especially telling against this very opinion, also ignored by our same critic who was a specialist in matters of the ancient Aegean are such details as the bringing back of seven Semitic chiefs from what archaeologists label Syro/Palestine in the same manner. That is head down attached to the prow of a Pharoahonic ship.

Strangely and surely inconsistently, is that this does not prompt suggested non-contact with Syro/Palestine. Indeed, far from it. It should be said that whether seen as coming from the east as in books by Petrie (The Making of Egypt 1939), Rohl (The Test of Time series) plus many others or from the west by Catherine Acholonu (in the Before Adam series of books); a major difficulty is chronology. However, it remains the case that the most frequent lines of argument of such contact is that the elements of statuary, Proto-Pyramids, etc, came along a Mesopotamia/Syro-Palestine/Sinai/Egypt route. The statuary will be touched on in a section below. On the other hand, there is more than a little reason for seeing the antecedents of the Pyramids against an Africo/Egyptian background.

This much is argued by Stan Hendrickx (Gottinger Miszellen 2007) and is part of a long sequence that was eventually to produce the Pyramids of Dynastic Egypt. Even the Stepped form of Pyramid can be convincingly attributed to a local sequence of rearranged mastabas stacked up on each other. Underlying this are structures proven to exist across northern parts of the Sahel. This has been along the lines of what led to the Stepped Pyramids rather than the developed tradition.

It has long been known that the earliest known depictions of Pyramids resemble the cone-shapes of the Kushite Pyramids that are supposedly all much later than those of Egypt not the wide-based triangular forms that are the norm in Egypt. The Egyptian Stepped Pyramid seems to relate to mud-built structures to as far west as Ghana plus Nigeria. They are referred to by Nai Nii-Tete as Otutu shrines and the site called Igbo built Pyramids for those of Ghana plus Nigeria respectively.

Something of the inspiration behind the Pyramids being owed to trying to resemble mountains brings us to a comparison made by Rafique Jairazbhoy (Ramesses III: Father of America 1992). Jairazbhoy (ib.) calls attention to an Egyptian depiction of a mountain with Horus atop being worshipped by the Goddess of the West. He regards the symmetrical undulated form of the Egyptian mountain as closely relating to that of the earliest mound built by the Olmec Culture at La Venta (Mexico) that is equally conceived as an undulating fluted mound.

From this it emerges that long distances were travelled across the Sahara many times, as did the several around Africa. This brought a variety of influences to west Africa that once there were the subject of mediation there. Having been so filtered in parts of west Africa, there was some transmission to elsewhere. Despite the changes meaning that what is seen outside Africa will not be identical to the original, there is enough of those originals for the African elements to be recognised.

OF SEA AND SAND
The sea of this sub-title is mainly the Atlantic and the sand is clearly that of the Sahara of course. There is another interesting parallel of sea and sand that comes out of comparisons of the Arabic-derived words of Sahel plus Swahili. The Sahara viewed as a sea of sand leads to the term of Sahel meaning shore. The very similar Swahili has been applied to east African groups who are very definitely sea-minded with the whole of the Indian Ocean as their point of focus. The Niger/Congo (=N/C) tongues are ancestral to those called Bantu and the Swahili language is of Bantu type.

However, it does have an Arabic overlay apparently mainly to do with maritime matters. This should remind us of the Irish Celts of a long distance away where seafaring people of some antiquity seemingly had nearly all their naval terminology replaced by one in Latin but even more so by that of the Norse. Further proofs of the African origin of the Swahili come from an alternative name for the Swahili in Shirazi. It was once fashionable to regard Shirazi as indicating Persian sources, as exampled by the town-name of Shiraz (Persia/Iran). Not only is this now removed but the name of Shirazi is now proven in various works by Felix Chami to be a compound made up from Bantu words.

One more connection of sea plus sand may lie in what the hyper-aridity caused by the climatic degradation that turned the one-time lush and verdant Magreb into the almost lifeless Sahara led to. What this may turn out to be is migration by sea that took the Capsian abroad. An opinion that is apparently held by some archaeologists is that the Capsian of east Africa (esp. the Eburran of Kenya) relates to that of the Magreb (named after the town of Gafsi or Capsi, Tunisia).

Another viewpoint is that the Kenyan and Magrebi Capsian have no connection and that the real relatives of the Magrebi Capsian are mostly to the west. As the desiccation of the Sahara increased, some migration eastwards to the Nile Valley and Egypt seems probable. There seems to have been both temporal plus spatial overlap of the Proto-Capsian, Oranian (= a coastal variant of the Mauruso/Iberian?), Mauruso/ Iberian (so called here to more truly reflect the probable point of origin than does Ibero-Maurusian/ Ibero-Mauritanian), etc. The desiccation of the region may also have triggered these groups to migrate but this time by sea

This would be to Iberia (= Spain & Portugal), where both forms of the Mauruso/Iberian plus Capsian are known. Migration would be an obvious answer. This seems shown by a widespread African folklore. It shows an apparent looking by Egypt to the south/southwest, west African ethniae to the northeast plus east African ethniae to the north/northwest. If this all indicates somewhere in the Sahara, this is unlikely to be very wide of the target.

