On Kemetology-gctid212678

Chinweizu · Dec 14, 2016, 10:28 PM

Divine Kingship and Kmtyw Governance: the example of Pharaonic Egypt
Chinweizu

(In Onyekachi Wambu, ed. Under the Tree of Talking: Leadership for Change in Kmt, ukkk: Counterpoint, 2007, pp. 16-31)

Chinweizu is an institutionally unaffiliated Afrocentric scholar. A historian and cultural critic, his book 'The West and the Rest of Us' (1975) is a classic text of anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist scholarship. He has studied and written about Kmtyw history to determine, as Chinua Achebe famously stated, 'when the rain began to beat us.' He believes that one of the reasons for the dire condition of Kmt is the inability of the current leadership and elite to up-date or build upon the enduring values and raison d'etre for state formation from the pre-colonial past, in order to better the conditions of their people. He sees these elites as rather more focused on ruling their post-colonial states (or 'bantustans' as he scornfully dubs them) on their own behalf and on behalf of foreign powers.

As we begin to build up a corpus of Kmtyw bureaucratic and leadership literature, that place Kmtyw realities at the centre of the discourse, Chinweizu has identified many models from that independent pre-colonial past, which offer interesting ideas and systems of enquiry. His research has taken him back to the earliest known Kmtyw state – that of Ancient Egypt/Kmt, which produced not only some of the world's first recorded political leaders, but also, at over 4000 years, probably the longest lasting state in the world. Given the material conditions on the ground at the time to support a largely agricultural society, Chinweizu, considers the ideology that inspired the Egyptian state, the role of the Pharaoh within that vision of the state, and the mechanisms for producing an ethically guided leadership that would in turn manage the state in a principled and successful manner in the interests of its people, thus guaranteeing its legitimacy, material survival and succession.

Much of this ideology (rule of law, due process, meritocracy, tax collection, civil service and the notion of the public realm) even now underpins the constitution of many modern states, over 2000 years after the Egyptian state was overrun and defeated.

Introduction
Before aAmw and eureurasiaan invaders came to Kmt and violently installed their religions, values and institutions, many Kmtyw societies were ruled by divine kingship or its derivatives. The comprador-colonial bantustans (erroneously called 'post-colonial states' by Kmtywist scholarship) that today blight the Kmtyw landscape were each instituted by eureurasiaan invaders to plunder its territory and its population for the profit of imperialists. At 'independence' they were lured into the dungeons of the UN Imperialist system where they have been obliged to obey the dictatorship of the IMF-World Bank-WTO overseers and to pursue objectives designed to serve imperialism and its capitalist masters. Kmt's comprador elites—the black colonialists-- have been too busy pursuing the imperialist-sponsored objectives of maldevelopment to address questions that are basic to the survival of their societies. In particular, they have not formulated their own concept of good governance, let alone embarked on the quest for devices to effect it.

Unsurprisingly, these comprador-colonial bantustans are cesspools of, what even their alarmed imperialist masters now condemn as, bad governance. Unlike these exogenous states, the indigenous societies of pre-colonial Kmt had coherent and well-thought-out systems and procedures for good governance.

The available evidence, though patchy, suggests that each pre-colonial Kmtyw society had its own indigenous conception of good governance, especially with respect to resource allocation, decision-making and arbitration, and each had its doctrines on how those discharging these functions should do so for its conception of good governance to be realized.

In the decentralized Kmtyw societies, such as in Eritrea, Igboland and Botswana, besides consensual decision-making, some typical features of good governance were:

respect for ancestors, elders, rights of individuals, and community norms and laws. Membership in lineage groups, kinship groups and ethnic groups ensured the protection of the rights of individuals, weak or strong. [Decentralized Kmtyw societies] rarely had an executive branch of governance with police forces that penetrate communities to enforce laws and rules of society. Rather, members of the community observed the laws, rules and norms of their own communities primarily because they were party to their making through the consensual decision-making process. The community at large also participates through various means in the enforcement of its rules and norms. Thus, the system in such societies did not create a permanent separation between makers and enforcers of rules or government and society.
(MENGISTEAB, 2003:209)

Though we presently lack details of the doctrines and rules of good governance by which the kings and their provincial and village administrators were guided in Old Ghana, Oyo, Dahomey, Benin, Ashanti etc., we occasionally find indications of their concepts of conduct not conducive to good governance, as when grounds of social values were adduced for deposing or rebelling against a king or chief.

In the case of Alafin Jayin of Oyo in the 17th century, that veritable lord of
misrule was described as "effeminate and dissolute" and remembered for the debauchery of his court which provoked his forced suicide. Also, even under British indirect rule, in Ibadan, an offshoot and successor state of the Oyo empire, concerted opposition was mounted, in 1941, to block Chief Folarin Solaja's promotion to a very high chieftaincy position on the grounds that he was a money lender who charged interest, a rich but miserly man etc. (Adéèkó, 2004: 168-169; Adeboye, 2004: 214).

These episodes suggest that in the Oyo empire, debauchery, greed and miserliness were considered traits inappropriate in rulers and, as sources of disorder, were held contrary to their notion of good governance.

In the case of the Ashanti kingdoms it was customary to publicly admonish a chief as follows, especially during his installation ceremony:

Tell him that
We do not wish for greediness
We do not wish that he should curse us
We do not wish that his ears should be hard of hearing
We do not wish that he should call people fools
We do not wish that he should act on his own initiative
We do not wish things done as in Kumasi
We do not wish that it should ever be said
"I have no time, I have no time"
We do not wish personal abuse
We do not wish personal violence
(QUOTED IN CHINWEIZU, 1987:229)

This indicates that, among the Ashanti, greediness, arbitrariness, arrogance, and other such characteristics in chiefs and officials were seen as contrary to good governance.

For deeper insights into Kmtyw kingships and their governance, our best documented example is the divine kingship of Pharaonic Egypt. Let us now examine its concept and procedures of good governance.

Divine Kingship and good governance in Pharaonic Egypt
Pharaonic Egypt (also known as Tawy: the two lands; or Kmt /Kemet: the country of the blacks) was an avowed theocracy. The Pharaonic Egyptians saw theirs as a civilization founded by gods and ruled by gods for the edification of the gods. According to their historiography, (e.g. Manetho, and the Ramesside, or Turin, Canon) their land/kingdom was first ruled by the Gods; after that by 'the Demigods and Spirits of the Dead'. Then began the period of rule by mortal kings which Manetho divided into 31 dynasties. Manetho gave 39,525 years as the total duration of the three phases of Pharaonic Egyptian kingship (13,900 years by Gods and 11,025 years by Demigods, and the rest by mortal kings). Another Pharaonic Egyptian source gave a total of 23,000 years (18,000 for Gods and Heroes plus a little less than 5000 years for mortal kings). (Hancock and Bauval, 1996:211) Even at a little less than 5000 years, the phase of mortal kings (the only one recognised by Egyptology) was of long enough duration to make it probably the longest-lasting state so far found in the world's historical record. On the Chinweizu Chronology, Pharaonic Egypt, from the Mena unification to the Persian conquest, lasted ca.4375-525 BC. (See Chinweizu, forthcoming, Vol. II)

What did the Pharaonic Egyptians regard as the purpose of their state? And what ideology (body of beliefs and values) guided its leadership during all those millennia?

