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...in the necropolis of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, on the West Bank at Thebes, Egypt... According to the Spanish news agency EFE, the tomb embodies all the features of the tomb of Osiris, as told in ancient Egyptian legends, and is a smaller version of the design of the Osireion, built under Egyptian pharaoh Seti I in the city of Abydos, Luxor. Researchers believe the tomb complex dates back to the 25th dynasty (760-656 BC) or 26th dynasty (672-525 BC), based on a comparison to similar tombs that contain Osirian elements. The complex consists of a large hall supported by five...

How Africa Became Black Africa's racial history was not necessarily its racial destiny. To unravel the story of Africa's past, you must not only look at its faces but listen to its languages and harvest its crops. By Jared Diamond DISCOVER Vol. 15 No. 02 | February 1994 | Anthropology Despite all I'd read about Africa, my first impressions upon being there were overwhelming. As I walked the streets of Windhoek, the capital of newly independent Namibia, I saw black Herero people and black Ovambo; I saw Nama, a group quite unlike the blacks in appearance; I saw whites, descendants...

Archaeologists say the pyramids, cemeteries and ancient palaces of the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan hold mysteries to rival ancient Egypt. There is not a tourist in sight as the Sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, in northern Sudan. "There is a magic beauty about these sites that is heightened by the privilege of being able to admire them alone, with the pyramids, the dunes and the sun," says Guillemette Andreu, head of antiquities at Paris' Louvre museum. "It really sets them apart from the Egyptian pyramids, whose beauty is slightly overshadowed by the tourist crowds." Meroe lies around...

The Sakhmet statues, which date to the New Kingdom's 18th dynasty (circa 1533 to 1292 BC), hail from the same period as most of the finds in the area. The head, believed to date to the 25th dynasty (circa 760 to 656 BC) that is characterised by its Nubian features, seems out of place, however.

Martin Bernal, whose three-volume work “Black Athena” ignited an academic debate by arguing that the African and Semitic lineage of Western civilization had been scrubbed from the record of ancient Greece by 18th- and 19th-century historians steeped in the racism of their times, died on June 9 in Cambridge, England. He was 76. The cause was complications of myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder, said his wife, Leslie Miller-Bernal. “Black Athena” opened a new front in the warfare over cultural diversity already raging on American campuses in the 1980s and ’90s. The first volume, published in 1987 — the same year...

Nubia was an important part of the trade route from ancient Egypt to other parts of Africa. Tirhaka, mentioned in the Bible as the king of Ethiopia (II Kings, 18-20; Isaiah, 37-38), actually was Taharqa, king of Nubia and Kush. He ruled Egypt from 690 to 664 BC during its 25th Dynasty. The Kingdom of Kerma was the first Nubian kingdom to unify much of the region. Its capital city was one of the earliest urban centers in tropical Africa. The kings of Kerma left behind rich tombs, which were filled with their possessions and sacrificial offerings. The metalworking and...

In the year 730 B.C., a man by the name of Piye decided the only way to save Egypt from itself was to invade it... North on the Nile River his soldiers sailed. At Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they disembarked. Believing there was a proper way to wage holy wars, Piye instructed his soldiers to purify themselves before combat by bathing in the Nile, dressing themselves in fine linen, and sprinkling their bodies with water from the temple at Karnak, a site holy to the ram-headed sun god Amun, whom Piye identified as his own personal deity. Piye...

How Pharaoh sailed to Karnak New discoveries at Karnak Temple in Luxor have changed the landscape and the history of this great religious complex, writes Nevine El-Aref Clockwise from top: Ptolemaic bath with 16 seats; a stelae bearing the name of the 25th-Dynasty King Taharqa; the obelisk of Tuthmoses I at the eight pylons; restoration work at the Chapel of Osiris Neb-Ankh History has a special scent and taste at Karnak Temple. The emotions it evokes are powerful and timeless. Inside the lofty pylons is amassed an unsurpassed assembly of soaring obelisks, awe-inspiring chapels and hushed sanctuaries reflecting the spectacular...

The seven statues, which stood between 1.3 to 2.7 meters (4 to 10 feet) tall, were inscribed with the names of five of Nubia's kings: Taharqa, Tanoutamon, Senkamanisken, Anlamani, and Aspelta. Taharqa and Tanoutamon ruled Egypt as well as Nubia. Sometimes known as the "Black Pharaohs," Nubian kings ruled Egypt from roughly 760 B.C. to 660 B.C... The Nubian period in Egypt is known as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty... Historians dislike the term "Black Pharaohs," calling it more of a media ploy than a meaningful designation. "It's such a loaded term," said Kendall. "The ancient Nile dwellers didn't really use...

Monday, 20 January, 2003, 17:47 GMT Black pharaoh trove uncovered The Nubian kings ruled 2,500 years ago By Ishbel Matheson BBC, Nairobi A team of French and Swiss archaeologists working in the Nile Valley have uncovered ancient statues described as sculptural masterpieces in northern Sudan. The archaeologists from the University of Geneva discovered a pit full of large monuments and finely carved statues of the Nubian kings known as the black pharaohs. The Swiss head of the archaeological expedition told the BBC that the find was of worldwide importance. The black pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty...