A further pointer to this could be aspects of what was written about the Gana/Gana Empire. What appear to be variant spellings include Ganar, Gannar, Canar, Cannar, etc. It seems that out of what Clyde Winters (Atl. in Mex. ib.) has described as the empire-like spread of the Tichitt Culture came the variously spelt Ouagadougou/Wagadu Empire that came to be named from the title of Gana (= King).

The name seems reflected in the Ganaria extremis (= Cape Ganar = Cap Blanco = Ras Noaudhibou, Morocco) described by Ptolemy (ca. 1850 B.P. Egypto-Greek). The name of the Canary Islands has been supposed to derive from large dogs (= canes in Latin) but of which there seems little sign. More probable is that it fits with the names of Gana plus Ganar. At opposite ends of the Ganar Coast (= more or less the coastal fringe of the Sahara) are Rivers Dar/Dra/Draa. This is a name in the Wolof language of mainly Senegal as the southern Dra and the Oued/Wadi (= River) Draa as the northern Dra.

The Lacroix (1998) study of Ptolemy’s map of entitled “Africa in Antiquity” has it that Wolof tradition tells us the Ganar Coast was once ruled by the Wolofs but that they abandoned it. It may be that something written by Alvise da Cadamosto (15th c. Italian working for Spain) pertains to this. He wrote of puny men on the Mauritanian side and those that were much more robust on the Senegalese side of the river. In short, the desertification seemingly continued to be a determinant in whether to migrate or not.

To the cross-desert folklore noted above is added that the word of cisse is applied to Egyptians who could afford to ride mares according to Moustaffa Gadalla (Exiled Egyptians 1999). This presumably indicates the upper end of society. Variants of the word appear to include sisse, sise, sese, etc. As sese, it occurs in the name of the of Sese Island from whence came the chief god of the Buganda people of east Africa and where Buganda chiefs docked their fleets of royal canoes. Frederick Wicker (Egypt & the Mountains of the Moon 1991) holds the Sese Islands of Lake Nyanza (= ex-Lake Victoria) appear as the islands in Lake Sese/Sisi mentioned in the Egyptian Am-Duat/Tuat (= Book of the Underworld).

Myths about Memnon of Kush passed to the Greeks. His mother was Eos who as Dawn became tied to the sunrise (= the east) with further eastern links shown by that with Susa (hence Susa/Susia as alternatives) plus Susa (capital of Elam, now part of Iran) as the city of Memnon (acc. to Herodotus). However, Greeks also regarded him as “King of Ethiopia & Egypt” and for the Semitic scribes from Assyria plus Israel, Kush was south of Egypt. Cissia was an alternative spelling for the name of the mother of Memnon and Cisse is said by Cheikh Anta Diop (The African Origin of Civilisation 1974) to be an African family name in Africa.

Cisse as a common family name is probably best known people in the United Kingdom via that of the French professional footballer named Djibril Cisse who played there was some years. His family was originally from Ivory Coast. Another for instance of this in west Africa is the Sisse clan-name of the ruling family of the Soninke founders and rulers of the Wagadu/Ghana Empire itself probably the earliest of the great empires of west Africa.

From Wicker (ib.) also comes the comment that the lanner plus peregrine falcons marry in distribution across Africa. He suggests their habit of rising from the cliffs, combined with their perfect eyesight plus fast swoop probably led to the Egyptian concept of the soul rising to meet Ra (the Egyptian sun-god) and it will be shown the human-headed ba-bird represented the divine soul throughout Egyptian civilisation. This was far from the only Egyptian observation of birds, as another is described in the Egyptian text of The Tale of Wen-Amon.

Here Wen-Amon compared the flight of birds with a ship in full sail, so shows Egyptian using birds in a navigational role. The more so given that not only is the ba-bird constant companion of the solar boat en route to the Otherworld but in “A Man & his Ba”, the Ba (= Divine Soul) guide the “spirit” in all its aspects “into the harbour” by which is meant the Otherworld.

More of the same is shown by what Classical plus Islamic texts say about various Saharan groups. In particular, there is what Herodotus (ca. 2450 B.P. Greek) plus Diodorus Siculus (2050 B.P. Greek) say about groups trying to reach the shrine of Amon/Ammon at Siwa. A Persian ruler of the conquered Egypt was Cambyses. He sent troops to destroy Siwa but they appear to have got lost in a sandstorm. Diodorus describes how Alexander the Great plus other Greeks also got lost en route to Siwa. However, black birds suddenly appeared and led Alexander to Siwa.