The purpose of the Pharaonic state was to maintain and restore Maat—
rightness in nature and righteousness in society-- as normatively instituted in the cosmic order established by the gods in the epoch of the Zep Tepi: the First Time or First Occasion, i.e. when they initiated civilization in Egypt: the epoch, long before the establishment of mortal kingship, when

the basic principles of life, nature, society were determined by the gods; . . . a golden age of absolute perfection –'before rage or clamour or strife or uproar had come about'. No death, disease or disaster occurred in that blissful epoch, known variously as 'the time of Re', 'the time of Osiris', or 'the time of Horus'.
(R. R. RUNDLE CLARK, QUOTED IN HANCOCK & BAUVAL, 1996:140,141)

The divine Kingship was the glue that held the Pharaonic Egyptian state together. State doctrine maintained that the Pharaoh was the divine and incarnate son of the Sun-god Ra, i.e. an avatar of Heru (Horus). He was believed to be born of woman by immaculate conception and, on his bodily death, his spirit rejoined his father Ra and the other immortal gods. As the mediator between society and the forces of nature, his function was to maintain the cosmic order, Maat, by controlling the vital forces of the cosmos for the benefit of his land and its people.

One of his titles, niswt-bity, indicated that his spirit, the bity, was the living
member of the niswt-bity, the company of Herus (Horuses), living and dead, of which he and all his predecessors on the throne were members. According to the doctrine, it was the niswt-bity that actually ruled Egypt; i.e. the mortal king on the throne at any given time was just the part-human representative of the niswt-bity. Thus divine Kingship was a collective rulership by gods, specifically the current king and all his predecessors since the First Time when Aunited snakesr (Osiris) and Heru (Horus) ruled. (See 'Pharaoh-Eze Nri Correspondences' in Chinweizu, forthcoming, Vol. III.)

The principal affairs of the state (as recorded in the Old Kingdom Annals,
also known as The Palermo Stone) were:

· Building Temples
· Establishing festivals for various gods
· Making offerings and endowments to divinities and the royal predecessors of the king
· Executing large scale construction projects, such as irrigation systems
· Tax collection
· Census taking
· Measuring the annual Nile flood-level

Irrigation works, tax collection, census taking and measuring the Nile flood-level were duties dictated by the King's role as "the living Heru, who prospers the Two Lands" (see 'The Shabaka Text' or 'The Memphite Theology', Lichtheim 1975: 52) But of the activities of the state, 'nothing is more important than reverent service to the gods and the building of monuments in their honour.' (Gardiner, 1964:115)

As the lord and shepherd of the country, the King's job was to maintain Maat, the cosmic, ecological and social order that brought peace and happiness to the Kingdom. Prosperity was part of Maat for, at the Zep Tepi when Aunited snakesr was king, he taught his subjects law, order and religion; and--by introducing cereals, the vine and a superior form of agriculture--made the country prosperous. The king sought to ensure that governance preserved the social and moral order that reflected the divine order of the universe and remained consistent with cosmic regularities. If an element of that order went awry or became disturbed, the system had to be recalibrated to remove disorder and restore Maat. For example, when, due to the precession of the equinox, temples and other sacred structures shifted from their original stellar alignments they would be rebuilt and realigned to restore them to their right place in the cosmic order.

Similarly, each year, after the Nile floods receded, the field boundaries that the floods had erased had to be redrawn. And on a grander scale, after the fragmentation of the Kingdom in the First Intermediate Period, and after the monotheist theological heresy of Atenism, a consciously implemented weheme mesu, i.e. 'repetition of births' or renaissance was, each time, undertaken to restore the old order of kingship, unity, polytheism and Maatian governance. Thus, as Amenemhat declared at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, which reunified the kingdom, 'Kingship is again what it was in the past!'

For carrying out his duties, the King had available the institutions of the state. Besides his court, (šnty/shnty), of companions and counsellors, there was a bureaucracy, headed by a Prime Minister, (t3ty/tjaty), and consisting of departments each of which was headed by an overseer, (Imy-r/Amir). By the 5th Dynasty, some 1000 years after Mena's unification of Egypt, the departments of state were:

· The Great Mansions (The Legal Department and Law courts) headed by the Imy-r hwt wrt
· The Scribes of the King's Documents, headed by the Imy-r zš 'nzwt
· (Public) Works, headed by the Imy-r k3t
· Granaries, headed by the Imy-r šnwt
· Treasuries, headed by the Imy-r pr-hd.
(See Nigel Strudwick, 1985)

What was the Pharaonic Egyptian conception of good governance and how did the state ensure that it was implemented by the king and state officials? And how did the Pharaonic state obtain the corps of officials it needed for its job of upholding Maat? Through the schools, the state gave the prospective official a Maatian education; through religion, the state taught the Aunited snakesrean beliefs and resurrection rites which encouraged Maatian conduct; and through its administrative and judicial systems, the state discouraged and punished un-Maatian conduct among its officials.

Maat and the Pharaonic doctrines on governance
Establishing, maintaining and restoring Maat was the purpose of Pharaonic governance. According to Pharaonic sages, the quality of governance is a function of the quality of office-holders. If righteous men hold office, government will govern righteously. Right-acting and disciplined officials result in a just or Maatian government.

Furthermore, the quality of office-holders is a function of the quality of education. As those entering public office must be imbued with a commitment to right-doing; but as 'no one is born wise', it was necessary to educate the prospective officials and the people to their duties and proper conduct by teaching them the collective wisdom of the country as contained in the Sebait-–the wisdom texts on official conduct and social values. Hence the use of the Sebait as curriculum texts for all children in the schools. (See Carruthers, 1986:6-15)

The religion taught everyone the Aunited snakesrean beliefs about the afterlife, with its doctrines of resurrection and Judgement Day, with eternal rewards for the soul of the righteous individual and punishment for the soul of the wicked. According to doctrine, the result on Judgement Day depended on how the conduct of the deceased, when alive, measured up against the virtues of the Aunited snakesrean Code.

Let us now look briefly at the Sebait, Pharaonic education, Auserism and the administrative and judicial procedures, to see how, together, they formed a system for promoting righteous governance.

Ethical doctrines of the Sebait
The principal documents of the Sebait that have survived include, The Instructions of Ptahhotep, The Instructions for Merikare, The Instructions of Amenemhat, and The Petitions of Khun-Anpu, from the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom periods as well as later works. These separate texts, though of the same type—moral instructions--do not appear ever to have been gathered into one bound volume. To the Sebait also belong works like Ipuwer and Neferti which describe the disastrous effects of departure from Maat.

The texts of the Sebait instructed officials on righteous conduct towards peers (family, friends, colleagues), higher authorities, the general public as well as towards the gods and the ecosystem.

The cardinal virtues, as taught by the Sebait are self-control, moderation,
kindness, generosity, justice and truthfulness tempered with discretion. (Lichtheim, 1975:62) In Karenga's view, the cardinal virtues are truth, justice, propriety, harmony, balance, reciprocity and order, these being the various meanings of Maat in the sacred texts. (Karenga, 1989:391) The cardinal vices are greed, injustice/partiality, oppressing the poor /exploiting the little people, laziness, abuse of authority. (see 'The Petitions of Khun-Anpu'/ 'The Eloquent Peasant', Lichtheim, 1975:169-184)

The virtues are commended on the ground that they are decreed by God and rewarded with status, wealth, friends, family, an everlasting good name on earth and, above all, immortal life among the gods in the hereafter. The vices are condemned as abhorred and punished by God.

