Distortion of Ancient African Civilization Contribution to Modern Society - Literature review Example

The Distortion of Ancient African Civilization Contribution to Modern Day society The Distortion of Ancient African Civilization Contribution to Modern Day society Introduction Civilization is the complex state of a society characterized by social stratification, urban development, domination over the natural environment, and symbolic communication forms like writing systems (Billows, 2010). However, the Inca civilization had no writing systems. Civilizations are associated with socio-politico-economic characteristics, including specialization of labor and domestication and centralization of human beings and other organisms. Furthermore, they are characterized by ideologies of supremacism, progress, expansionism, dependence on agriculture, and monumental architecture. A civilization is different from non-centralized tribal or feudal societies, which include hunter-gatherers or nomadic pastoralists. Civilizations are organized in highly populated settlements classified into hierarchical social classes with subordinate and elite rural and urban populations engage in mining, intensive agriculture, trade, and small-scale manufacture. Civilizations concentrate power and extend human control over the nature and other people (Ayala, 2010). The earliest civilizations were associated with the Neolithic Revolution, which culminated in a rapid state of political and state formation. The Ancient Egyptian and the Mesopotamian are the earliest known civilizations. No one knows exactly the civilization, which came first between the two. However, most people consider the Mesopotamian civilization as the first human civilization. Nonetheless, the two cultures developed separately, and each had major influences on the world. The Egyptian civilization for instance, influenced the development of Western Civilization, which again spread the civilization to the world. A key cultural and technological evolution to modernity started around 1500 BCE in Western Europe with new approaches to law and sciences. From Western Europe, the new methods spread to the rest of the world. This paper looks at contribution of the distortion of Ancient African Civilization to the development of the modern society. The paper tries to show that the ancient African Civilization contributed to the development of the modern world. Literature Review Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was a civilization that developed and existed in the Northeastern Africa and concentrated on lower parts of the Nile River in the modern day Egypt. It is one of the six civilizations in the world, which developed independently. The Lower and the Upper Egypt in the Egyptian civilization were united in 3150 BC as per the Egyptian chronology under the first pharaoh. The history of the civilization happened in the successions of stable kingdoms separated by periods of instability. There were the old kingdom of early Bronze period, Middle Kingdom of Middle Bronze period, and the New Kingdom of the late Bronze period. The civilization reached the zenith of it authority and power during the New Kingdom in the Ramesside period where it fought against the Assyrian Empire, Mitanni Empire, and Hittite Empire before entering a period of slow decline. It was invaded by a succession of foreign powers such as the Hykos/Canaanites, Nubians, Libyans, Babylonia, Assyria, Macedon/Greece, and the Achaemenids. The invasions happened in the Third Middle Period and Late Period of Egypt. After the death of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy Soter, one of his generals established his power in Egypt. The Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty occupied Egypt until 30 BC, when the Roman Empire took it over and made it a Roman province when it was under the Cleopatra. The achievements of the ancient Egypt were due to its capability to adjust and utilize the valley of the Nile River for agriculture. The controlled irrigation and the predictable flooding in the fertile valley lead to the production of surplus crops that supported more dense population. The surplus crops also supported social and culture development. With more resources to spare, the Egyptian administration sponsored the early growth of an independent writing system and mineral exploitation in the valley and surrounding desert. It also sponsored trade with other regions, agricultural projects, collective constructions, and a military to defend the empire. The empire’s military asserted the Egyptian dominance. A bureaucracy of religious leaders, administrators, and elite scribes under the control of a pharaoh, ensure the cooperation of the Egyptian people. Quarrying, construction, and surveying techniques are some of the many achievements of the civilization that supported the building of monumental buildings like temples, obelisks, and pyramids. Other achievements are the practical and efficient system of medicine, system of mathematics, system of irrigation, glass technology, new forms literature, and Egyptian faience. In addition, the ancient Egyptian acquired recommendable achievements in technique for production in agriculture, ship construction, and writing and maintenance of a peace