Birds used in way-finding are far more familiar to us in what James Hornell (1946) described as “The Role of Birds in Early Navigation”, most notably that of Noah and his ark. Hornell (ib.) gave further examples of this having occurred in the Sahara where it was described as birds plus stars were used in crossing sand of the Sahara as when crossing the sae of the Atlantic to give yet another point of comparison of the Sahara and the Atlantic. Ivan Van Sertima (They Came Before Columbus 1976) cited the Toffut al-Alabi (12th c. Arabic) saying Africans were still leading groups across the desert but this time, it was the great caravanserai that were being guided across the Sahara.

Given that the destinations of these caravans stretched from Egypt to west Africa, it will be no great surprise there were reflections of this in west Africa. This is pertinent for the various claims for west Africans having crossed the Atlantic. One part of Africa (i.e. Egypt) was seen to have an account of birds in flight akin to fluttering of the sails of a ship in the wind. This parallels similar tales in Polynesia. Van Sertima (ib.) called attention to Mali knowing the world was gourd-shaped (= round) and this too has analogies in Polynesia where the nautical link is undoubted.

Notions of journeys across in pre-camel days are usually ignored or dismissed. The classic study on this subject in English is by Edward Bovill (The Golden Trade of the Moors 1964). He is one the writers calling attention to the Equidian/chariot-routes often compared with the period of chariot-use in the Aegean. Herodotus wrote of pack-horses with containers of water strapped to their sides. It is also to see the Garamantes could have been engaged in “Trans-Saharan Enterprise in Classical Times” if there was no trans-Saharan enterprise to engage in. It may or may not be true that the camel came into the Sahara with the Romans but there is no camel corps a la French rule in the Sahara yet Roman writers report expeditions across the desert that includes accompanying an army south of the Sahara

Birds as navigational aids over thousands of trackless sands equally match that of thousands of trackless sea. It is useful if this were attested by traits at either end but even when the great trading caravans operated using camels; nearly all the proof is not archaeological but from folk-life plus literature being that this is measured in changes in architecture plus written sources. Here are yet more examples where early journeys across the Sahara parallel those across the Atlantic.

The instances of birds used for way-finding in the desert “the way we do at sea” (acc. to sources cited by Hornell ib.) would be relevant crews in the Atlantic seas from the Great-Heads period to that of Abubakri. This seems to be what is shown by James Hornell (Mariner’s Mirror = MM 1946) plus John Dyson (For Gold, God & Glory 1991) for areas near the west African coast. This also occurs in a list of what Ivan Van Sertima (African Presence in Early America ed. Van Sertima 1999) cites as monarchic or priestly/royal traits.

The ba-bird also apparently connects with “Opening the Mouth” ceremony” that seems widespread but clearly most completely known in ancient Egypt and known too in the Americas according to Rafique Jairazbhoy (Ancient Egyptians on in America 1974), Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods 2001) plus others (online). It is evidently recorded in west Africa by various studies in Mali; Stephen Degast (noted in Bibliography of Social & Cultural Anthropology 1993) in Togo; Joseph Olumide Lucas (The Religion of the Yorubas 1949 & 1997) in Nigeria; by Eva Meyerowitz (The Divine Kingship in Ghana & Ancient Egypt 1960) in Ghana.

The Opening the Mouth rite being known in Mesoamerica would seem proven by Hancock (ib.) noting p’acha evidently meaning “to open the mouth” there. Hancock (ib.) also shows a priest plus four others sent dead rulers to the Otherworld in Egypt plus Olmec/Maya Mexico. Another shared Egyptian and Olmec/Maya trait is shown by Jairazbhoy (ib.) in detailed form from the Book of the Dead (Egypt) and Juxtlahuaca cave-art (Mexico). The scene where the mouth was opened shows the corpse kneeling with the priest wearing spotted skins respectively from leopards or jaguars. They hold a snake-like object in one hand with the implement that was used to actually to open the mouth nearby.

The Pschent (= Double-crown) makes an early appearance in Egypt being a marker in Late Pre-Dynastic times of the uniting of Upper (= south) and Lower (= north) Egypt under a southern (= Kushite/Nubian) dynasty (= 00 & 0). It consists of the Hedjet (= White Crown symbolic of Kush/south Egypt) plus the Deshret (=Red Crown symbolising Lower Egypt). The Pschent seemingly was more associated with Horus but of goddesses, Mut (= Mother) seems most closely tied. Her attribute was of a vulture who from being seen as a couple of male plus female, fierce protection of and nurturing the young was the embodiment of motherhood for the Egyptians.

Messrs. Somo (The Kiswahili/Bantu Research Unit for the Advancement of the Ancient Egyptian Language online) and Lucas (ib.) take this further. Ferg Somo (ib.) says the Egyptian vulture is widespread across southern Africa. Further is not only was the vulture called Pharoah’s chicken but on the Pschent the normal rising cobra ready to spit venom in the eyes of Pharoah’s enemies (= uraeus) is sometimes replaced by the vulture of Mut. Lucas (ib.) shows Mut should become Mutu in west Africa combined with Yoruba Ye (= the Living One) plus a dropped t became Yorubic Ye –muhu (= Mother Mut). The Egyptian double-crown combining the cobra of Pharoah plus the vulture of his Queen is shown by Jairazbhoy 1974) plus Van Sertima (1998) on Olmec/Maya crowns.