Noteworthy precepts in the Sebait include the following: On the rule of Law, due process and impartiality, 'The Installation of the Prime Minister' says:

'See to it that all is done according to law,
That all is done exactly right. . . .
The magistrate's safety is acting by the rule. . . .
God abhors partiality. . .
Regard one you know like one you don't know'
(LICHTHEIM 1976:22, 23)

On meritocracy, The Merikare says:

'Do not prefer the wellborn to the commoner,
Choose a man on account of his skills.'
(LICHTHEIM, 1975:101)

The Sebait urge the enjoyment of life. 'Follow your heart' says maxim 11 of
Ptahhotep, for example. However, they emphasize that wealth is a gift of God and its main purpose is to enable one to be generous to friends and intimates. 'Sustain your friends with what you have, you have it by the grace of god;' (Maxim 22) 'Don't be mean toward your friends, they are greater than one's riches, . . .' (Maxim 35)

The Sebait warn severely against greed:

Guard against the vice of greed:
A grievous sickness without cure, . . .
It embroils fathers, mothers,
And the brothers of the mother,
It parts wife from husband;
It is a compound of all evils
(PTAHHOTEP, MAXIM 19, LICHTHEIM, 1975:68-69)

Not for them Maggie Thatcher's 'Greed is good' dictum or the capitalist doctrine of 'private vices, public good via the invisible hand'. Not for them the capitalist view that a well-ordered society should run according to what Adam Smith called the 'vile maxim of the masters of mankind': 'All for ourselves, and nothing for other people' (See Noam Chomsky, 1993:19, 57)

The Sebait also instruct as follows:

'Speaking is stronger than all fighting'
'Do to the doer to make him do'
(LICHTHEIM, 1975:99, 174)

'The Lord prefers the timid to the headstrong man.'
'Do not raise your voice in the house of God. He abhors shouting.'
(LICHTHEIM, 1976:24, 137)

'If you do good by a hundred persons and just one of them acknowledges it, no part of it is lost.'
'Do not do to a man what you dislike, so as to cause another to do it to you.'
'Do a good deed and throw it in the water and when it dries you will find it.'
(Lichtheim, 1980:170,171,174)

It should be noted that the Pharaonic Egyptians did not share the view of the Greeks and modern eureurasiaans for whom justice is nothing other than the interest of the stronger. (For Afrocentric translations and introductory discussions of the Sebait, see Karenga, 1984; Carruthers, 1995; Asa Hilliard et. al., 1987; and Karenga, 1989)

Pharaonic Education for governance
The education system aimed to produce the Maatian ideal-type of person, known as the geru-maat-- a literate, numerate paragon of righteous conduct who could be employed by the state as a priest, administrator or military officer; a person whose spirit, after the death of the body, would qualify as a blessed soul and be vindicated /(declared maakheru) on judgement day before Aunited snakesr in the Hall of Double Maat. Pharaonic education emphasized the development of character and of the soul, and was seen as the path to immortality and divinity for humans. Its ultimate goal was divinization, i.e. to make the resurrected soul of the dead fit to join the astral company of the immortal gods.

The process of education was not seen primarily as a process of acquiring knowledge. It was seen as a process of the transformation of the learner who progressed through successive stages of rebirth to become more godlike.
(HILLIARD 1985:158)

The Pharaonic system was predicated on a view in which a 'person was seen as being essentially spiritual whose essence was housed in a finite body. It was the spirit that had an eternal existence.'
(Hilliard, 1986:138)

The path to the development of god-like qualities was through the development of virtue . . . Virtue was the antidote to character flaws. But virtue could be achieved only through special study and effort.
(HILLIARD 1986:138)

Maatian philosophy held that 'self-cultivation through righteous behave-iour is the ultimate goal.' It also held 'learning as essential, even indispensable, to the self-cultivation and self-authentication of the' geru-maat.' For 'it is in the development of character that instruction succeeds' (Karenga 1989:389,391)

The character training of the student was principally through saturating his mind with the precepts from the Sebait, the wisdom books on which the child was drilled from his first day at school, and from which he absorbed the dos-and-don'ts of the Maatian way of life. The ideal character which education aimed to form, the geru-maat was: the calm, quiet, controlled, modest, wise, gentle, socially-active, person (Karenga, 1986:94), the righteous, self-mastered person 'whose whole character is infused with Maat' (Karenga, 1989:389) Explicating the concept, using quotations from the Sebait, Karenga presents some of the main attributes of the geru-maat: The geru-maat is one who is true in word, just in deed, diligent as well as generous with his wealth; a man of peace who observes the proprieties in his conduct towards superiors, peers and inferiors; who is balanced or measured and applies the right measure in all good things, and who practices reciprocity. He is calm, self-controlled, kind toward people, humble toward god, and follows in the footsteps of the ancestors. (Karenga, 1989: 361-369). The opposite of the geru-maat is the 'unrestrained person –- hot-mouthed, hot-tempered, aggressive, and generally infused with isfet: the opposite of maat.' (Karenga, 1986:94)

The human person was conceived as consisting of a mortal physical body plus nine non-physical parts. Vindication on judgement day was the condition for the person's soul to attain immortality and divinity. Therefore, emphasis was placed on preparing it to become eligible for immortality by teaching him to live by the Aunited snakesrean code.

However, since education in any ethical code is not enough to guarantee lifelong practice of it, the Pharaonic official had to be motivated to practice what he had been taught. This was done through equipping him with Aunited snakesrean beliefs which made him desire immortality, but made his attainment of immortality conditional on his life-long practice of Maatian ethics.

Aunited snakesrism: religious motivation to life-long righteous conduct
The core of Aunited snakesrism was the belief that the soul of the deceased would be
examined on Judgment Day. Upon arriving at the Judgment Hall, he had to declare himself innocent of crimes on the Aunited snakesrean Code; one to each of the 42 assembled divine assessors. The so-called Pyramid Texts, which were inscribed for the kings of the 5th and 6th dynasties on the walls of their pyramids were the original resurrection manuals of Aunited snakesrism. Later derivatives would appear in the so-called called Coffin Texts, inscribed in the coffins of officials; and in the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the so-called Book of the Dead, which popularized the manual for everyone. The climax of the resurrection rites, The Declaration of Innocence, went thus (annotations, in italics and between square brackets, are by Chinweizu):

These are words which shall be said on arriving at the Great Hall of Maati, so that one may be separated from all offenses he or she may have committed and may behold the faces of the divine ones.

One says: Homage to you, Great God, Lord of Maati.
I have come to you O Lord that I may behold your beauty.
I know you; I know your name;
I know the names of the forty-two divine beings who live with you in this Hall of Maati, who live on the doers of evil and feed on their blood on the day of taking account of character in the presence of Osiris, The Good One.
Surely, the Two Daughters, the Two Eyes, Lord of Righteousness is your name: Behold, I have come to you.
I have brought you righteousness and have done away with unrighteousness for you.
(Karenga, 1984: 109)

[Here begins the Declarations to the 42 divine assessors, each of whom is hailed before a declaration is made to him. The sample declarations below are compiled from several texts and sources. The full list of virtues in the Aunited snakesrean Code is not known. If it was ever compiled, it has yet to be found. But the number of distinct virtues found in extant texts exceeds 42. I have arranged the 44 samples below into four thematic groups: social virtues, ecosystem virtues, virtuous acts to the king and the state, and virtuous acts to the gods.]

Social Virtues
1. Hail, Nehau, who comes forth from Restau, I have not
mistreated my family and associates.
2. Hail, Sekheriu, who comest forth from Utten, I have not
associated with evil or worthless persons.
3. Hail, thou Destroyer, who comest forth from Kesiu, I
have not defrauded the poor of their property.
4. Hail, . . . , I have not slandered a servant to his superior.
5. Hail, . . . , I have not inflicted pain.
6. Hail, . . . , I have not caused anyone to be hungry.
7. Hail, . . . , I have not made anyone weep.
8. Hail, . . . , I have not caused anyone to suffer.
9. Hail, . . . , I have not been greedy.
10. Hail . . . ., I have not committed fraud.
11. Hail, . . . , I have not committed adultery.
12. Hail, . . . , I have not coveted others' property.
13. Hail, . . . , I have not stolen.
14. Hail, . . . , I have not committed murder.
15. Hail,. . . , I have not increased or diminished the measure
of grain,
16. Hail, . . . , I have not encroached upon fields of another.
17. Hail, . . . , I have not taken milk from the mouth of babes.
18. Hail, . . . , I have not told lies.
19. Hail, . . . , I have not spoken curses.
20. Hail, . . . , I have not been angry without just cause,
21. Hail, . . . , I have not terrorized anyone.
22. Hail, . . . , I have not been hot-tempered.
23. Hail, . . . , I have not been deaf to words of truth.
24. Hail. . . . , I have not stirred up strife.
25. Hail, . . . , I have not been blind to injustice.
26. Hail, . . . , I have not engaged in violence.
27. Hail, . . . , I have not been quick tempered.
28. Hail, . . . , I have not waded in drinking water.
29. Hail, . . . , I have not discriminated against others.
30. Hail, . . . , I have not been arrogant.

