"and we want no more kings of troy"--1000 year war revisited

mediterranean basin

"Because my father killed his father , the boy might one day seek revenge. he might also one day become a king of troy--and we want no more kings of Troy" --from the Iliad , Neoptolemus ,the son of Achilles speaking to Andromache, the widow of the Trojan prince hector, as Neoptolemus murders her infant son.

As mentioned numerous times , by this blogger's reading of history it becomes plain that in part because the Nile river flows south to north and empties into the Mediterranean , the early Mediterranean sea lanes were not only important commercial and transportation hubs between the ancient civilizations of north Africa and western Asia , it was also the scene of an epic struggle lasting 1000 years over who would control and dominate this crucial region of the world --the crossroads of the world --where three continents meet.

I've grown to believe that this struggle's early phases were described by Homer's Iliad , recording the legendary war between the coalition of Greek states in their conflict with the city state of Troy .

the 1200 BC story of the Greek vanquishing of Troy, told in the Iliad ,would serve as inspiration , blueprint and model for Alexander the Great some 900 years later in his imperialistic ventures as he conquered and plundered the rich and ancient cities of western Asia and lower Egypt.

as part of his education , Alexander like thousands of youth before and after him, would be required to memorize the Iliad--Alexander slept with the copy given him by his teacher Aristotle under his pillow and when he invaded western Asia to begin his conquests , landed his armies at the exact site where ancient Troy was believed to have stood and Alexander prayed at what he believed to be the tomb of his ancestor Achilles.

the culmination of this 1000 year struggle between the Europeans and the Africans and their extended family, was the Punic wars and the final defeat and destruction of Carthage by Rome. by destroying Carthage, control of the Mediterranean basin shifted from the hands of the ancient northern Africans and their extended family of civilizations, into the hands of the Europeans .

Rome's victory and destruction of Carthage clears the way for Rome's domination of the Mediterranean , it's commerce and access to the wealth and technology flowing on what historian Jarred Diamond in his popular book " Guns ,Germs and Steel" refers to as a type of east-west highway from the civilizations of the middle east --ultimately enabling the Europeans to amass the technologies and immunity to germs and diseases that would eventually --after 1492 ad, play a vitally crucial role in western Europe's wholesale takeover of the western hemisphere --ultimately making in the modern era , the Europeans fabulously wealthy and technologically powerful enough to colonize Africa and much of Asia--making inroads into the same areas of ancient civilizations that Europe's Greek ancestors 3200 years ago sought through brutal wars of annihilation , to establish a beach head into.

but where Jarred Diamond seems to give the impression that this modern day preeminence of Europeans and their offspring was more accident of history than any plan or persistent desire conceived by them , this blogger's reading of history indicates the early Europeans were highly warlike as well as barbaric and sought from the beginning to forcibly insert themselves into that "east west highway" of civilizations established by the ancient blacks of north east Africa and their extended family of the Mediterranean and the middle east.

if the ancient Greeks--the earliest of civilized Europeans did not reach their zenith of "civilization" until about 300 BC and the flow of ideas, technologies, innovations and commerce on this "east-west highway of civilization" had been flowing back and forth for at least 3000 to 5000 years BEFORE the Greeks emerged from savagery --then it becomes clear that the Greeks were not a part of initiating or participating in that flow of ancient commerce and civilization--so the question must be asked , who was the western end of that east-west highway of civilization other than the blacks of Africa and their extended family of the Mediterranean--the Phoenicians, the Minoans, the Colchians , the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, and in the Iliad , the people called the Trojans--aided in their fight against the Greeks, according to the legend ,by their cousin the Ethiopian warrior prince, Memnon and the Colchian warrior princess, Penthesilea?

the Greeks ,Agamemnon , Achilles ,and later Alexander and finally the Romans were hijackers raiding that highway of civilization, technology , and wealth seeking to plug themselves into it and divert it for entirely their own enrichment at the expense of its creators.

as long as they were able to suck wealth and technology from that "highway" , the Greeks and Romans enjoyed "golden ages". when they physically lost that connection --when Rome fell , western European civilization collapsed and fell again into poverty and backwardness--the so-called "dark ages".