Royalty in Egypt has been said by Donald MacKenzie (Myths of Pre-Columbian America 1924) to be closely associated with the colour of purple. Such works by Marie Dockett (Ways to have an African Wedding online); Rosetta Bartlett-George (African Themed Wedding Ceremony online); The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin (re. Dashiki suits online) say the same of west African Royalty. Ivan Van Sertima (African Presence in Early America (1992 & 1999) cites sources saying that the colour purple connects with the priest-kings that are held to be represented by the Olmec Great Heads and with several Mayan chiefs.

A feature that is well known from ancient Egypt is the wearing of false beards apparently called Puntite and best known via the story of Hatshepsut. Though called the “Female Pharoah”, she evidently had to legitimise her rule as Pharoah by such a beard. Some writers have expressed the view that for the Niger/Congo (=N/C) languages, Bantu is an equivalent not for N/C tongues for southern Africa and that Punt is just another term for N-C/Bantu languages. This would show such as the Acholonu (ib.) view that Punt was in west Africa and presumably would include Puntite beards. More artificial beards are those recorded in sources attested by Ivan Van Sertima (1992) among the Olmec/Maya sequence of Mexico.

Another feature famously known from Egypt is the ceremonial boat that accompanied the funeral processions of Egyptian Pharoahs. Strands of this have been traced by James Hastings (ed. Encyclopedia of Religion & Ethics 1908-22) plus Percy Talbot (Life in Southern Nigeria 1926) as the canoes used as coffins in west Africa (esp. Ghana & Nigeria). The processions appear in even more vestigial form as those echoing those of Osiris as the boat-like floats appearing in the Carnivals of Rio de Janeiro plus New Orleans according to Corey Gilkes (Trinidad Carnival: Afri-Caribbean Resistance online). Van Sertima (ib.) plus Clyde Winters (What is the Origin of Guatemalan Tomb Writing? online) shows that boats in processions are clearly demonstrated in the Olmec/Maya sequence of Mesoamerica.

The umbrella today is an everyday item of use but it tends to be forgotten that it was once item of prestige for rulers and holy men that once included the Pharoahs who were once rulers and high priests of Egypt. Very similar circumstances attest the parasol/umbrella as a symbol of wets African monarchy, as shown by such as Valerie Hansen (Voyages in World History 2008), Susan Brooks (Prehistoric Peoples 2010) plus many others. Clyde Winters (Atlantis in Mexico) listed the west African traits of one of the figures aboard a vessel on the sea depicted on a stele at the Epi-Olmec site of Izapa (Mex.) that continue the kingly/priestly use of Olmec/Maya parasols.

… AND THEY TURNED TO STONE
The research for this series of articles turned up what seemed to be a surprisingly consistent tradition but one that would be totally dismissed on acceptance of what is written by some very expert opinions.

A start is made with the Buddhas stretching right across Asia but it should be realised that much of this has been touched on in earlier papers will concentrate on the expert comments about to the heads. What might appear to be curly-haired heads are explained as representing full statues that may be of giant size as stretching along but heads only plus forms of busts are also known.

In particular the hair of the Buddhas has been discussed by such diverse as The Buddha Image: Its Origin & Development by Yuvran Krishan (1996), The Cyclopedia of Useful Knowledge (Google extract online), Buddha Statues: Hairstyle on Dhammu Wheel site by Rui Sousa (online), etc. They combine to give a variety of reasons why they have the form they have. This includes that the hair depicts chakras (= nerve-points?); hair pulled out by the roots to give an appearance that Europeans deem to be curly; that 108 “martyr” snails crawled on to the head of the Buddha sitting in the sun to cool him down; that the curls of the heads of Buddhas represent the influence of the curly heads of the Greek god named Apollo, the wearing of some kind of cap.

Hinduism is generally seen as the parent of Buddhism with Buddhism as a cultic refinement of Hinduism on some of the brief online histories. In this way, Buddhism would presumably represent one reform of the rigid caste-system of Hinduism that is assumed further to include Sikhism then the Islam so successful in the northeast (= East Pakistan = Bangladesh) plus northwest of “Greater” India (= Pakistan, India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka). The online sites noted tell us that Hinduism has been in Greater India for 19,000 years; is named from the River Sindhu Persianised as Hind (hence Indus, India, Hinduism); the most popular Hindu deity said to be Krishna who has a colour and/or giant form that is from God’s will or “because that is how it is”. This does not suggest much allowance for outside elements and it should noted that Hinduism has its fanatics no less than do Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.

Giant statues also mean their heads would also be of giant size too. A head of giant size but appearing as a carving on a rock-face near Medina (Saudi Arabia) is the head of a figure that has been called “Ishmael”. It is brought to our attention separately by Runoko Rashidi plus Wayne Chandler in African Presence in Early Asia (edited by Runoko Rashidi & Ivan Van Sertima 1985 & subsequent reprints). This piece of Medina carving has all the difficulties attendant on dating any example of rock-art and will mean that this is problematic in terms of date and attribution.