Ecosystem Virtues
31. Hail, . . . , I have not laid waste the ploughed lands
32. Hail, . . . , I have not dammed up water when it should
flow.
33. Hail, . . . , I have not engaged in unnatural sex.
34. Hail, . . . , I have not broken the channel of running
water.

Virtues to the King and the state
35. Hail, . . . , I have not slandered the Pharaoh.
36. Hail, . . . , I have not violated the law.
37. Hail, . . . , I have not told lies in the court of law.
38. Hail, . . . , I have not worked treason.

Virtues to the gods
39. Hail, . . . , I have not blasphemed against God.
40. Hail, . . . , I have not killed sacred animals.
41. Hail, . . . , I have not violated the times of making meat
offerings.
42. Hail, . . ., I have not filched that which has been offered
in the temples; nor have I purloined the cakes of the gods.
43. Hail, . . . , I have not cursed God.
44. Hail, . . . , I have not offended the God of my city.

- - - - -

Behold, I have come to you, empty of evil and devoid of deceit, a blameless one, one without a witness against him.
Therefore, let no case be brought against me.
I live on Maat, I satisfy myself with the righteousness of my heart.
For I have done that which men and women request and that which pleases God.
I have found favor with God by doing that which He loves.
I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty,
clothes to the naked and a boat to those without one.
I have made due offerings to God and funeral offerings to the departed. Deliver me then, and protect me.
Make no report against me in the presence of the Great God.
For I am one whose mouth is pure and whose hands are clean.
Therefore, let it be said to me: 'Welcome, come in peace'
by those who shall see me.
(KARENGA, 1984: 111-112)

[His heart was then weighed in the balance against the feather of Maat, and if found pure, i.e. if it was light enough to balance the feather of Maat, he would be vindicated and admitted to the company of immortals, thus:]

Hail, vindicated one. You shall cross the sky and
travel across the expanse of the heavens; those in the
winding waterway [i.e. the Milky Way] shall revere you and see you when you rise on the eastern horizon. You shall come forth
from the Night-bark of Ra and go aboard the Day-bark
as Horus, Lord of nobles, himself, commands you.
Hail, vindicated one. You shall go up on the great
eastern side of the sky and go down on the great
western side of the earth among those powers of
heavens who are in the company of Osiris, the Risen
Savior. And you shall go in peace, in peace with Ra,
who is in the heavens.
(KARENGA,1984: 114)

[The vindicated soul, at its ascension into heaven, would be welcomed thus:]

The Heavens declare: This royal vindicated one is my
beloved son in whom I am well pleased, ... my first
born upon the throne of earth, and Ra has given him
his heritage in the presence of the Great Powers of
heaven. All the powers of heaven rejoice saying how
blessed is this vindicated one, for His Father is greatly
pleased with him.
(KARENGA, 1984:119)

---------------------------------------------

This culturally instilled craving for immortal life among the gods was a motive powerful enough to induce most officials to live righteously as they had been taught. But, as always with codes of conduct, there were those who, for whatever reasons, strayed from the path of Maat. For such, when caught, there was punishment here on earth, even before the eternal punishment that was said to await them after death.

The Judicial punishment system
For minor infractions of the Maatian code of conduct, an official might be
reprimanded. For more serious transgressions, he might be sacked and have his property confiscated--as was done to Nemtynakht in the story 'The Petitions of Khun-Anpu,' or 'The Eloquent Peasant'. For even more serious transgressions, such as treason, he would be imprisoned, have his nose or limb cut off, or even be sentenced to death by suicide or starvation--as happened to those found guilty of conspiracy to make rebellion against King Ramesses III. (See Gardiner, 1964: 289-290)

Conscience vs. CCTV
Thus did the Pharaonic state organise a three-part system—made up of education, religious beliefs and judicial punishment--for obtaining the cadre of righteous leaders it needed to fulfil its Maatian purpose. This ideological edifice is, in its field, no less impressive than the megalithic edifices, epitomized by the Great Pyramids, which Pharaonic Egyptians bequeathed humanity. It helped them to produce what has been called 'one of the best organized civilizations that the world has ever seen.' (Gardiner, 1964:106)

As Karenga points out, in this ideological edifice 'we find a source of the Ten Commandments and . . . of so many other concepts central to Hebrew and Christian theology, i.e., resurrection, the Risen Saviour, the Beloved Son, the Day and Hall of Judgement, immortality of the soul, etc.' (Karenga, 1984:103)

What has long been lost sight of is that the Pharaonic doctrines of resurrection, Judgement Day, paradise, and salvation were not propounded as ends in themselves but, together with immaculate conception, the annunciation, virgin birth, ascension, etc., were elements in an ideological apparatus designed to foster good governance here on earth. Christianity, a white power perversion of Aunited snakesrism, severed the quest for immortality in paradise from the earthly project of good governance and made it a free-standing, other-worldly end-in-itself. With the atheism of the secular bourgeois capitalism of the last two centuries, we have found out from hard experience that fear of Judgement Day, when internalised as conscience, is a more effective deterrent to misconduct and crime than fear of human watchers, social censure, police, judges, prisons, hangmen and Big Brother's CCTV.

Conclusion
The inability of black Kmt's comprador-colonial bantustans to satisfy or pacify their populations, whether under one-party, multi-party or military rule, has manifested as rebellions and civil wars that threaten an endemic disorder that could obstruct the stable imperialist plunder of Kmt. This has alarmed the imperialists into advocating 'good governance' and other nostrums to legitimise the comprador-colonial bantustans, and thereby stave off the collapse of the comprador-colonial system. It has caused them to sponsor a search by Kmtywist scholarship (ever the ready handmaid of imperialism) to find ways to integrate aspects of Kmtyw indigenous governance systems into the structures of comprador colonialism so as to give these outlandish, barbarous and anti-Kmtyw states-–with their brazenly greedy black colonialist officials--legitimacy in the eyes of their victim populations, and hopefully save them from being violently overthrown and scrapped altogether.