from that fall to the present the critical theme in European history was, who among them would rebuild the "glory" of Rome and ancient Greece ? which king , or nation , or empire of Europe could forcibly plug them back into that east-west flow of commerce and knowledge?

this is what Marco Polo's tales of his adventures were about--getting Europe plugged back into that east-west flow of wealth and knowledge.

this is what the crusades were about. this is what the European renaissance was about. this is what the Portuguese prince Henry "the navigator"and his school of navigation was about. this is what Columbus's voyages and the age of exploration and subsequent empire were about . this is what the Atlantic slave trade was about. this is what the Napoleonic wars were about.

this is what the industrial revolution , the grab for colonial empire, the first and second world wars, the cold war, the Vietnam war , what the wars between Israel and the Arabs are about.
It's what the present day war on terror , wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are about. This is what the big war in Congo and all the little civil wars in Africa are about.

The early Greek and Roman contact with the east-west corridor of wealth and civilization of the blacks and their extended family and the subsequent conflicts by the ancient Greeks and Romans to forcibly inject themselves into that corridor of wealth and civilization, left an indelible stamp on European culture and how the Europeans view, relate and interact with the rest of the world--they interact through persistent ruthlessness, through trickery -- being "the man who says one thing and holds another in his heart", and they interact by the sword.

all of this because bottom line , they, "want no more kings of troy." napoleon and french army at sphinx 1798


"THE AFRICAN STAR OVER EUROPE

This book is devoted to a chapter of African history that is little known. It deals with the migration of black peoples to Europe and their impact upon the people of that continent, not as servants and colonials of Europe but as the fathers of its first inhabitants, the creators of its first art, its first tools, and, in some places and historical periods, its masters and teachers, invaders and traders, its most venerated madonnas, saints and popes....We see Africa, in fact, when it stood as a star over the dark continent of Europe." --Ivan Van Sertima, The African Star Over Europe

MIGHTY MEMNON
THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN GREEK & ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

The fabled story of the ancient and stupendous African general and warrior-king Memnon and his display of courage and prowess at the Greek siege of Troy was one of the most widely circulated and celebrated epics in the annals of Greek and Roman mythology. Memnon, described as "black as ebony, and the handsomest man alive," is mentioned repeatedly in the works of such early writers as Hesiod, Ovid, Pindar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo and Virgil. Arctinus of Miletus composed an epic poem entitled Ethiopia in which Memnon was the leading figure. Quintus of Smyrna credits Memnon with "bringing the countless tribes of his people who live in Ethiopia, land of the black man," to Troy in support of its war against the hostile coalition of Greek city-states. It was written that: "Memnon came to help them. Memnon was lord over the dark Ethiopians, and the host he brought seemed infinite. The Trojans were delighted to see him in their city."

According to Homer, "To Troy no hero came of nobler line, Or if nobler, Memnon, it was thine." In more recent times (late in the nineteenth century), Dr. Rufus Lewis Perry pronounced that:

"The distinguished Cushite whom Homer calls Memnon came and went like a meteor in the galaxy of illustrious Ethiopian monarchs. But the poet in classic song and the historian in legendary tradition, have preserved enough of his brightness to indicate his rank and power among the contemporary potentates of the earth. He was king of the Ethiopians. He fought against the Greeks in the Trojan war; and after he had slain Antilochus, son of Nestor, was killed by Achilles."

Dr. Perry concluded that, "Through slain by Achilles, Memnon is so embalmed in verse and prose by Homer, Hesiod, Virgil and others, that his name will last as long as the writings of these imperishable authors."