Another belonging here but not because of large size is one carved on a stele found at Zinjirli (Syria). It seemingly fits a pattern of having been set up as markers of propaganda throughout the Assyrian Empire by Esarhaddon. King Esarhaddon is depicted as a giant and there are two bound figures portrayed as much smaller. One of them is Abdi-Milkuti (king of Tyre) but the appearance of one of smaller figures is the relevant factor here. Such authorities as William Smith, Peter Shinnie, Jean Leclant, etc, are cited by Peggy Brooks-Bartram (in Egypt: Child of Africa 1994 & subsequent reprints ed. Van Sertima) as saying the appearance of this third person is a mistake on the part of the sculptor.

The brief outline concerning Memnon touched on his having come from the east. With his mother held to have the name of Eos there would be some inevitability about this as Eos translates as Dawn, so became linked with the dawn rising in the east. Eos was further described as Susian/Susienne in Greek mythology. This was also reflected in the alternative name of Cissia for Eos and comes from the placename of Susa the one-time capital of Elam that became a winter capital of the Persian Empire. This city was way to the east and this is emphasised by Herodotus referring to Susa as the city of Memnon. Martin Bernal (Volume II of the Black Athena series1991) tells us there are images of Memnon as a white-skinned Thracian.

If it is correct that the head of the Great Sphinx at Giza (Egypt) was carved separately from the rest of the monument, this was an early entrant for the description of Great Heads. Other large heads are those of the gigantic statues of Egyptian Pharoahs plus their queens, most famously that of Ramesses II itself the subject of the poem called Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (19th c. Eng.) describing the statue of Ramesses II found dismembered by Giovanni Belzoni in 1816. So too were those carved at Tanis (Egypt) as part of the propaganda put out by Ramesses III that Rafique Jairazbhoy (Ancient Egyptians in America 1974) says were of two Semites, a Libyan, a Nubian plus a Negro.

Errors are included in the explanations given as why the Great Heads of the Olmec Culture of south Mexico, Guatemala, Belize plus Honduras have the form they have. The list includes (a) errors; (b) portrayals of “baby-faces”; (c) images of were-cats/jaguars (= shamans/witch-doctors turned into jaguars); (d) showing of congenital diseases; (e) sculpting of genetic throwbacks; (f) originals of basalt spheres too hard to be carved with the soft copper tools available at the time; (g) that the sculptors had to use techniques that would avoid fracturing the stone; (h) depiction of players of the ball-game of the Olmec/Mayan sequence.

From this it will be seen that the hair of Buddhas has been “explained” in various ways. It may be that there are others that have not been listed that are more plausible but that of hair pulled out by the roots designed to give the appearance of curly hair seems highly unlikely. As to the volunteer snails being martyred to cool the sweaty brow of an overheated Buddha, it is more than a little difficult to treat this is as anymore but a joke but one that quickly loses appeal when we realise what may be behind this. What seems at work here is to deny the mix of tight curls, snub noses, black colouration represent a Negro appearance of many of these Buddhas.

The relatively recent completion of a giant Buddha in southern China further extends the distribution of these giant statues from those of Bamiyan (Afghanistan) blown up by the Taliban to. Of interest here is William Gillespie (The Land of Sinnim: Glances at Missionary work in China 1854) being cited by Alexander Hislop (The Two Babylons 1858). Gillespie (ib.) plus Hislop (ib.) are among those telling us that a local form of Buddha was Wat-Yune who was depicted as a Negro.

Hinduism has its main Trimurti (= Trinity) of Brahma (the Evolver), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Siva/Shiva (both the Regenerator & Destroyer) with Krishna (= originally the 8th avatar of Shiva) apparently seen as its most popular deity. A manifestation of Brahma shows him as Kala relating to Kali with both being Indian words meaning Black. An article by Walter Muhammed mentions Vishnu in the title of “The Black God & the Ancient Mysteries & Why is Vishnu Dark Blue?” An article by the Indian writers named Sodhi Ram and Shan Sant Gurdev has Siva described as “The Black Dreadlocked God of India”. His Krishna avatar means Black and has gigantic aspects in Shyama (= Black giant?) plus Jaganoth.

Carvings were seen of “Ishmael” as rock-art at Medina plus three other figures on a stele at Zinjirli. The Ishmael rock-art has some resemblance to the head of a Nuba chief from Kenya shown by Ivan Van Sertima (They Came Before Columbus 1975). Of the individuals represented on the Zinjirli stele, two were identified but the third was not and his form as carved was “a mistake”. That mistake according to the very expert views seen to have been cited by Brooks-Bartram (ib.) was that third figure had been wrongly sculpted as a Negro.

