Lured to Cambridge University on a chilly Saturday afternoon by a powerhouse in African history – a man with two PhDs and, though 69 years old, with no mind to stop – I was in for a treat.
Maulana Karenga, professor of Africana Studies at the California State University, Long Beach, drew on his second PhD to lecture on the classical African ethics of ancient Egypt and spoke of how the practises of an ancient civilisation can help address some of the ills of society today.
Surely, we all know that ancient Egypt was an African or, to be absolutely plain, black civilisation. Herodotus, the fifth-century BC Greek historian, knew it when he visited and saw it with his own eyes, and those in charge of the UK’s Egyptian collections know it.
In one of my first columns in this series in 2007, I wrote about a curator bent on telling the truth about Egypt’s cultural source. Three years ago, Sally-Ann Ashton, of the Fitzwilliam Museum, had been working on a web project with prisoners about the African source of Egypt. But when you went into the galleries, there was no evidence of Egypt as a historical African culture.
Well, Ashton has rectified this. After Karenga spoke, a reception was held in the Fitzwilliam’s Egyptian galleries, and there in front of me were words that nearly knocked my companions and I for six.
The text read: “Kemet [the Ancient Egyptian name for Egypt] the Black Land.” Some within the British Museum have interpreted this as literal – the earth being black – though no proof from ancient texts have been cited, and many scholars have rejected this idea.
The Fitzwilliam Museum gives evidence (artefacts and adornments) to show links with African culture and reminds us that it wasn’t until the sixth-century AD that the Arabs arrived. The text goes on to show that European artists of the time depicted the Egyptians with black skins.
It’s a start, though it could go further. But who would have guessed that Cambridge would be an example to London’s museums.