SOURCES:
The Cushite, by Rufus Lewis Perry
Ethiopia and Ethiopians as Seen by Classical Writers, by William Leo Hansberry



MINOAN CRETE
AFRICAN INFLUENCED FORERUNNER OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATIONS

By RUNOKO RASHIDI
entrance to palace at knossos

"The first civilization of Europe was established on the island of Crete. It is called the Minoan Culture, after King Minos, an early legendary ruler of the island. The ancestors of the Cretans were natives of Africa, a branch of Western Ethiopians." --John G. Jackson

Minoan Crete, the forerunner of Greek civilization, is the earliest known European high-culture. Although modest in size (170 miles east to west, thirty-five miles north to sourth), Crete exercised immeasurable influence on the Aegean archipelago, Western Asia and the Greek mainland. Throughout Crete the vestiges of complex palaces, paved highways, aqueducts, terra-pipes for drainage, and irrigation canals provide plentiful proof of Minoan ingenuity in the areas of scientific and technical innovation. The Minoans possessed registed trademarks, uniform weights and measures, calendrical systems based on precise astronomical observations and advanced writing systems. Interestingly enough, there were few fortifications on the island.

British archaeologist Arthur Evans (1851-1941), who conducted excavations on the island, was convinced of African migrations to ancient Crete and noted "the multiplicity of these connections with the old indigenous race of the opposite African coast." The late African-American cultural historian John G. Jackson (1907-1993) advocated the view the Minoan civilization was rooted in Africa, and believed that the ancestors of the Minoans "dwelt in the grasslands of North Africa before that area dried up and became a great desert. As the Saharan sands encroached on their homeland, they took to the sea, and in Crete and neighboring islands set up a maritime culture."

The research team of C.H. and H.B. Hawes, the latter of whom, like Evans, conducted important archaeological excavations in Crete, support John Jackson's argument, and noted that: "Anthropologists are inclined to the view that the Neolithic people of Crete were immigrants, and probably came from North Africa."

Arthur Evans was convinced of North African migrations to Neolithic Crete. He pointed out that:

"The multiplicity of these connections with the old indigenous race of the opposite African coast, and which we undoubtedly have to deal with in the pre dynastic population of the Nile Valley, can in fact be hardly explained on any other hypothesis than that of an actual settlement in Southern Crete."

Historian H.R. Hall, also Oxford trained, shared Evans' position on the early population of Minoan Crete:

"While the majority of the original Neolithic inhabitants of Crete probably came from Anatolia, another element may well have come in oared boats from the opposite African coast, bringing with them to the southern plan of Messara the seeds of civilization that, transplanted to the different conditions of Crete, developed into the great Minoan culture, a younger more brilliant, and less long-lived sister of that of Egypt."

Whether the Minoan culture was more brilliant than that of Egypt is highly questionable at best, but on the other points Hall seems to just about to hit the mark. Evans, again, indeed considered Egypt and Libya as the springboards of Minoan civilization; so much so that he structured his own Minoan chronology on that of dynastic Egypt. He was particularly struck by the similarities in the contents of the of the tombs of the ancient Minoans and Egyptians:

"So numerous, in fact, are the points, of comparison presented by the contents of these early interments with those of pre dynastic Egypt that, far-fetched as the conclusion might appear at first sight, I was already some years since constrained to put forth the suggestion that about the time of the conquest of the lower Nile Valley by the first historic dynasty some part of the older population had actually settled in this southern foreland of Crete."

Gordon Childe also commented on the relations between Crete and pre dynastic Egypt:

"At least on the Mesara, the great plain of southern Crete facing Africa, Minoan Crete's indebtedness to the Nile is disclosed in the most intimate aspects of its culture. Not only do the forms of early Minoan stone vases, the precision of the lapidaries' technique and the aesthetic selection of variegated stones as his materials carry on the the pre dynastic tradition, Nilotic religious customs such as the use of the sistrum, the wearing of amulets in the forms of legs, mummies and monkeys, and statuettes plainly derived from Gerzean ..block figures,' and personal habits revealed by depilatory tweezers of the Egyptian shape and stone unguent palettes from the early tombs and, later, details of costumes such as the penis-sheath and loin-cloth betoken something deeper than the external relations of commerce."

Cretan/Egyptian contacts pick up again in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C. During the reigns of Egyptian monarchs Makare Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (1504-1447 B.C.) the people of Crete, whom the Egyptians called Keftiu, were graphically portrayed as tribute bearers on the walls of the tombs of the Egyptian nobility.

