Hmm, a few things happened recently that made me ask, shouldn't we start replacing the term hidden histories with suppressed histories?
Last month, I went on a British Museum (BM) tour led by an African scholar and my eyes were opened in areas they had previously been shut. There are depictions of the Phoenicians (who lived in present day Israel/Palestine) as Africans. It is as clear as day from the Nimrud Ivories on display in the Levant section (room 57) in the museum.
There is an assumption that Africa was bereft of the written word and relied on oral traditions. But leaving hieroglyphics aside, Meroitic script, invented by Nubians between 700 and 300 BC, is right there in the British Museum. And unbeknown to me the medieval Nubians had knowledge of eight different languages, including Turkish, Greek and Arabic.
As is still yet to be acknowledged by the British Museum (and it is not alone) - ancient Egypt was part of what we now know as the African continent and was an African civilisation right up until the 25th dynasty (around 663 BC). All the images in our Egyptology feature (see link below) testify boldly to this.
So it continues at the BM with Africa relegated to the basement, Egypt elevated to the upper floors. There is even a sign declaring Egypt and Africa. But it is not in the interests of the mainstream culture to change this. And the result is tourists and home visitors from all backgrounds continue to be fed, at best, a skewed version of history.
And we can see the same appropriation of facts and evidence at work today. It was rather disingenuous of the Conservative leader, David Cameron, last month to call on fathers of African descent to take responsibility for their children.
In doing so he has said that absent fathers is an African problem when we know it is an issue for all communities. But he, and everyone else, has routinely avoided labelling the youth binge-drinking pandemic as a white problem. And so the truth remains latent, or should that be deliberately suppressed?
Last month, I went on a British Museum (BM) tour led by an African scholar and my eyes were opened in areas they had previously been shut. There are depictions of the Phoenicians (who lived in present day Israel/Palestine) as Africans. It is as clear as day from the Nimrud Ivories on display in the Levant section (room 57) in the museum.
There is an assumption that Africa was bereft of the written word and relied on oral traditions. But leaving hieroglyphics aside, Meroitic script, invented by Nubians between 700 and 300 BC, is right there in the British Museum. And unbeknown to me the medieval Nubians had knowledge of eight different languages, including Turkish, Greek and Arabic.
As is still yet to be acknowledged by the British Museum (and it is not alone) - ancient Egypt was part of what we now know as the African continent and was an African civilisation right up until the 25th dynasty (around 663 BC). All the images in our Egyptology feature (see link below) testify boldly to this.
So it continues at the BM with Africa relegated to the basement, Egypt elevated to the upper floors. There is even a sign declaring Egypt and Africa. But it is not in the interests of the mainstream culture to change this. And the result is tourists and home visitors from all backgrounds continue to be fed, at best, a skewed version of history.
And we can see the same appropriation of facts and evidence at work today. It was rather disingenuous of the Conservative leader, David Cameron, last month to call on fathers of African descent to take responsibility for their children.
In doing so he has said that absent fathers is an African problem when we know it is an issue for all communities. But he, and everyone else, has routinely avoided labelling the youth binge-drinking pandemic as a white problem. And so the truth remains latent, or should that be deliberately suppressed?
Links
New perspectives, Museums Journal August 2008, p22
New perspectives, Museums Journal August 2008, p22