References
Adeboye, O.A. (2004) 'Elders-Still-Exist': Socio-cultural Groups and
Political Participation in Colonial Ibadan', in Olufemi Vaughan ed. Indigenous Political Structure and Governance in Nigeria, Ibadan: Bookcraft, pp.195-230
Adéèko, Adélékè (2004) 'Political Appellation in Yoruba Literature' in
Olufemi Vaughan ed. Indigenous Political Structure and Governance in Nigeria, Ibadan: Bookcraft, pp.168-194
Carruthers, Jacob (1995) Mdw Ntr: Divine Speech, ukkk: Karnac House
______________ (1986) "The Wisdom of Governance in Kemet" in Karenga,
Maulana and Carruthers, Jacob eds (1986) pp.3-30
Chinweizu, (forthcoming) On Kemetology and Black Egypt, Vol I:
Groundworks on Kemetology; Vol II: Pharaonic Chronology Revisited; Vol III: Igbo-Pharaonic Correspondences; Vol IV: Black Egypt; Vol V: Miscellaneous Studies in Kemetology.
Chinweizu (1987) The West and the Rest of Us, (2nd Edition) Lagos: Pero Press
Chomsky, Noam (1993) Year 501, The Conquest Continues, Boston: South End
Press
Gardiner, Alan (1964) Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford: Oxford University
Press
Hancock, Graham and Bauval, Robert (1996) The Message of the Sphinx, New
York: Three Rivers Press
Hilliard, Asa G., III (1985) "Kemetic Concepts in Education" in Van
Sertima, Ivan ed. Nile Valley Civilizations, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books
________________ (1986) "Pedagogy in Ancient Kemet" in Karenga,
Maulana and Carruthers, Jacob eds (1986) pp.131-148
Hilliard, Asa G., III, Larry Williams and Nia Damali, eds (1987) The
Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World. Atlanta: Blackwood Press
Karenga, Maulana (1989) "Towards a Sociology of Maatian Ethics:
Literature and Context," in Van Sertima, Ivan ed. Egypt Revisited, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 352-395
_______________ (1986) "Restoration of the Husia: Reviving a Sacred
Legacy" in Karenga, Maulana and Carruthers, Jacob eds (1986) pp.83-99
_______________ (1984) Selections from the Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient
Egypt, Los Angeles: Kawaida Publications
Karenga, Maulana and Carruthers, Jacob eds (1986) Kemet and the Kmtyw
Worldview, Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press
Lichtheim, Miriam (1975) Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. I: The Old and
Middle Kingdoms, Berkeley: University of California Press
________________(1976) Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. II: The New
Kingdom, Berkeley: University of California Press
________________(1980) Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. III: The Late
Period, Berkeley: University of California Press
Mengisteab, Kidane (2003) "Kmtyw Traditional Institutions of Governance:
The Case of Eritrea's village Baito", in Olufemi Vaughan, ed. Indigenous Political Structures and Governance in Kmt, Ibadan: Sefer Books, pp.208-223
Strudwick, Nigel (1985) The Administration of Egypt in the Old Kingdom,
ukkk: KPI

-----
About the author:
Chinweizu is a Black Power Pan-Kmtywist, and an institutionally unaffiliated Afrocentric historian and cultural scholar. His books include The West and the Rest of Us (1975), Second, enlarged edition (1987); Invocations and Admonitions (1986); Decolonising the Kmtyw Mind (1987); Voices from Twentieth-century Kmt (1988); Anatomy of Female Power (1990). He is also a co-author of Towards the Decolonization of Kmtyw Literature (1980). His pamphlets include The Black World and the Nobel (1987); and Recolonization or Reparation? (1994) He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Copyright © 2007 by Chinweizu

Chinweizu · Dec 15, 2016, 10:31 PM

Chinweizu 20 viii 01

Fekri Hassan on the Old Kingdom's demise: a response to Ancient Apocalypse Part One.

Several decades ago, Karl Butzer postulated that "major segments of ancient Egyptian history may be unintelligible without recourse to an ecological perspective." I am glad that an Egyptologist of Fekri Hassan's standing has taken up Karl Butzer's insight and applied it to the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period (FIP). This challenge to the orthodoxy from within the Egyptology establishment is healthy and should be supported. I, like Prof Fekri Hassan, believe that a climate change was the basic cause of the demise of the Old Kingdom, but I doubt that he has investigated the correct climate change.

I do not think that what he presented on TV is sufficient to prove his hypothesis. Of course, in a program aimed at non-specialists, one does not expect all the hard data to have been displayed. But the crucial ones, especially those on dating, ought to have been, as they were in the program on the Maya. My impression is that Prof Hassan was rather vague on matters of chronology. However, for the presentation to be technically evaluated, certain key data are required. I presume Fekri Hassan based his program on them, and would supply them to those interested, such as myself.

For example:
1] What are the Calibrated Radiocarbon (CRC) dates for Ankhtifi's tomb?
2] What are the CRC dates and the names for the sites excavated in the Delta by Prof. Redford?
3] What are the CRC dates for the period when the Birket Quarun is said to have dried out completely?

These chronological data are absolutely necessary for evaluating Prof. Hassan's presentation. In addition, there are at least three other problems to be disposed of before he can be said to have proved his case.

4] Since the Nile waters derive, not from rainfall within Egypt, but from rainfall south of Old Dongola, and principally from the Ethiopian highlands and equatorial Kmt, the Nile floods would not have fallen disastrously low, and the Birket Quarun would not have dried up, unless a drought affected the distant contributaries of the Nile. A 20% drop in rainfall in Israel, or even in a belt across North Kmt and the Levant, would not alone have such effects. Hence it is important, for his hypothesis, to establish that the 2200 BC climate change reduced rainfall drastically in Equatorial Kmt and the Ethiopian highlands. But that was not done in the program.

5] It is indeed extraordinary for the mud cores to show no sediments at all dating back as far as the Old Kingdom period. Even if the Birket Quarun dried up completely at some point; and even if all the previous sediments were blown away and the bottom of the lake was scoured by sand storms, was there not even the thinnest layer of aeolian deposit in the mud cores from just before the lake began to fill up once more? How were the layers of the mud cores dated in the search for Old Kingdom sediments? Since the lake is known to have existed before 2200 BC, were no sediments recovered from layers deposited even before the Old Kingdom? Are all the sediments present today, down to the pristine bottom, post 2200 BC? Did the drills dig deep enough, down to the pristine or rock bottom? How many decades of sandstorms would have been needed to blow away all the sediment from Old Kingdom times and before? All of this, and more, need to be made absolutely clear and verified for Prof. Hassan's "clinching evidence" to be established.

6] Prof. Hassan's thesis is of a sudden destruction. It hangs on the orthodox chronology which dates the end of the Old Kingdom to the ca. 2181 BC. i.e. within decades of the 2200 BC climate change This chronology is, perhaps, the Achilles heel of the entire Fekri Hassan hypothesis, as there are, indeed, at least two reasons for thinking that the Old Kingdom ended centuries before the 2200 BC climate change.
First is the radiocarbon result, obtained by Herbert Haas and his team, which requires that the Cambridge Ancient History (CAH) dates for the Old Kingdom be raised by an average of 374 years. This means that Dyn. III began ca. 3104 BC. In that case, even by the compressed dynasty lengths of the CAH, the Old Kingdom would have ended ca. 2555 BC, that is, some three centuries before the 2200 BC climate change.
Second is the radiocarbon date for Sneferu, the first king of Dyn. IV. One radiocarbon date from Meidum is 4802±210 BP. But that was published before calibration methods for RC dates were established in 1967. When calibrated (e.g. by the Seuss graph of 1970), that date becomes 3585±185 BC. That CRC date for Dyn. IV implies that the Old Kingdom ended ca. 2900 BC, centuries before the 2200 BC climate change.
If either of these CRC dates for Dyn. III and Dyn. IV is correct, then the 2200 BC climate change could not have caused something that long preceded it. In that case, Prof. Hassan's explanation would fail, along with the orthodox Old Kingdom chronology on which it is based.

But what has Fekri Hassan's TV presentation demonstrated? What would be a correct interpretation of the evidence he marshalled? My view is that Prof Redford's findings in the destroyed Delta temple, if CRC dated to ca. 2200 BC, would be evidence for the impact on Egypt of that drought, in the form of desperate refugees from the Levant crossing the Sinai into Egypt and plundering the Delta. It would be consistent with Pharaonic reports of eurasiatics pushing into the Delta during the FIP.
As for Ankhtifi's tomb and the mass graves of the Delta poor, everything depends on dating them. Depending on their CRC dates, they might well be evidence of famines and social disasters associated with low Niles of some other times in the FIP.
But for any of that, or anything else, to imply that the end of the Old Kingdom was caused by the 2200 BC climate change, the orthodox chronology for the Old Kingdom would have to be shown to be correct. In other words, the Haas and Sneferu CRC dates would have to be proved wrong.

Let me point out that there is an alternative climate change hypothesis which Prof. Hassan mentions and explicitly rejects, but which is probably the correct one. It is that the Sahara dessication was the main cause of the demise of the Old Kingdom. I am presenting the case for that in a monograph titled Pharaonic Chronology and the Nile Level Phases, 8000-1000 BC. It will be published next year. If Prof. Hassan publishes the hard data on which his TV presentation was based, including those I have requested above, his hypothesis and mine can then be compared and evaluated.

