Black History Is World History Section

Egypt tombs suggest pyramids not built by slaves
Reuters, Sun Jan 10, 12:30 pm ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday.
Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.
"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.
"If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."
He said the collection of workers' tombs, some of which were found in the 1990s, were among the most significant finds in the 20th and 21st centuries. They belonged to workers who built the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.
Hawass had earlier found graffiti on the walls from workers calling themselves "friends of Khufu" -- another sign that they were not slaves.
The tombs, on the Giza plateau on the western edge of Cairo, are 4,510 years old and lie at the entrance of a one-km (half mile)-long necropolis.
Hawass said evidence had been found showing that farmers in the Delta and Upper Egypt had sent 21 buffalo and 23 sheep to the plateau every day to feed the builders, believed to number around 10,000 -- or about a tenth of Greek historian Herodotus's estimate of 100,000.
These farmers were exempted from paying taxes to the government of ancient Egypt -- evidence that he said underscored the fact they were participating in a national project.
The first discovery of workers' tombs in 1990 came about accidentally when a horse stumbled on a brick structure 10 meters (yards) away from the burial area.
(Writing by Marwa Awad; Editing by Alison Williams and Michael Roddy)

Comment

We wonder what will be said about who built American civilization--will they reveal the labor of socalled negroes in its construction--or will "Americans" get the claim, and the socalled negro discarded into the dustbin of history without an honorable mention.

And what of his accomplishments in the Americans. Of course we know his genius in the arts, science, economics, education, military and politics. And yet has he outdone his Egyptian ancestors of 10,000 years ago? As I say in a poem, will his comb, his chair, his hair, his sagging pants last ten thousand years?

Black History is World History

By Marvin X

Before the Earth was

I was

Before time was

I was

you found me not long ago

and called me Lucy

I was four million years old

I had my tools beside me

I am the first man

call me Adam

I walked the Nile from Congo to Delta

a 4,000 mile jog

BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I lived in the land of Canaan

before Abraham, before Hebrew was born

I am Canaan, son of Ham

I laugh at Arabs and Jews

fighting over my land

I lived in Saba, Southern Arabia

I played in the Red Sea

dwelled on the Persian Gulf

I left my mark from Babylon to Timbuktu

When Babylon acted a fool, that was me

I was the fool

When Babylon fell, that was me I fell

BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I was the first European

call me Negrito and Grimaldi

I walked along the Mediterranean from Spain to Greece

Oh, Greece! Why did you kill Socrates?

Why did you give him the poison hemlock?

Who were the gods he introduced

corrupting the youth of Athens?

They were my gods, black gods from Africa

Oh, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Whose philosophy did you teach

that was Greek to the Greeks?

Pythagoras, where did you learn geometry?

Democritus, where did you study astronomy?

Solon and Lycurgus, where did you study law?

In Egypt, and Egypt is Africa

and Africa is me

I am the burnt face, the blameless Ethiopian

Homer told you about in the Iliad

Homer told you about Ulysses, too,a story he got from me.

BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I am the first Chinese

China has my eyes

I am the Aboriginal Asian

Look for me in Viet Nam, Cambodia & Thailand

I am there, even today, black and beautiful

BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I used to travel to America

long before Columbus

came to me asking for directions

Americo Vespuccion his voyage to America

saw me in the Atlantic

returning to Africa

America was my home

Before Aztec, Maya, Toltec, Inca & OlmecI was here

I came to Peru 20,000 years ago

I founded Mexico City

See my pyramids, see my cabeza colosalin Vera Cruz and Yucatan

that's meI am the Mexican

for I am mixed with all men

and all men are mixed with me

I am the most just of men

I am the most peaceful

who loves peace day and night

Sometimes I let tyrants devour me

sometimes people falsely accuse me

sometimes people crucify me

but I am ever returning

I am eternal, I am universal

Africa is my home

Asia is my home

Americas is my home

BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY

--Marvin X, circa 1980

LINKS
The Black History Museum invites you to "take another look at one of the turning points in modern American history": the Million Man March. And read about how the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California in 1966. (It was Marvin X, the author of this poem who planned and organized the first National Conference of Black Men, November 8, 1980 at the Oakland Auditorium. Read more about it in his capsule biography.)
The Queens Library in New York City provides a helpful listing of resources "for information on the many aspects of the African-American Experience available via the world wide web."
To celebrate Black History Month, the online store Music Boulevard explores the "legacy of the music". They also provide the following background on what this month is all about: "It is a time to celebrate the progress, richness and diversity of African American achievement and to pay tribute to African Americans whose cultural and historical contributions are still too little known. During the 1920's an African American named Carter G. Woodson created and promoted Negro History Week during the month of February, a period chosen because it included the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. In 1976 the week-long celebration was extended to the month-long event we celebrate today."
-->NetNoir has a number of very good features about Black History Month. Here's one of the best. C. Stone Brown says that Napoleon shot the nose off the Sphinx in Egypt because it looked African.
And speaking of Europeans and Egypt, it is worth noting how Egypt has been "appropriated" from Africa by academic bigots who don't want to believe that the pyramids and other early feats of civilization are in any sense "African".