SOURCES:
African Presence In Early Europe, Edited by Ivan Van Sertima
Man, God And Civilization, by John G. Jackson

minoan youth practice boxing

minoan burial sarcophagus


T R A V E L N O T E S

KNOSSOS AND THE ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM ON THE ISLAND OF CRETE

Greetings Family,

It is my second day in Crete and I saw my first African today. I was beginning to think that I was the only one here and I was going to compose you a long dramatic letter to that effect. But as I was contemplating the situation over a Greek lunch an African street vendor passed by and we briefly mumbled pleasantries. If I wasn't so shocked and he did not have a handful of products I probably would have invited him to lunch. Today was a good day. I finally got to the archaeological site called Knossos. It is only about eight kilometers from the city center. I took a taxi to the place and a bus back. You know that I have reached a comfort zone when I start using public transportation. Knossos is a heavily restored site and heavily reconstructed also. The work was begun by the English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans with his own money I think back in the 1920s or so. It is a lovely site, an ancient palace with vivid frescoes and bright red pillars, set amidst hills and trees. A gentle breeze was blowing and most of visitors were young school children. I liked Knossos and thought the closest comparison was to Great Zimbabwe in Southern Africa. The same kind of energy I experienced in both places.

The island of Crete, for those of you who might not know, was the basis, according to Cheikh Anta Diop and Martin Bernal, of the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. Try reviewing Diop's Civilization or Barbarism and volume two of Black Athena by Bernal. My old brother and research partner Dr. James E. Brunson also did some very good work on the subject back in the 1980s. You can find it in Ivan Van Sertima's African Presence in Early Europe anthology.

According to the legends, the Greek god Zeus saw a beautiful Phoenician princess named Europa. He wanted her so much that one day when Europa (an African woman?) was at the sea shore Zeus turned into a white bull and laid down in front of her. Europa was entranced by the bull, jumped on his back and away Zeus flew with her to the island of Crete. On Crete Zeus raped Europa. Does this sound like a familiar story? Apparently this is where the name Europe derives from. Anyway, from this union came three sons, one of which was named Minos who became the island's ruler. It is from the name Minos that we derive the name for the civilization of Crete called the Minoan. John G. Jackson writes about this in his Introduction to African Civilization.

The Minoans were a great maritime power in the second millennium BCE. They had many palatial cities and traded far and wide, and even had relations with ancient Kmt. Apparently during the reign of the mighty Thutmose III Crete was an Egyptian vassal state and Knossos was an extremely important Minoan center. Evans actually believed that the impetus for Minoan civilization came from the arrival of African settlers from Libya and Lower Egypt who moved to Crete when Upper and Lower Egypt were unified towards the end of the fourth millennium BCE. So there are a lot of connections. You don't think that I am spending all this money to be here on a humbug do you?

So I enjoyed my visit to Knossos today and it is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. In my first book, way back in 1983, a self-published manuscript that I called Kushite Case-Studies, I wrote a chapter on Crete and it is that chapter that I am going to develop in my new book. Well, there is nothing quite like seeing a place for yourself with your own eyes and so, following Knossos, I went to the Archaeological Museum. It too was well worth the visit, and as I am here try to fill in my missing historical pages and gathering data for the new book,

I saw several important things. First, the prominence of the female. If anything, in ancient Crete the female enjoyed a status at least the equal to that of a man. Indeed, she seems to have been far more important. The goddess, in particular, not the god, reigned supreme. All of the evidence corroborates this. This does not sound like white folks to me. Secondly, the Kamite/Minoan connection was pronounced. I even found a reproduction of a Minoan wall painting in a north Egyptian palace of the great Ahmose I, founder the illustrious Kamite dynasty XVIII. Even the color schemes seemed familiar with people generally painted a chalky color for the women and reddish-brown for the men. Third, I found a depiction of a Black man from Knossos dated around 1400 BCE. He is in a piece of art called "The Captain of the Blacks." I took a bunch of photos of the piece as I could not find it any book and certainly none of the post cards. And, point number four, I found another good Africoid depiction of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. So I had a very good day, this day, possibly my best day ever in Greece.

