Recently, I attended an inspiring event at Ryerson University highlighting the 20th anniversary of the passing of Senegalese pioneer scientist Cheikh Anta Diop. Dr Diop was both revered and attacked for his published works arguing for the acknowledgement of the African essence of ancient Egyptian civilization. As discussed in Part I of this article, Diop's ideas have helped to give life to the modern-day Afrocentric movement. The Ryerson University event was an interesting gathering with a varied group of people from several generations. A recurring theme of the discussion, following the screening of an interview given in the U.S. by Cheikh Anta Diop shortly before his death, was how to go about picking up from where Dr Diop left off. A particular audience member also warned about the dangers of idolizing Diop, or any other Afrocentric scholars, and to not be afraid to take a second look at their work and take it forward by identifying where they might have gone wrong. As with any scientific endeavour, revising and developing any basic premise in light of evolving discoveries and research is very important.

I couldn't agree more. It would be too easy to simply assume that the only reason why established modern Western scholars, in the fields of Egyptology, the Classics and archaeology in general, are so reluctant to entertain the idea of the African origins of Egyptian civilization is based on pure and simple racism. Undoubtedly, As Martin Bernal's Black Athena book series brilliantly demonstrated, 19th century European scholars were greatly influenced by their own racial prejudices when they displaced the more African-positive Ancient Model for the benefit of the Eurocentric Aryan Model. But the fact is, those who erected the edifice of the Aryan Model have built a deep scientific foundation based on a crucial pillar, which is the chronology of the ancient world.

By chronology, I mean the established sequence of events of when things happened in the ancient world, which king reigned at what time, and which empire came before or after the next. If we are to successfully undermine that Aryan Model edifice, the main attack should be directed at the established chronology of the ancient world.

So, in my opinion, the road forward isn't to continue having a debate of the deaf about just the colour of the ancient Egyptians; but really to focus on the chronology and interactions of "cultures." In fact, another point that was brought out at the Ryerson University event was how we, as proponents of Afrocentric ideas, tend to focus too much on dynastic Egypt and not enough on the Nubians and other ancient African cultures. When referring to dynastic Egypt, I mean the 31 dynasties of Egyptian kings which have been universally accepted (including by Afrocentric scholars like Diop and Bernal themselves) ranging from about 3,200 BC to shortly after Cleopatra's reign in 30 BC.

But evidence definitely exists of a pre-dynastic culture dating to between 4,000 BC to 3,600 BC. A University of Chicago excavation, headed by Professor Bruce Williams, in modern Sudan, during the 1960s, produced the discovery of an incense burner at a site named Qustul (see image below) which shuffled the cards in the game. This was proof-positive evidence that the 1st Dynasty of Egypt didn't just erupt out of a thin air. The building blocks of Egyptian civilization could be found in modern Sudan. The carvings show a definite royal palace scene with a king wearing a well-known pharaonic crown. As McGill University Nubiologist and anthropologist Bruce G. Trigger adequately points out:  “... evidence that both the Red and the White Crowns were originally southern Egyptian symbols suggests that most of the iconography originated in Upper (southern) Egypt.”

But before, and even after, the discovery of the Qustul incense burner, the very idea that ancient Egypt’s pharaonic culture might have been fundamentally African was, and still is, so remote to Western scholars that early Egyptologists developed the “dynastic race” theory — which essentially argued for an outside invasion by a superior non-African Asiatic race, possibly from Mesopotamia, that was responsible for introducing civilization into the Nile Valley in the late fourth to early third millennium BC. Even Martin Bernal himself adopts that idea in Black Athena. On the contrary, Cheikh Anta Diop, in his book Civilization or Barbarism, points to the above Qustul incense burner as the proof that pharaonic culture was born in Africa. But the "dynastic race theory", although not often specifically called like that since the end of World War II because of the negative connotations with the Third Reich, is still predominant despite this evidence.

This is where the burden falls on Afrocentric scholars to dispel the generally accepted theory. It is from there that Cheikh Anta Diop's legacy falls or survives. In my own attempt at contributing to this mission, I developed, over a 4-year period, a set of radical theories which I published, in the year 2000, in a book entitled: Planet of the Greeks - The Great Time Warp of History (see right side-bar).

The publication of the book allowed me to enter into discussions with some of the main scholars in the field, including a brief, and somewhat argumentative, e-mail encounter with Martin Bernal. The basic premise of the book is that we need to not only acknowledge the African origins of dynastic Egypt, but that the actual sequence of reigns for the 31 dynasties need to be drastically altered. While it is beyond the scope of this article to go into the details, Planet of the Greeks argues that the Sudanese kings from the early period (the Anu) not only ignited pharaonic culture in Egypt, but also continued to exist parallel to dynastic Egypt and also periodically returned north to Egypt to exert their power and influence -- making up themselves some of the most illustrious Egyptian dynasties. Among those were the 4th dynasty of pyramid-fame and the 12th Dynasty (18th century BC) which represents the era when I believe that the Biblical story of Joseph and his jealous brothers took place.

Although this thesis is being strongly resisted by many Classicists, the archaeological evidence speaks for itself. Reporting on his extensive excavation work in ancient Crete, famed British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans wrote in his book The Palace of Minos at Knosso, published during the 1920s, about how stunned he was to find African-style ostrich-egg pottery in Aegean sites dating to the time of the Egyptian 12th Dynasty. Sir Evans wrote: "It is indeed astonishing to find that a purely African form of vessel ... should have been adapted to from what seems to have been a principal sacred utensil of Minoan cult. ... [this] is striking proof of the extensive personal contact of the Minoans with Nilotic regions far above the Delta."

The very idea that black African kings could have ruled Egypt, and even colonized distant lands in Greece, in such remote times comes entirely contrary to the accepted theories of Western history. Western scholars only accept the existence of a black African dynasty much later in Egyptian history -- that is between 747 BC and 656 BC when and Ethiopian dynasty, known as the 25th dynasty, ruled Egypt. This dynasty is particularly famous because of one of its great kings, Tiharqa, who is mentioned in the Old Testament --- Isaiah 37:9 "And he heard say concerning Tirharka king of Ethiopia, He is come forth to make war with thee." & 2 Kings 19:9.