treaty. Ancient Egyptians constructed the first known ship. Furthermore, the kingdom entered the earliest known peace treaty with the Hittites. Ancient Egypt left a permanent legacy. Its architecture and art were widely copied and widely adopted globally. Influence of the Ancient Egypt on the Modern World People usually point the root of the western heritage and culture to ancient Greece. Ancient Greece civilization that belongs to the Greeks flourished between 8th to 6th centuries BC to 600 AD. The civilization was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages of the period between 1200 century BC and 800 century BC. The Dark Ages was characterized by geometric and protogeometric styles of pottery and designs. In 8th century, BC succeeded the period during the Orientalizing period that had a strong influence of Assyrian, Phoenicians, Syro-Hittites, Egyptian cultures. For instance, the Greek philosophers acquired certain teachings from Egypt. Stolen Legacy According to Mann (2005), the state owned Egyptian education. Every learned Egyptian was thus expected to the protect knowledge by applying it to activities that are beneficial to the state. However, foreigners who studied in Egypt took away with them the Egyptian knowledge. Pythagoras trained in Egypt before returning to Samos where he created his order before migrating to Croton in 540 BC in Southern Italy. His order had grown hugely in Croton before he was expelled. Thales (640 BC), Anaximander, and Anaximenes were natives of Ionia in the Asia Minor that was a stronghold of Egyptian Mystery schools. The three philosophers thus studied the Egyptian knowledge. Similarly, Xenophanes (576 BC), Zeno, Melissus, and Parmenides were natives of Iona. They, therefore, studied the mysteries like the other three before migrating to Elea in Italy and spreading the teachings of Mysteries. In addition, Heraclitus (530 BC), Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Empedocles were Ionia students who returned to their native lands after acquiring their education from Egyptian priests. Other migrated and established themselves in different parts of Italy. Moret (2013) pointed out that the regions surrounding Egypt were familiar with Egyptian mysteries before Athen. In 399 BC, the Greeks themselves sentenced Socrates, a Greek philosopher to death. His death sentence signified the foreign nature of philosophy in Greece. For a similar reason, Aristotle and Plato flee Athens. The Ionians and Italians who came to conduct with the Egyptians never claimed authorship of Philosophy. However, the Greeks, who despised philosophy later, claimed authorship. The invasion of Egypt by Alexander the Great provided free access to individuals like Aristotle to the Library of Alexandria. The library served as a research institute. It included rooms for the study of anatomy, astronomy, exotic animals. From the library, Aristotle and other Greeks like Hipparchus, Aristarchus of Samos, Euclid, Theon, Herophilus, and Eratosthenes acquired knowledge, which they then claimed to be their own. Aristotle’s philosophy is considered the foundation of the western thought. However, the philosophy is not entirely his as he acquired most from the Egyptian teaching. After Aristotle’s death, his Athenian pupils, with no authority from the state, compiled a history of philosophy, acknowledge at time as the wisdom or Sophia of the Egyptians. The compilation became current and conventional knowledge in the ancient world but was later erroneously recognized as Greek philosophy. Then, the identification of the collection was changed in spite of the Greek’s treatment of philosophy as a piece of foreign innovation. Therefore, the Greek philosophy is a stolen Egyptian philosophy that spread first to Ionia, then to Italy, before entering Athens. During this period in the Greek history, the Ionians were at first Egyptians subjects and later Persian subjects. They were not Greek citizens. The Authorship or Ownership of Individual Doctrines is Highly Doubtful According to Tompsett (2012), there is a lack of essential information regarding the training and the life of the philosophers from Thales to Aristotle. No historian or writer has complete information about philosophers. Information about consists of unjustifiable place and date of birth and philosophical doctrines. The world naturally expects that a person, who rose to the position of a teacher, is expected to be well known by the whole community. On the contrary, the individuals placed as the earliest teachers and thought to have taught pupils are unknown. Social, domestic, and first traces of education are unknown. It is thus unbelievable as philosophers expected to be taken seriously as the actual authors or owners philosophies considered theirs. The World hesitates to consider the philosophies Greek because of the lack of essential information about the philosophers. Egypt harbored ancient knowledge, wisdom, scientific and philosophical spread, and religion. The Egyptian education remained for centuries and generations in the form of tradition. Sansone (2011) said that the invasion of Egypt by Alexander the Great’s invasion opened way for Aristotle and his students to gather and claim ownership of the Egyptian teachings. Consequently, the source of authorships