Well, it is Friday night in the city and the music is jumping. I guess that this is my signal to return to my hotel as I never was a jumper anyway and certainly don't figure to jump here. Let me just send an email to my biological family to let them know that I have not disappeared from the face of the earth, although I travel so much now that I figure that they stopped worrying about me a long time ago. And there does not seem to be much to worry about anyway. The cyber cafe is just across the street from my hotel and people do not seem unfriendly.

Tomorrow I will try to visit at least one, perhaps two more archaeological sites. I will post if you if I can. If not, just look for me in the whirlwind. So far it is a very positive experience.

In love of Africa,

Brother Runoko

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

COLCHIANS, PHOENICIANS AND CANAANITES
THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN CLASSICAL WEST ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS

By RUNOKO RASHIDI



"It is undoubtedly a fact that the Colchians are of Egyptian descent. I noticed this myself before I heard anyone mention it."

--Herodotus, The Histories

We now know that modern humanity originated in Africa, and that all modern humans can ultimately trace their ancestral roots back to the African continent. Herodotus, the European father of history, regarded Colchis, a land located along the western slope of the Caucasus Mountains near the Black Sea, as an African colony. He not only pointed to the Colchians' black skin and woolly hair, but also to their oral traditions, language, methods of weaving, and practice of circumcision. Saint Jerome, writing during the fourth century, called Colchis the "Second Ethiopia." Two hundred years later, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, described an "Ethiopian" presence in the same region. Even today, in the same district about which Herodotus wrote, lives a numerically minute black-skinned, woolly-haired community.

Phoenicia was the name given by the Greeks, in the first millennium B.C.E., to the coastal provinces of modern Lebanon and northern Israel, although occasionally the term seems to have been applied to the entire Mediterranean seaboard from Syria to Palestine. Phoenicia was not considered a nation, in the strict sense of the word, but rather as a chain of coastal cities, of which the most important were Sidon, Byblos, Tyre and Ras Shamra. To the Greeks the term Phoenician, from the root Phoenix, had connotations of red, and it is likely that the name was derived from the physical appearance of the people themselves.

The Phoenicians were a coastal branch of the Canaanites, who, according to Biblical traditions, were the brothers of Kush (Ethiopia) and Mizraim (Kmt)--members of the Hamite ethnic group. In other words, the Bible states that the ancient Canaanites, Ethiopians and Egyptians were all African nations. Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop claimed that "Phoenician history is therefore incomprehensible only if we ignore the Biblical data, according to which the Phoenicians, in other words, the Canaanites, were originally Negroes, already civilized, with whom nomadic, uncultured white tribes later mixed." While acknowledging the Biblical data, Diop cautioned that the economic relations shared by the Kamites and Phoenicians should not be minimized in explaining the strong sense of solidarity which generally existed between them. There was frequently a Kamite presence: military, diplomatic, religious or commercial, both in the Canaanite hinterland and the Phoenician city-states themselves, and Diop goes on to state that, "Even throughout the most troubled periods of great misfortune, Egypt could count on the Phoenicians as one can count more or less on a brother."

The Phoenicians were the great seafarers of their time and dominated the Mediterranean shipping lanes. Phoenician inscriptions have been found as far north as central Turkey and as far west as Tunisia where the famous ancient city of Carthage was founded. It was among the Canaanites that one of the most important and meaningful inventions in human history is attested--the alphabet.

SOURCES:
African Origin of Civilization, by Cheikh Anta Diop
African Presence in Early Asia, edited by Runoko Rashidi and Ivan Van Sertima



ROME BEFORE THE ROMANS

By ARTHUR LEWIN



Rome, why Rome? Why did Rome rise to such great heights in ancient times? Much of the credit must go to the Etruscans. In fact, much of what we think of as Roman is, in reality, Etruscan...

The Etruscans fled Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) around 1000 B.C. They were part of the Mycenaen culture of the Eastern Mediterranean. This Mycenaean civilization was thoroughly disrupted as primitive Greek bands came pouring in from the north around 1000 BC, and so, one element of the Mycenaeans, the Etruscans, fled eastward across the Mediterranean, eventually landing in Italy.