Chinweizu
c/o 12 West Kensington Court
ukkk W14 9AA
e-mail: sundoor777@hotmail.com

PS: This comment was never sent out. Before I could gather the addresses for the long list, below, of those copied, I suffered a stroke and was hospitalized for many months. After that, I returned home to Nigeria and my priorities changed.

==============================
cc: Prof Fekri Hassan, University College ukkk
Jessica Cecil, Series Producer, BBC Two
Alan Bookbinder, Exec. Producer, BBC Two
Cynthia Page, Producer, BBC Two
Simon Holland, Film Editor
Melissa Berry, Narrator

Prof. Donald Redford, Penn. State University
Dr. Mira Bar-Matthews, Geological Survey of Israel
Dr. Gerard Bond, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Dr. Peter deMenocal, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Dr. Gasballah Ali Gaballah, Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities

Dr. Martin Bernal
Dr. James Mellaart
Dr. Herbert Haas
Dr. Manfred Bietak
Dr. Charles Bonnet

The Director, The Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago
Dr. Ian Shaw, University of Liverpool
Dr. Barry Kemp
Dr. James Weinstein

Prof. Theophile Obenga
Prof. Ivan Van Sertima
Prof Molefi Asante
Dr. Jacob Carruthers

Journal of Egyptian Archeology
Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Archeometry
Antiquity
American Journal of Archeology
Germania
Radiocarbon
Science
Scientific American

Chinweizu · Dec 16, 2016, 10:34 PM

Chinweizu {OKMT1}[April '02] Jan. 99 [Feb. 98] Oct. 1997 (Oct. '96) [Kmt5]
Copyright © 1999 by Chinweizu Draft; not for publication

On Kemetology:
Groundwork for the Afrocentric Study of Pharaonic
(Black Egypt's)Civilization

Dedication: In celebration of the works of Manetho, Cheikh Anta Diop and
George G. M. James; and to stimulate others to advance what they pioneered,
and thereby strengthen the intellectual ramparts of the Black World.
*********************************************

The birth of Egyptology was . . . marked by the need to destroy the memory of a Negro Egypt at any cost and in all minds.
-- Cheikh Anta Diop, (AOC, p. 45)

The first battle in this field [Egyptology] has been won. We had to prove that the Ancient Egyptians were a black people. Now, nobody can dispute that fact in any serious manner! People can silence all this or not talk about it, but no serious scientist can now say it's not the truth. It's no longer possible to see anybody develop a positive thesis to counter that fact. So now we have to go to the second step. We have to rethink the whole of Egyptian history in the framework or mind of the Kmtyw spirit that gave it its birth. Because the whole of Egyptian history seems to be very fragmented, dispersed, like a disjointed body, because it was seen and interpreted by a thought system that was foreign. It is high time that we reinterpret the whole of these facts. Where is the problem in this field? The materials that come from the digs that have already been done are in the different eureurasiaan museums. This is a damage that can never be undone. The criteria of choice, of what had to be kept and what had to be destroyed, those criteria were established by foreign minds whose interest it was to whiten the Egyptian Civilization. Hundreds and thounited snakesnds of mummies have been destroyed. All the mummies that had distinct Kmtyw features were put aside and classified as being foreign and they took the ones that looked more white and said they were the authentic ones in Egypt. . . . What they have destroyed we cannot bring back anymore. But what we can do is have access to the museums. . . .We have access to these documents that already exist. We must re-read them with our own interests in mind.
-- Cheikh Anta Diop, (GAT, p. 292, 293, 295)

The existence of an Kmtyw Egyptology alone will allow us to move for good beyond the frustrating and destructive theories of obscurantist or agnostic historians.
-- Cheikh Anta Diop (C/B, p. 6)

The subject matter of Kemetology

Kemetology is the Afrocentric study of Pharaonic Egypt. The subject matter of Kemetology is Pharaonic civilization, the indigenous civilization of Kemet. The territory of Kemet is the land of the Lower Nile Valley, from the first cataract down to the Mediterranean Sea. Pharaonic civilization lasted from its origins, from the founding, ca. 6000 BC, of the permanent farming villages which evolved into the society and the state of Kemet, to its final extinction in the 6th c. AD when the temples, which nourished the religion at the heart of Pharaonic civilization, were finally closed down and destroyed, in 529 AD, by emperor Justinian of Christian Byzantium. The six-and-half-millennia life-cycle of Pharaonic civilization may be divided into three phases:

The Predynastic Phase ca. 6000 BC – ca. 4500 BC;
The Dynastic Phase: ca. 4500 BC - 525 BC;
The Post-Dynastic Phase: 525 BC - 529 AD.

From the viewpoint of Kemetology, events in the territory of Kemet before 6000 BC belong to Hapiology, the Afrocentric study of Nile Basin societies before the evolutionary emergence of Pharaonic civilization.
In thus delineating its subject matter, Kemetology differs from Egyptology. Egyptology addresses itself primarily to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, i.e. the 30 Manethonian Dynasties that ended in 343 BC with the second Persian conquest of Egypt; and secondarily to Egypt before the Pharaohs, i.e. everything that happened on Egyptian territory before the rise of the Pharaonic state; but not in a determined way to the post-autonomous phase of the civilization which was finally brought to an end in 529 AD. Egyptology, thus, covers everything discoverable about the land of Egypt, from the remotest antiquity, but only down to 343 BC; in some cases, it extends its interest down to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30BC.

Egyptology 343 BC

6000 BC Kemetology 529 AD

Why Kemetology?

Every discipline must have a reason for coming into being. Even when its subject matter is brand new, it must have persuasive reasons for adding to the long list of disciplines already in existence. So, since the subject matter of Kemetology greatly overlaps that of Egyptology, why Kemetology? This breaks down into two questions: (a) Why should Kmtyws study Pharaonic Civilization at all? and (b) Why should they do so differently from Egyptology?
The study of Pharaonic Civilization is vital for Kmtyws because it is the greatest civilization which Kmtyws have produced, and because of its potential contribution to Kmtyw Unity and the Kmtyw Renaissance. In the words of Cheikh Anta Diop,

A dynamic, modern contact with Egyptian Antiquity would enable Blacks to discover increasingly each day the intimate relationship between all Blacks of the continent and the mother Nile Valley. By this dynamic contact, the Negro will be convinced that these temples, these forests of columns, these pyramids, these colossi, these bas-reliefs, mathematics, medicine, and all this science, are indeed the work of his ancestors and that he has a right and a duty to claim this heritage. [C. A. Diop, AOC, p. 140]

If that sense of Kmtyw Unity which Kmtyws have been seeking since independence can be enhanced by knowledge of our shared relationship to Kmt's greatest civilization; and if the renaissance of Kmtyw Civilization can draw powerful inspiration from that civilization, then it is imperative that Kmtyws learn all they can about Pharaonic Civilization.
As to why Kmtyws should study Pharaonic Civilization differently from Egyptology, the simple answer is that anything Kmtyws study should be studied from the Kmtyw point of view, and with the Kmtyw interest clearly in mind. And, as we shall see, Egyptology is not concerned with the Kmtyw point of view or with the Kmtyw interest. Furthermore, the available knowledge of Pharaonic civilization is meagre, and Egyptology has distorted and misrepresented what scraps it has produced. First of all, with Byzantium's destruction of the heart and brain of Pharaonic civilization—through closing the temples and destroying the libraries of Kemet—these ultimate repositories of Kemet's intellectual legacy disappeared. In one of these acts of culturecide, the Great Library of Alexandria, in which the Ptolemies had housed vast quantities of Kemetic books, was deliberately destroyed by a Christian mob, in 390 AD, on the orders of Emperor Theodosius, [see Chandler in Van Sertima, ed., Kmtyw Presence in Early eureurasia, p. 157; and also Bernal, I, p. 121.] Secondly, a Eurocentric and Negrophobic/Melaphobic Egyptology has, in the last two centuries, added to the damage done by the early Christians. Many of the surviving artefacts of Kemet have been plundered and dispersed among the museums and palaces of the Pan-eureurasiaan world. This malpractice was, of course, started by the Romans, who carried off to Rome and Constantinople some of the obelisks and statues which they found in Kemet. Furthermore, much of the knowledge gleaned by Egyptology has been tainted by Negrophobia/Melaphobia and distorted by Euro-chauvinism. In brief, the object of study has been devastated, plundered, fragmented and scattered; and what passes for knowledge about it is presented through the foggy prisms of Euro-chauvinism and the warped Negrophobic dogmas of white supremacy. We therefore need to find ways to re-assemble the Pharaonic legacy as well as ways to study it more clearly and in the Kmtyw interest. These objectives provide the motivation for Kemetology.