One of their comments was decidedly curious one that the unnamed person could be regarded as a Kushite but not as a Negro. This surely has behind it the concept that all Africans were/are physically alike. The third individual is none other Ushanahuru son of Taharquo (King of the combined kingdoms of Kush plus Egypt). What makes the claim that Taharquo, Ushanahuru, etc, were not truly African is the attribution of the Kushites to the long discredited and mythical Hamito/Semites. In any case, our quoted trio of expert opinions do not appear to have allowed for what happens when such a mistake is made. It should be remembered the Zinjirli stele was an important propaganda piece and no mistake would be tolerated. Moreover, it should be asked how is it that the sculptor could a Phoenician plus one of his own race accurately but not an African who he had as a model in front of him?

How some of this entered the folklore and/or mythology of parts of Europe has been briefly discussed. This especially means about the individual named Memnon. Cissia as an alternative name for the mother of Memnon was seen to connect her with words known right across the continent of Africa. This becomes relevant for where the Semitic scribes of Babylonia, Assyria plus Israel put the kingdom of Kush ruled by Memnon. They had reason to know where Kush was and they too consistently placed it in Africa south of Egypt. The very few images of Memnon as a white-skinned Caucasian from Thrace are more than offset by easily the bulk of his ancient images showing his head with all the basic traits of how Africans were depicted in antiquity (esp. in Greek art).

Whether of the Pre-Dynastic or the Dynastic period(s) in Egypt, it was already shown there is some belief the head of the Great Sphinx was carved separately from the rest of the monument. Herodotus was one of the earliest writers to be used by a series of French authors from Count Volney onwards towards the savants taken by Napoleon to Egypt. These French scholars and beyond into the 19th c., consistently saw the face on the Sphinx as that of an African. This also emerges from the Domingo drawings published by John West (The Serpent I in the Sky 1996) plus the Willard photographs published by Ivan Van Sertima (Early America Revisited 1998). This includes the comments by Robert Schoch (cited by on Facts, Schematics, More, etc, online) that the face is that of an “African, Nubian, Negro”, etc.

West Africa is the far side of Africa from Egypt. African stone circles include Namoratunga (Kenya), Nabta Playa (Egypt), Senegambia stone rings, etc. That of Nabta Playa is one of the oldest in the world, Namoratunga translates as Men of Stone and the circles of Senegal plus Gambia (= Senegambia) are held to be the largest grouping of such complexes of stone rings in the world.

Folklore the length of west Africa tells us of giants along the coast from Umlindi of western South Africa in the south to Atlas in Morocco in the north. He was one of four giants turned to rock by the goddess named Djobela. His domain was the southwest of Africa and Cape Town (western South Africa) in particular. His name is purely Bantu and is also the Bantu name of Table Mountain. More instances may include rocks seen as being those of human faces, as at Zuma (near Abuja, Nigeria), Blo Degbo (Paynesville, nr. Monrovia, Liberia), etc. Atlas was yet another giant turned to stone in an incident involving yet another female, this time the chopped-off head of Medusa that Perseus turned on Atlas and turned him to rock

This has a sort of parallel in the story of a name of Geryon being beheaded by Hercules at Gdr/Gadir (= Gades = Cadiz) and his head was buried the Torre de Hercule at Corunna (Galicia in n/west Spain). Another giant called the Spanish Giant had his head cut off somewhere in Brittany/Normandy by Arthur according to Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th c. Brit.). Another giant was Beler but we are not told he had his head cut off but his near neighbour at Land’s End (Cornwall, Eng.) was Jack who was noted be-header of giants. More giants are those called Fomhoire Afraicc (= F. from Africa); an Iberian branch was ruled by Tethba; an Irish branch was ruled by Balar who virtually only consisted of a head that was cut off by Lugh in another peninsular area.

Our look at the Olmec Great Heads turned up a wide variety of reasons why they look they do. The very fact of so many put forward resembles what was said above regarding the Buddhas and claimed African kinships. In both cases, the ultimate aim seems to deny any link with Africa. It is more than a little difficult to accept this. The first rediscovery of a Great Head when found by a decidedly non-African in the 1860s prompted the claim of it being Ethiopian (= African not just the state of Ethiopia). Also very much a non-African was Matthew Stirling. His excavation of another Great Head again prompted the same remarks as those of Jose Melgar in the 1860s.

Stirling had a solid reputation as an archaeologist before this but his conclusions concerning the Great Head he found at Tres Zapotes (Mex.) shocked Academia. He claimed it was of a culture antedating the Maya, that it was of a Negro and he was later vindicated. The size of Africans seen at Tanis (Egypt) were compared with that of the Olmec Great Heads by Jairazbhoy (ib.) and their helmets so often related to those of Mayan ball-game players actually bear similarity to the latter. On the other hand, they do brook close comparison with those called to our attention by Jairazbhoy plus Winters. It seems that here was yet another example of a widespread tradition that can be traced in several ways but is easily best known from the many sculptural forms seen across the world.