In essay 33, of the Global African Presence Home Page, "Minoan Crete African Forerunner of European Civilizations," Master Teacher Runoko Rashidi describes the pivotal role of Crete in European history. Crete was destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Thera around 1400 B.C. This cataclysm badly damaged every city in the Western Mediterranean, and was also felt as far away as Egypt. It took centuries for the region to get back on its feet, and when it did, the new culture that developed has come to be called Mycenaean. The Etruscans, living in Lydia in Asia Minor, were a key Mycenaean element. Their statues show them to be dark complexioned and resembling the Cretans, who were related to their forbears.

At any rate, the Etruscans migrated to Italy, in the face of the invasion of primitive Greeks around 1000 B.C. (Note the Greek "Classical Era" would not arrive for 600 years.) The area where the Etruscans settled, immediately to the north of Rome, came to be known as Etruria, sometimes called Tuscany, both derivatives of the word "Etruscan."

Note that Etruria is on the western, or far, side of the Italian peninsula, when approaching from the east. It is also Italy's most fertile quarter. This indicates that the Etruscans doubtless probed the peninsula before picking out the most desirable area. Etruscan technology was far in advance of the natives they encountered. They easily conquered them, conscripted them and then used them to further their conquests. (Howe, 301)

The area immediately to the south of Etruria, across the Tiber River, was called Latium. Its inhabitants were called Latins. Around 600 BC the Etruscans conquered Rome, and an Etruscan king ruled the city. Rome emerged as the pre-eminent city in Latium precisely because it was closest to Etruria. Here are a series of direct quotes from, Albert Trever's 1939, History of Ancient Civilization, taken from pages 22 & 23, Volume II, The Roman World, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company. He was a "mainstream," conservative historian, and what he says is supported by any number of writers, and can be found today in standard encyclopaedia entries on the Etruscans and the early history of Rome:

"Since the Etruscans brought with them from the Orient, an advanced culture, they may be truthfully called the civilizers of early Italy... They introduced into Italy and Rome an urban civilization where before had been only scattered, agricultural villages.. They transformed Rome from a loose group of farm villages to a powerful, populous city (urbs), gave the city its name, Roma, and started it on its later career of expansion and power in Italy.... the judicial ceremonial, religious ritual, and much in the Roman festivals and shows, were Etruscan before they were Roman.

"The Greek alphabet came to Rome probably through the medium of the Etruscans, early in the seventh century, as did many other of Rome's loans from Greece. In religion, also Rome owed much to the Etruscans. Her Capitoline tradition of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, her use of augury and divination...(and also) her gladitorial contests.

"One of the greatest debts of Italy and Rome to the Etruscans was in building, for from them they learned to build permanently with hewn stone, and to undertake great public works such as temples, fortifications, aqueducts, bridges, dikes and sewers.... it was under Etruscan influence in the sixth century that Rome was first fortified by a wall. The fruitful principle of the arch was also introduced into Italy by the Etruscan immigrants." (Trever, pp. 22, 23)

So we see that much of what we today call Roman was, in fact, Etruscan. We must also note that they were trading partners and allies of African Carthage. And there is evidence that they shared the same divinities as the Carthaginians (Davies, p. 154) Five centuries after fleeing the Greeks, the Etruscans again encountered them in Italy. "In opposition to the Hellenic (Greek) colonial expansion in the West, which tended to encircle them, they were allied with Carthage against the Greeks in the Battle of Alalia in 538 B.C." (Trever, p. 18)

What eventually happened to the Etruscans? It is an old story. Their pupils, the Romans eventually conquered, and incorporated them. The Etruscans had a league of 12 cities, but it appears to have been mainly a religious confederation. As Rome grew in size and power, she attacked and conquered the Etruscan cities one-by-one. They failed to unite, and re-take Rome, and so were thus swallowed by their offspring. (Sound familiar?)

SOURCES:
Davies, Norman. 1996. Europe: A History. Harper Collins: New York

Howe, Herbert. "The Etruscans," World Book Encyclopaedia. Chicago: 1975.

Rashidi, Runoko. "Minoan Crete - African Forerunner of European Civilizations," Global African Presence Home Page, 33

Trever, Albert A. 1939. History of Ancient Civilization, Volume II, The Roman World. Harcourt, Brace: New York.