Kemetology and Egyptology: the differences

Kemetology studies the evolution of Kemet, from ca. 6,000 BC to 529 AD; it does so from the Afrocentric standpoint, which is to say, within the Kmtyw context and with the paramount aim of contributing to the renaissance of Kmtyw civilization. By virtue of its Afrocentricity, Kemetology differs for Egyptology in the range of phenomena it studies, in the principal questions it seeks to answer, and in the range of methods it avails itself of.
By treating Kemet within its Kmtyw context and giving primacy to that context, Kemetology is unlike Egyptology which plays down Kemet's Kmtyw context or even denies it outright, while insisting on studying Kemet either in isolation or within a Eureurasian context. But to study Kemet without its Kmtyw context is like studying planet Earth without reference to the sun from which it evolved and which sustains it. Acknowledging the primacy of its Kmtyw context means that phenomena from Kemet's relationships with the rest of Kmt are given the attention they deserve. Methodologically, it allows the study of Kemet to avail itself of techniques based on the affinities between Kemet and the rest of Kmt.
Kemetology's paramount aim of contributing to the renaissance of Kmtyw civilization contrasts with Egyptology's paramount aim of enforcing the Euro-chauvinist dogma that Egyptian civilization was neither Negro nor Kmtyw but white and Eureurasian. Like the difference of context, this difference also has consequences for the principal questions asked by the two disciplines, and for the methodologies they adopt. For instance, whereas Egyptology's aim is consistent with retaining the later Greek and aAmw names for persons and places in Kemet, Kemetology's aims require restoring the Kemetic names for the persons and places of Kemet. Furthermore, given its paramount white-chauvinist aims, Egyptology is obliged to preoccupy itself with the fantasy of an external and white stimulation of Pharaonic civilization. To that end, it resorts partly to a Mesopotamian stimulation dogma, and partly to inserting a civilization-stimulating white presence in early Kemet. Kemetology, in contrast, has no use for such preoccupations and procedures. It is obliged to reject them and to restrict itself to scientifically valid techniques.

The vices of Egyptology

Egyptology, like Classics, its ideological twin, was born in the original sin of white chauvinism. This chauvinism has caused it to engage in a grand and detailed falsification of history. This has been conclusively demonstrated in Martin Bernal in Black Athena, Vol. I; by Cheikh Anta Diop in The Kmtyw Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality; and by George G. M. James in Stolen Legacy. In essence, Egyptology is the white chauvinist study of Kemet. Its chief vice is its ideologized methodology, as manifested in the following:

1) Its dogma that the Kemites were not Black, and its indefatigable defense of that dogma through the slippery definitions of physical anthropology and the quackeries of craniometry.

2) Its white chauvinist chronology which, through unwarranted down-dating of the earliest phases of Pharaonic history, seeks to make possible an outside and white stimulus for the start of Pharaonic Civilization. In this connection, we must note its antipathy to absolute dating techniques such as radiocarbon (RC) dating. Even now, fifty years after RC was introduced, and thirty years after its calibration, such dates are yet to become standard working material in Egyptology; it still clings to the ideologically manipulable relative dating methods devised in pre-Radiocarbon days!

3) Its Hellenic nomenclature, whereby the indigenous names of the places and persons, concepts and deities of Kemet have been replaced by Greek names. Even Egypt, the name it uses for the country, and the name from which the discipline takes its own name, is a Greek distortion of Hikuptah, one of the names of Kemet's first capital.

4) The Hebrew-centricity which makes it cling to such Hebrew-derived nomenclature as Hamitic, Semitic and Japhetic; and which makes it take Hebrew legends and mythology as indisputable historical facts — sacred facts attested by God Almighty! — facts of such supreme authority that the results of scientific research must be made consistent with them, at the cost of whatever distortion. An example of this is the dogma of a Mesopotamian origin of Kemet which is maintained on the basis of the authority of Biblical myths which are contradicted by an array of archeological and other evidence.

5) Its excising of Kemet from Kmt and attaching it to some gerrymandered region it calls The Middle East or the Orient. East from where?

The Focus of Kemetology

As an Afrocentric discipline, and as a discipline that shall facilitate the survival of the Black World and the renaissance of Kmtyw Civilization, Kemetology is most keenly interested in three phases of Pharaonic civilization:

a] Its evolution, between ca. 6000BC and ca. 3000BC, from semi-nomadic hunting and fishing campsites to the Pyramid Age;
b] Its seven centuries long siege by hostile whites, from the appearance of the Rebu on its borders in the 13th century BC to its conquest by Persia in 525 BC; and
c] Its decline and eclipse during its non-sovereign millennium, 525BC-529AD, i.e. from the first Persian conquest to the final suppression of the Kemetic temples by the Byzantine Christian emperors.

Kemetology's prime interest in the first period is in the dynamics of Kemet's cultural evolution. Its prime interest in the second period is in how, through policies dipped in unwise xenophilia, Kemet imported a Trojan horse into its society, a white fifth column that finally opened it up for permanent conquest by whites. As in the Second Intermediate Period, when small bands of Hyksos infiltrators settled and seized power in Kemet, so too did white prisoners of war, upon being incorporated into Kemetic society, multiply and entrench themselves to the point of eventually dominating the Delta and seizing power there, and destabilizing the Kemetic state to the advantage of foreign invaders. Kemetology's prime interest in the third period is in how Kemet was destroyed, and in the migrations out of Kemet by vanquished Blacks.
Hebrews, Greeks and others may focus on Kemet's Middle Kingdom, on its Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom; on the Hyksos and the Heraclids; and on the Exodus of the proto-Israelites: after all, these periods and events were seminal to the origins of their peoples and cultures. But from Kemetology's Afrocentric point of view, these were not the periods of primary importance. And even when it focuses on these periods, its interest is different. For example, far more important to Kemetology are the processes whereby the Hyksos infiltrated and seized power in Kemet; and the processes by which they were eventually expelled. These are of interest for what they can teach the Black World about protecting and recovering sovereignty.

Afrocentric Egyptology or Kemetology?