of peri physeos is not as important as history mentions four names as authors. The names are Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, and Anaxagoras. The lack a definite author is justified by the claim that Simplicius, Proclus, and Theophrastus preserved very small fragments. If peri physeos are regarded as a measure to authorship of Greek Philosophy, then it does not meet its purpose as four authors are alleged to have written it. According to the idea, every other philosopher who failed to peri physeos but possessed pieces of it also failed to author Greek philosophy. It is a reduction ad absurdum. Penprase (2011) said that the schools of philosophy, Greek, Persian, and Chaldean are some of the Ancient Mystery System of Egypt. He went to claim that they were taught in secrecy as demanded by Osiriaca, whose teachings were commonly recognized by the schools. According to James (2010), the emphasis on secrecy, publication, and writing of teachings were forbidden. Initiates who developed adequately in their training were given higher ranks of Master or Teacher. Learned people were prohibited from publishing philosophy or Mysteries. Therefore, the publication of the philosophy could not have been done by original philosophers. People who knew the views of the original philosophers or those who were interested in the philosophies made records of the philosophies. The absence of the original authorship and history had to be resorted to the method of accepting the opinion of Aristotle as the sole authority that determined the authorship of Greek Philosophy. The Chronology of Greek Philosophers is Speculation Shaltout (2013), claimed that nothing is known of the early life and training of the Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, who appeared about the age of eighteen and taught at forty. They were undesirable to state. Philosophers were thus always persecuted and driven into secrecy and hiding. Therefore, they kept no records to conceal their identities. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, the Royal Library of Alexandria was seized and looted. Eudemus, Andronicus of Rhodes, and Theophrastus carried out, in a subsequent manner, Aristotle’s plan to seizure Egyptian philosophy. Throughout the period of Aristotle, the dates of birth of philosophers have been made. Eratosthenes (274-194 B.C) created a chronology of Greek Philosophers. In the third century of 140 BC, Apollodorus, created another. In the first century of 60 BC and 70 BC, Andronicus, who was serving as the eleventh head of the Peripatetic school, developed another chronology. The difficulty has persisted since the early centuries until the present time. Exception exists only for the Athenian philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. There is a general agreement among historians over the histories of these philosophers. However, with the pre-Socratic philosophers, uncertainty and confusion exist. For example, Diogenes Laertius recognizes 640 BC as the date of birth for Thales. William Turner places the date to be 620 B.C for the same philosopher. The date is 624 B.C according to Frank Thilly, while W.G Tennemann puts it at 600 BC. Diogenes Laertius points to 500 BC, as the time of birth for Parmenides while Rogers, Fuller, and Thilly omit his date of birth because they think it is unknown. The variation is dates points to the speculation of the chronology of Greek philosophers. Pre- Socratic philosophers were foreigners and thus were unknown to the Athenian Government. Both the Athenian philosophers and the pre-Socratic philosophers were persecuted for introducing foreign doctrines into Athens. Therefore, the Greek could not have been the authors or owners of the doctrines they persecuted and rejected. Aristotle and His Team Planned and Executed the Compilation of History of Greek Philosophy James and Asante (2001) said that Aristotle must have made clear to his student the intention for the compilation of the history of Greek Philosophy. After producing his books on metaphysics, Aristotle was followed by his student, Theophrastus, who published eighteen books on the doctrines of physicists. Eudemus followed with his separation of histories of theology, Astronomy, Arithmetic, and Geometry. People are amazed because of the quality, the large, and the broad range of scientific subjects that were treated. The situation raised the doubt in the world. Since Eudemus and Theophrastus were Aristotle’s students at the same time, the three philosophers must have utilized the Egyptian Library at Alexandria significantly. In addition to studying together, the three helped themselves with books that assisted them to pursue each other very closely in the development of scientific works. Apart from Theophrastus and Eudemus of Rhodes, Andronicus of Rhodes also engaged in Aristotle’s work and the development of critical summary of the works of preceding philosophers. According to Asante and Mazama (2005), Aristotle’s philosophers also created “The learned study of Aristotle‘s writing.” The purpose of the association was to point out the doctrines and the literature of philosophy with their respective authors. Friends and alumni were also motivated to engage in the study of Aristotle work and in writing commentaries. In