DOWN AMONG THE RED MEN
India has the probably the greatest populations with skins having the colour of what has prompted the description of red, bronzed, coppered or even brown skins in the world. As with so much of modern interpretations of the past, considerable controversy attaches to this. In this particular instance, it is the “Aryan Invasion Theory” (= AIT) versus the “Indigenous Aryan Theory” (= IAT). Indian nationalists have it the British rulers in India introduced the concept of Aryan migrants coming into India as per the AIT in order to loosen the hold Hinduism had/has on the psyche of most Indians. They consider this to be racist and would counter this with their own hypothesis, namely of the Indo/European (= I/E) or Aryan tongues evolved in India and that I/E migrants spread from there. This too has given rise to fierce argument.

The similarities between the skins of Native Americans (= American Indians = Amerinds) and inhabitants of the northern parts of what we have seen as Greater India was/is such that Columbus could describe the peoples as “Indians”. The latter will be familiar to us from the U.S. films called Westerns where they are usually filmed as fighting cowboys or the 7th Cavalry. However, it should be realised that the description of “Redskins” of these Hollywood films do not cover all the Amerinds. The Amerinds that came to be so labelled are really only the groups collectively called the Plains Indians (notably the Sioux groups of tribes).

The ancestry plus skin-colour of the Phoenicians has given rise to some heated debate. Herodotus regarded what was called the Erythraean or Red Sea by the Greeks but is marked as the Persian Gulf in modern Western atlases and is followed by messrs. Petrie (The Making of Egypt 1939), Rohl (the Test of Time books) plus others. Among other suggestions are those by Catherine Acholonu (The Before Adam series of books) that there was a Kwa/Canaanite/Phoenician sequence in west Africa but genetic research tends to indicate that Anatolia was the original homeland of the ancestors of the Phoenicians. There are problems about dates with both the Petrie/Rohl and Acholonu theories that in the latter instance are very long.

The Fulani of west Africa are not as well known as the ethniae just described. Amadou Hampate Ba is cited several times online as saying the physical types depicted in Saharan rock-art appear to resemble Fulani cattle-herders. The initiation rites depicted in Saharan rock-art at Tin Tazarift resembled the Lotori (= yearly muster of cattle) plus Silatagi (= mysteries of pastoralism) that he took part in as a Fulani youth. Ba recognised a finger motif that he thought comparable to the hand of Kikala (= the ancestral Fulani herdsman). At Tin Felki (Algeria), Ba (ib.) felt that a semi-precious stone called carnelian of hexagonal shape related to the Agadez (Niger) Cross of the Fulani plus others. Charles Meek (cited in the Wikipedia entry re. the Fulani) compared the physical type of ancient Egypt and the Proto-Fulani. He further related the braided hair-style(s) of the ancient Egyptians and that of the Fulani.

A further comparison was made of the physical types of India and Egypt on Tribute-to-Hinduism (online). In addition to this are the Indian and Indonesian voyagers that from sources cited in “Ancient India, West Africa & the Sea”, “East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity”, “West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity”, etc, tell us indicates also took their vessels round the southernmost point of Africa at Cape Agulhas (South Africa). This is also where the Indian becomes the Atlantic (& vice-versa). Indian and Indonesian sailors rounding Africa are not really touched on by Felix Chami (The Unity of Ancient African History 2005) but do really feed into his notion that such roundings were rather more frequent than existing ancient records allow us to be certain about.

That the Phoenicians can be placed among the red-skinned peoples can be readily taken to indicate they originate somewhere hot but not necessarily where the sun was at its strongest. That somewhere was seen to be what for Herodotus was the Erythraean or Red Sea but is called the Persian Gulf in the atlases used in Western geography. The Herodotian scenario led Flinders Petrie (ib.), David Rohl (ib.) plus many others to hypothesise sea-borne migrations.

In brief, from a homeland in what we have seen is now called the Persian Gulf, there was expansion by sea that was to take the Fon/Pon (= Proto-Phoenicians) around the Arabian Peninsula to the eastern side. Here the name of some of the natives came to the fore as the Himyarites (= the Homeritae of the Greeks). This was said to be based on the skin-colour from a word that could translate as dark, red, dusky, etc. This kind of ambiguity was never a difficulty till the rise of Afrocentricism and has become a major weapon in Academic hands to dismiss Africa-centred views.

The linkage with red continues with King Erythras from another Greek word meaning red and who was held by Greek myth to have named the “Red” Sea that are now the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea plus Red Sea, etc. Erythras was another Phoenician according to the Greek texts that again connect with these “Red” Seas but which does not really square with genetics telling strongly for Anatolia as the main cradle for the people that were seen as the Bronze Age inhabitants of Lebanon Canaanites and the Iron Age inhabitants of Lebanon as Phoenicians.

Herodotus was seen to also observe the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians of the Periplus of Necho but disbelieved it. It was seen above The Periplus of Hanno was regarded by Pliny plus Martianus Capella as also having rounded Africa but not by many others in antiquity and of modern authors, Felix Chami (The Unity of African Ancient History 2005) is a rare voice in support of this.

