The Peopling of Ancient Egypt & the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script

By: Cheikh Anta Diop

ISBN: 9781636524252

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The Peopling of Ancient Egypt & the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script summarizes a 1974 UNESCO symposium, concluding ancient Egyptians were not "white" but an indigenous African people from the Nile Valley, potentially influenced by Equatorial African groups, and that Pharaonic language wasn't Semitic; the book also covers the decipherment of Meroitic, an African script from Sudan (Kush), highlighting its alphasyllabic nature (23 signs), phonetic structure, and its decipherment by F. Ll. Griffith (1907-1911), revealing an important African writing system distinct from Egyptian influence.

Indigenous African Origin: The consensus was that ancient Egyptians were an indigenous people of the Nile Valley, not an external "white" race.
African Roots: The civilization developed organically, with influences coming from within Africa, particularly from the "Great Lakes region" (Source of the White Nile) rather than Mesopotamia.
Cultural Continuity: Scholars like Cheikh Anta Diop emphasized a shared cultural continuity across African peoples.
Linguistic Identity: Pharaonic Egyptian, stable for millennia, was not influenced by Semitic languages (Afro-Asiatic).