Prof Ogot book out to restore Africa’s place in world history

Did you know that the world’s first university was in Africa, at Heliopolis in Cairo, named On in the Bible, and that Plato, the famous Greek philosopher, visited the school to consult with its professors, and that Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher and mathematician, studied in the school?  And did you know that Africa hosts one of the ancient birth places of human culture, that writing was invented in Egypt more than 5,000 years ago, and that the modern 365-day calendar year was invented in Egypt?

Further, did you know that Christianity is “an indigenous, traditional and African religion”; that Augustine, described as the greatest theologian of all time, was born in Tagaste, a town in present day Egypt, and that the original Old Testament Greek Bible (Septuagint) was translated in Alexandria? 

Much more importantly, did you know that one of the pioneer civilisations since the evolution of humans, the mother of all world civilizations, was in Africa — the sublime Nile Valley civilisations — and that these civilisations emerged almost 5,000 years before the birth of Christ?

Not many would know these facts because Western authors, who have over the years allocated themselves the prerogative power of naming and telling the story of the human race, have ‘buried’ this  history.

This is the foundational story that internationally renowned Kenyan historian Prof Bethwel Allan Ogot tells in his latest book, History of African Civilisations in the Nile Valley.

But why would Western authors hide so important a story from humanity?

Driven by the conviction that this “historical genesis narrative which predates Asian, Middle Eastern and European histories by thousands of years” should be taught to all African children and peoples as African classical studies, Ogot hopes that the desire to answer this question will be aroused in every person who reads the book.

In this historical analysis, punctuated by philosophical insights, Ogot invites researchers across all disciplines to engage in more research on how ancient African civilisations inform human behaviour in the modern world, not merely for curiosity’s sake, but as a necessary and indispensable process of being human, for as he observes in one of his earlier works, “a human being is, by nature, historicus”.

PHARAONIC EGYPT

For clarity and simplicity, seeing that he writes the book for secondary, college and university level students, not to mention that he writes also for budding professors of not just history but of anthropology, religion, philosophy and other disciplines, Ogot presents the various aspects of this story.

He begins by putting the cultures of the Early Nile Valley in their rightful African contexts — from the Neolithic times when men and women were hunters and gatherers. This provides the necessary background to understanding that the tendency by Western scholars to start human history with the Pharaonic Egypt only serves to perpetuate the ‘hiding’ of the African civilisations.

He discusses the gradual development of human settlements as men and women began to master physical features and climatic conditions and patterns, and the relationships between them. In due course, African men and women changed from a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural one. Much of the information presented in the first two chapters of this book is normally glossed over, indicating the deliberate effort by Western scholars to ‘silence’ this part of history as if it does not matter.

We live in a time of immense technological and scientific advancements driven by information technology marked by instantaneous transfer of goods and ideas, as well as socio-cultural, economic and political advancements. Tragically, we forget that we wouldn’t be enjoying these innovations if humans in ancient times did not lay the foundations for today’s world.

In this book, Ogot discusses the so-called Pharaonic Egypt documenting the achievements of the most famous of Egyptian pharaohs; from Narmer, who united the Upper and the Lower Egypt in his first dynasty, to Cleoparta VII, the last pharaoh of the Ptolemaic period. Suffice to mention that Cleoparta VII was female, like a few other famous Egyptian pharaohs.

Ogot highlights the complex social and political organisations that existed in Egypt thousands of years before the birth of Christ. The Pharaonic Egypt is globally well known for producing irrigation agriculture facilitated by agricultural engineering invention of the shadoof, one of the world’s first civilisations.

Besides agricultural engineering, as Ogot observes, Egypt has bequeathed human history other scientific and technological advancements including crafts; textiles; glass-making; paper industry; ship-building; mummification; medicine and surgery, mathematics, astronomy; and architecture (don’t we all know about the Egyptian pyramids).

But Ogot is quick to point out that it was not only in science and technology that Egypt laid a foundation for the world. Pharaonic Egypt is indeed the mother of all human behaviours: The writing system; art, music, and education in general but more specifically psychology of education.

Ogot’s analysis of the ancient Egyptianian religious beliefs in relation to the Judae-Christian heritage reveals the heavy borrowing by the latter from the former.  The various -isms that helped define and shaped early Christianity, and continue to shape Christianity, began around Egypt: Hermeticism; Manichaeism; Gnosticism; and Neo-Platonism. Gnosticism, for example, continues to have effect in the development of Christian teachings.

AFRICAN SAINT

On November 24, 2013, Pope Francis released, Evangelii Gaudium, an apostolic exhortation that has traits of warnings against Gnosticism. The influence of these -isms on Christianity is clearly illustrated by the journey of one African, Augustine of Hippo, who was a Manichean to being a Gnostic to becoming a Christian saint.  This explains the many major parallelisms between the beliefs and practices of the two heritages.

Since the Pharaonic Egypt existed thousands of years before the Judae-Christian world, it is clear who borrowed from whom.  Ogot dedicates two chapters to discussing possible Greek cultural borrowings from Egypt through colonisation and study abroad programs by Greeks in Egypt and how the Greeks and Romans transmitted Egyptian philosophy, science, religion and architecture.

One cannot understand how this African civilisation was muted over time until one appreciates that the writing of history is a selective process that is sympathetic to the author and therefore may involve deliberate distortions such as the one that presents African civilizations as European. For example, while the earliest records of monastic living are traced to the Nile valley to Pachomius and St Antony, who founded a monastery in Thebais, history written by Western scholars erroneously traces monastic living to Europeans (St Basil and St Benedict), but these two must have inherited their hermitic patterns from early African hermits.

After discussing the Egyptian civilization, Ogot then focuses on Nubia, a neighbour of Ancient Egypt that is well known for being ‘the cradle for indigenous cultures’. There have been assertions that the so called A-group of Nubia are the original developers of pharaoh-like socio-political institutions more than 200 years before Egypt created the institutions, having been inspired by Nubia. Whatever the case, this ancient civilisation is African.

However, the truth is unknown and may never be known because the A-group of Nubia is now extinct.

Ogot also discusses the C-group of Nubia that existed for about 800 years. These were mainly cereal agriculturalists but they kept some animals, and did some fishing and hunting as well. It is to this C-group that we owe the Nubian Kerma and Kush civilisations. While the Kerma civilisation (often referred to as the first Nubian civilisation) is best known for pottery, funerary rites and furniture, the Kush civilisation is well known for meticulously built palaces, temples, and royal cemeteries, thanks to the rich mineral exploits that made the Kush kingdom one of the richest countries in the ancient world.

The Christianisation of Nubia by the end of the 6th Century and thereafter its ‘Arabisation’ and the consequent Islamic conquest in 641 AD brought an end to the Nubian civilisations.

This books is a classical, a ‘must read’ for all Africans and all peoples who seek to understand the genesis of the modern world characterised by enormous scientific and technological and social-cultural advancements. It is written in simple and clear language with a lot of graphic illustrations which makes it interesting even as it is on what I consider to be one of the most complex subjects.

For the value that the book adds to the history of world civilization, especially for Africans, I consider it the most important of all books that Prof Ogot has written.  It would seem that Ogot is like wine: he gets better with age. Educationists should consider this book a foundational text for teaching and learning not only history and philosophy, as the author suggests, but also for medicine, religion, engineering, philosophy, and indeed any discipline in Africa today. According to an African proverb, “Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”  The lion has told the story of the hunt.

The book is available in local bookshops. Direct orders can be made via email: [email protected].