Something else written by Chami (ib.) may prove relevant for a Yoruba phrase about the Fulani but also relevant for the Israelites, Oromo, Khwe/Khoi, etc. Among the motley groups lumped together as the “Sea-Peoples” by Egypt were probably mainly dispossessed Anatolian Hittites, Mycenaean Greeks, etc. These Greeks appear to be those called the Denyen by the Egyptians and Danoi/Danaans by the Greeks. They seemingly came among the Israelites as the Tribe of Dan/Danites and the difference between the Tribe of Dan and the rest of the Israelites is nicely shown by an incident related in the Song of Deborah in the Old Testament. It tells us all the 12 Tribes were called to war but that “Dan stayed in his ships” and the Danites did not turn up. The maritime component represented by “Dan staying in his ships” also contrasts with the rest of the basically land-based Israelites.

If Oromia were a separate country, they would be added to the 16 of the ca. 50 African nations that are landlocked yet are regarded by some Ethiopian historians as having come by way of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Kenya then Ethiopia. It should be said that the Oromo consider the Amharic term of Galla for the Oromo as an insult and that the historians of Imperial Ethiopia being mainly Amharic are led mainly by Abba Bahrey (16th c. Ethiopian) to deny the Oromo legitimacy in the region that they now occupy.

On the other hand, the Oromo plus the Somalis are speakers of Cushitic-group languages and the Somalis do have some claim to have settled the island of Pate (close to Zanzibar) at some time in the past and the slender and lanky Bara of Madagascar may owe this build to the same direction. If the Amharic historians were to be even partly correct, their argument as to legitimacy of Oromo territory would be weakened by Petrie (ib.). He shows that the Oromo/Galla are represented on sculpture in tombs re-used by the Hyksos conquerors of Egypt, so the Oromo would have been in east Africa from at least ca. 3500 B.P.

Chami (ib.) writing about the Khwe or Bushmen under their San label was seen to combine this with the closely related people called the Khoi under the term of Khoisan. His hypothesis is that Carthaginian plus Berber seamen were absorbed into the Khoisan in southwest Africa. An unfortunate connotation coming with this is that it would allow revival of the theory that the Carthaginians or other non-Africans were responsible for the development of civilisation in western parts of Africa. However, Chami’s opinion is welcome in that it would add to the possibility of Africans were active in parts of parts of west Africa facing the sub-tropical waters that they are held to have been totally incapable of operating in.

Jack Forbes (Africans & Native Americans 1993; The American Discovery of Europe 2007) does not have a lot of time for notions of Africans on the Atlantic. Those described in the Caribbean by Columbus are dismissed as natives painted black and as to the alleged conveyor-belt currents taking Africans there, Forbes (ib.) denies they exist. However, where the work of Forbes (ib.) has great value is when he plainly points to Amerind voyagers crossing the Atlantic to west Europe but there is little about what is called the “Red” man in west Africa.

There is a surprising Yoruba term used of the Fulani that is quoted by Sir Alan Burns (The History of Nigeria 1968). It runs “eyaobi ni Fulani” translating as “the Fulani are from the sea”. Of all the peoples in Africa, the Fulani are surely the unlikeliest candidates for having a maritime history. However, some of this was also seen to relate to the Israelites, Oromo, Khwe/Khoisan, etc, and it seems that they were able to take in folks who had a maritime background. Nor are they alone in west Africa. The Krebo/Grebo of what today is Liberia had elements that had come overland and some that came by sea. This is also the case in Ghana who seem to where a Pre-Ga component who originally had come overland at a much earlier period to the region but who had accepted sea-borne elements that originally related to the Yorubas of Nigeria and both merged to become the Ga.

It seems probable that it is here that the phrase Yoruba phrase belongs. The recognition of Fulani-type motifs in ancient Saharan rock-art combining with the vast area that the Fulani are seen under various spellings across Africa is very directly relevant here. This means that notions that they too have absorbed groups who once had a sea-borne existence are made the more likely and that there traditions are now lost. The more so when we realise that the emptying of whole villages for the purposes of slaving meant the oral-history/talking-book that was the local historian/story-teller also vanished forever with the rest of the villagers and so with whole areas denuded of people, so the regional oral-lore disappeared too.

So if there are traditions of Red men from across the Atlantic Ocean lying behind the Yoruba phrase of eyaobi ni Fulani/the Fulani are from overseas, such legends plus the folks possibly lying behind them have long since vanished. With a quick look at a map of coasts on both sides of the Atlantic showing how snugly the Bulge of west Africa and the shoulder of northeast South America once fitted leading to all ideas of an island-continent that in the words of Plato was the equal of Africa plus Asia combined to be dismissed, Atlantis is removed. This means any red men held to have arrived from across the Atlantic in west Africa did so directly

In similar vein would be that the Africans held to have crossed the Atlantic would do so directly once again. The difficulties of crossing the “impossible” Sahara have been stressed by the several writers seen near the start but they are matched by those of the equally “impossible” Atlantic. As seen above, neither was as impossible as all too frequently assumed.

Harry Bourne (2010)

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