addition, the Learned Association recovered remnants or fragments of books with the intention of finding out the authors Examples The ancient Greek civilization is the usually pointed to be the cradle of Western Civilization. However, the Greek civilization has its roots in the Egyptian civilization. As looked above, the Greeks through their philosophers stole the Egyptian knowledge by studying in Egypt and then returning with knowledge. There are several characteristics that the two civilizations shares that show the existence of the Egyptian’s influence on the civilization in Greece and through the world. The Egyptian Civilization has had several influences. Some of its influences are in the area of astronomy, time, and astrology, medicine, and law and order. Astronomy, Time, and Astrology Unlike in the modern world, astronomy and astrology were not separable in the Egyptian civilization. In the ancient world, time keeping, prediction of the future, and celestial observation were one science. Egyptian astronomers calculated the duration of a solar year with an accurateness of six minutes. They divide a year into twelve months, with each month having four weeks and a day made up of 24 hours. The system was highly accurate as it proved and reflected seasons accurately. It replaced the unreliable and cumbersome lunar calendars. According to the Hellenic travel-writer, Herodotus, who visited Egypt in 5th century BC, the Egyptians were the first people to measure a year accurately. The Greeks adopted the system from the Egyptians including the act of ascribing images, temples, and altars. Medicine Modern medicine borrowed a lot from ancient Egyptians. Imhotep, a most famous ancient Egyptian used various methods to treat his patients. Egyptian physician had a tendency of recording medical information in documents known as papyrus. Much of what is known about health matters in ancient Egypt was in various medical reports. Egyptians physicians used surgical operations to remove tumors and cists. Medical records also provided information about the use of certain medical treatments that are still being used today. Medical records provide over 800 medical remedies and procedures, which make use of over 600 drugs and different types of surgical tools. Rule of Law The laws of ancient Egypt were partially codified. There were several books that set out the legal code. However, none of these documents remains today. Egyptian laws followed the concept of Ma’at, which represented order, truth, justice, and balance in the universe. Egyptian laws were thus based on common sense perception of wrong and right. The laws considered everyone except slaves equal. Conclusion These and other characteristics if the Egyptian civilization were passed to the rest of the world through Greek civilization, which is believed to be the source of Western civilization. Egyptian knowledge was passed from Egypt to Greece through Greek scholars who went to Egypt to acquire Mysteries. Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaximander, and Aristotle studied in Egypt before returning to their homelands to establish themselves and spread their acquired knowledge. However, due to the belief that philosophy originated in Greece and the lack of authorship among the Egyptians, the actual source of knowledge, which led to the development of Western civilization was distorted. Nonetheless, the rejection of philosophy and philosophers by the Greeks, lack of authorship among Egyptians, and doubtful authorship of individual doctrines point to the start of Greek philosophy in Egypt. The lack of a clear chronology of Greek philosophers and intentional compilation of history of Greek by Aristotle and his students further strengthen this view. These factors show distortion of an African civilization in the formation of Greek civilization, which is widely considered the source of Western civilization, which influenced the development of the modern society. Therefore, an ancient African Civilization contributed to the development of the modern world. References Asante, M. K., & Mazama, A. (2005). Encyclopedia of Black studies. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications. Ayala, A. (2010). Civilization. Trafford on Demand Pub Billows, R. A. (2010). Marathon: How one battle changed Western civilization. New York: Overlook Duckworth. James, G. G. M. (2010). Stolen legacy: The Egyptian origins of western philosophy. S. l.: Feather Trail Press. James, G. G. M., & Asante, M. K. (2001). Stolen legacy: Greek philosophy is stolen Egyptian philosophy. S.l.: African American Images. Mann, C. C. (2005). 1491: New revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Knopf. Moret, A. (2013). The Nile and Egyptian Civilization. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Penprase, B. E. (2011). The power of stars: How celestial observations have shaped civilization. New York: Springer. Shaltout, M. (2013). Ancient Egyptian Civilization and Archaeoastronomy. Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. Sansone, D. (2011). Ancient Greek Civilization. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Tompsett, D. (2012). Wallace Stevens and pre-Socratic philosophy: Metaphysics and the play of violence. New York, NY: Routledge. Read More