Not Out of AfricaWas Greek Culture Stolen from Africa? Modern Myth vs. Ancient History Excerpted from her book: Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History Why I wrote the book In the fall of 1991 I was asked to write a review-article for The New Republic about Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its relation to the Afrocentrist movement. The assignment literally changed my life. Once I began to work on the article I realized that here was a subject that needed all the attention, and more, that I could give to it. Although...

The Dwindling Light of Hellenism If the light by which we are guided is ever extinguished it will dwindle by degrees and expire by itself. Alexis de Tocqueville Ra-hotep gazed with admiration at the pyramids under construction and the intricate interlaced irrigation systems which brought life to the crops that fed his happy nation. How proud he was of the wonders wrought by his intelligent brown-skinned people. He was at the controls of a wood and papyrus glider which had been flung into the sky by a catapult designed by his ingenious engineers. His scientists had also built his cunningly...

Royal Nubia lies under sand Canadian archaeologists in Sudan, using magnetometers, have found a 2,000-year-old palace in the heart of the ancient black civilization If his partner had not fallen into an ancient tomb and broken both legs, Professor Krzysztof Grzymski would have discovered the ancient Nubian royal palace even sooner. Still, Grzymski, a professor at the University of Toronto and a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, is a happy archaeologist these days. He and his colleague, who is walking again, have found what they believe are the remains of a palace and a colonnade built more than...

It has been said that the period between 760 BCE to 656 BCE in Egypt was the 'age of the black pharaohs'. It was during this time that ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty or succession of kings from Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush, a rival African kingdom just to its south in what is today northern Sudan. Beginning with king Kashta's successful invasion of Upper Egypt, what became known as the 25th Dynasty achieved the reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and also Kush (Nubia), the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They introduced new Kushite cultural...

Tomb number TT 209 in Assasif area on Luxor's West Bank was rediscovered yesterday by Spanish excavators. Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim has explained the context behind a tomb recently rediscovered in Luxor by a Spanish archaeological mission. The tomb was first discovered in 1904 by Sir Robert Mond, but Mond didn’t describe the tomb's architectural style or identify its occupant. The tomb was then abandoned and became buried beneath the sands. Egyptologists looked for it subsequently, but their efforts failed. "It is a very mysterious tomb," asserted Ibrahim, adding that the name of the tomb had changed several times...

This marvelous bust is one of the very few documents of an actual black person from Greek and Roman antiquity. Memnon was a pupil and protégé of the well-known Athenian entrepreneur and philosopher Herodes Atticus. It was found more than a century ago in one of several villas owned by Herodes, and it adds a face to the name of the person recorded by Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists, an account of the famous philosophers of the second century. The exact circumstances of Memnon's entry into this celebrated milieu are unknown, but there is no doubt about the...

Archaeologists have discovered a monumental statue of an ancient black Egyptian pharaoh of the Nubian 25th Dynasty in Dangeil, Sudan, about 350 kilometres northeast of the capital, Khartoum. The granite statue of the warrior pharaoh Taharqa weighs one ton, according to its discoverer, Dr Caroline Rocheleau of the North Carolina Museum of Art... The statues of two other Nubian pharaohs were also discovered... Taharqa was ruler of both Egypt and Nubia (Kush) during the 25th Dynasty, which was based in Nubia, which had a long history of pyramid building, apparently independent of Egypt. His reign is dated from 690 BC...

In the reign of the Black PharaohsWhich country has the largest collection of pyramids? Think again, for it is not Egypt, but Sudan. Join Mohamed El-Hebeishy as he visits north Sudan in search of answers The Northern Cemetery in Meroe, where more than 30 pyramids are in site Our great grandfathers called it Ta-Seti, Land of the Bow. They were referring to the area south of the First Cataract at Aswan, and the reason behind the name was the unparalleled skill its inhabitants demonstrated when using the bow as a method of arm. Those excellent bowmen were actually the Kushites....

April 26 A new Egyptian king has been discovered, according to Italian archaeologists digging at Luxor. Known to be a high-ranking priest in the theocratic state of Amon at Thebes, Harwa was also a king ruling southern Egypt during the obscure period of the so-called Black Pharaohs, the Nubian kings of the 25th Dynasty. A fat, bald man with a large face, almond-shaped eyes and thin lips, as portrayed in a statue, Harwa was born in the 8th century B.C. into a family of Theban priests. He must have been at the beginning of his career when Piankhy, the black...

Outside the Greek mainland and Aegean Island a possible representation of Achaean warriors equipped with boar tusks helmets is from an Egyptian papyrus fragments from Tell el-Amarna, home of Amenhotep III's son, dated around 1350 BC (*2). In this papyrus some warriors are depicted with conical pale-yellow helmets which remaind in general design the typical Aegean boar tusks helmet. This identification is strengthened by the find of a piece of boar’s tusk, with perforations for attaching it to a leather frame, during excavations at Qantir, the site of the Ramesside capital Pi-ramesse in the eastern delta. It appears likely that...