Since the 1950s, Afrocentric Egyptologists, led by Cheikh Anta Diop, have sought to free Nile Valley studies from Egyptology's matrix of white chauvinism, Melaphobia/Negrophobia, false dogmas, obfuscation, sophistry, slippery definitions, and other tainted methods. Afrocentric Egyptology has, therefore, been a combative tendency within Egyptology, a necessarily combative tendency, seeking to win vital ground for the non-ideologized study of Pharaonic civilization. As part of this campaign, Cheikh Anta Diop warned long ago that "Egyptology will stand on solid ground only when it unequivocally officially recognizes its Negro-Kmtyw foundation." [C. A. Diop, AOC, p. 148] True enough; but what is thechance of that happening? What chance is there of the Pope converting to Islam? Given that Egyptology's addiction to white supremacy is incurable, it has effectively ignored these attacks and exposés; and Afrocentric Egytology has become something of an academically isolated enterprise, even in Black Kmt and Black America. For all its invaluable work in exposing the vices of Egyptology and in refuting its false dogmas, Afrocentric Egyptology risks being psychologically trapped in preaching to the deaf; it risks being inhibited from charting an independent course. Heckling the deaf jailer keeps one within the prison walls; it is no substitute for breaking out and getting on with one's separate life beyond the prison walls. The sensible thing to do, therefore, is to abandon Egyptology to its vices and chart a new discipline altogether.
Kemetology, therefore, is not interested in whether or not Egyptology is cured of its vices; Kemetology is only interested in getting on with its own job. In order to do so, it has disengaged from certain debates which Afrocentric Egyptology has conducted. Kemetology considers the issues in those debates as either sterile or decided, and it takes the verdicts as premises upon which to build a sound discipline. It is proceeding to define its own field, with a new orientation, new principles, new methods and a new context. To wipe out any lingering shadow which Egyptology could cast over the study of Kemet, and to avoid a waste of thought and time in distracting debates, it is necessary to adopt a new name for the new discipline, hence the name: Kemetology. To time-wasting distractions, one can now simply say: "Excuse me, I'm not in Egyptology, I am in Kemetology; so buzz off!"
For avoidance of all doubt, let it be emphasized that Kemetology is not here to combat Egyptology; it is here to carry out its autonomous project of study, and to do so calmly, confidently and conscientiously, using all the resources it can muster. Where the cleansed products of Egyptology turn out handy, well and good. Therefore, Kemetology's interest in Egyptology is limited, as it were, to finding any still-united snakesble bricks from Egyptology's polluted temple. Kemetology goes to Egyptology only as to a knacker's yard. When it criticizes Egyptology, it does so, not in order to change Egyptology, but simply to prevent the vices of Egyptology from flowing into Kemetology, and to sort out and select useable items from Egyptology's tainted output.
Afrocentric Egyptology has been an invaluable prelude to Kemetology. Its most distinguished initiators were Cheikh Anta Diop and George G. M. James. For waging and winning vital, pioneer battles we salute them as we proceed to build on their achievements.

The Fundamental Principles of Kemetology:

The following facts and techniques, which have been established or re-established in the last half-century, are fundamental to the enterprise of Kemetology, and are treated as fundamental principles and methods:

1) Black Kemet: The people of Kemet were Black, hence Kemet is the most glorious of the classical civilizations of the Black World. Cheikh Anta Diop's formidable array of evidence has re-established this fact beyond all non-delusional doubt.[1] Only during its last and non-sovereign millennium, under its succession of white conquerors, did a significant number of whites settle in Kemet. And only with the aAmw conquest, in the 7^th century AD, did a thorough whitening of the population take place on the land that had already ceased to be Kemet.

2) Absolute Chronologies: Chronologies based on absolute dating methods [such as astronomical calculations, radiometric methods like RC and TL, dendrochronology, etc.] are the cornerstone of Kemetology. Only they, and others consistent with them, are scientifically admissible.

3) The cultural unity of Black Kmt: The culture of Kemet and the cultures of the rest of Black Kmt share fundamental traits. They are "sibling cultures" within one great civilization complex. This too has been established by Cheikh Anta Diop.[2] Kemetology will further explore the cultural siblinghood between Pharaonic civilization and the other cultures of Black Kmt, and work out and utilize the methodological implications of that fact.

4) Stolen Legacies: Major parts of the Kemetic legacy were stolen and incorporated into Hebrew, Greek, Roman and aAmw cultures. The Greek theft of intellectual property from Kemet has been meticulously demonstrated by George G. M. James in Stolen Legacy, and by Martin Bernal in Black Athena. Other scholars have indicated some of the intellectual thefts by the Hebrews and aAmws, though these are yet to be systematically documented. The theft by the Romans seems not as well researched as the others; however, it is hinted at by Byzantium's fanatical suppression of Kemetic religion in order to hide evidence of the Kemetic sources of Christianity. Kemetology will retrieve all the stolen parts of the Pharaonic legacy and integrate them into its resources.

5) Unrecognized Legacies: Many aspects of the Kemetic legacy exist all around us but are unrecognized. This is so mainly because Egyptology has obscured the potential clues, even such elementary clues as the indigenous names of Kemet's towns, persons, concepts and deities; consequently, the tell-tale linguistic correspondences between Kemetic culture and other cultures of the Black World are almost impossible to spot under the forms in which Kemet is presented by Egyptology. The identification of these unrecognized legacies would contribute to a fuller inventory and portrait of Kemetic culture.
We should note that it is bad enough that Kemet's legacy was stolen by white eurasiatics and eureurasiaans and repackaged as their own; it is even worse that we forgot that it belongs to Kemet and its legitimate Kmtyw heirs, and thus lost it to ourselves. Getting it all back is one of our cardinal responsibilities.

Some Methodological and Thematic Implications

These facts and techniques have thematic and methodological implications. For example:

a) Since the people of Kemet were demonstrably Black, and its native dynasties were Black, no special emphasis or glory is due the 25th Dynasty, the foreign Nubian dynasty, on account of its being Black. The special attention paid to it by Afrocentric Egyptology is based on its being the only dynasty which a white chauvinist Egyptology acknowledges as Negro. More generally, the time, thought and reams of paper spent in trying to demonstrate that particular dynasties, and even particular pharaohs, were Black can be devoted to other issues. The onus of proof is now on whoever claims that any particular dynasty or pharaoh was not Black.

b) The use of absolute chronologies does away with a whole sheaf of arbitrary dates, and with unnecessary guesswork. It helps to establish the evidential grounds for specific postulates of cultural diffusion or isolated invention. Furthermore, when absolute chronologies are used, as we shall see, certain spurious themes disappear from consideration while other genuine themes emerge.

c) The Cultural Unity of Black Kmt involves two key propositions:

(i) That Nile Valley cultures, including Kemet, and those of the rest of Black Kmt were produced from the same evolutionary mould, and rest on a common cultural foundation. Thus, for example, Kemetic is genetically in the same language group as some of the present-day languages of Black Kmt. One study, by B. Niangoran-Bouah, has demonstrated "that at least seven Kmtyw languages show an affinity to ancient Egyptian."[3] Furthermore, Cheikh Anta Diop "has produced a glossary demonstrating the identity of 3,000 Egyptian and Wolof words in addition to examining in detail the structural affinities between the two languages."[4] These structural affinities include grammatical similarities.[5] Work being produced by the
Kiswahili-Bantu Research Unit strongly demonstrates that Kemetic, the language ofPharaonic Egypt, belongs to the Bantu language family.
(ii) That fragments of Pharaonic culture are imbedded, through diffusion, in the other cultures of Black Kmt. Besides many parallelisms in language, religion, laws, rituals, cosmogonies, calendar systems, myths, etc., many Kmtyw peoples (e.g. Dogon, Yoruba, Fang, Bakuba, Batutsi) possess legends of their migrations from the Nile Valley. Ethnological and topographic evidence exist that fragments of such migrating peoples were left behind at points on their routes.[6]

In the area of methodology, the cultural unity of Black Kmt invites the use of other Black Kmtyw cultures to illuminate Kemetic culture, and vice versa. Through comparative studies of divine kingship, totemism, religion, cosmology, rituals, entertainment, semantics, phonetics, sartorial styles, etc., the cultures of Black Kmt can cast light on one another. In particular, aspects of Kemetic culture can be clarified when examined in the Black Kmtyw context.

d) An implication of the Stolen Legacy phenomenon is this: these stolen legacies should be recovered and treated as fragments of Kemetic culture. Of special value are the following:

(i) The works of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers; the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their schools--especially Aristotle's 1,000 plagiarised books; the works of Alexandrian science and philosophy—all these must be re-appropriated into the Kemetic corpus. So too the works of Homer, for, as Victor Berard has shown, elements in the Odyssey are versions of Ancient Kemetic stories. [See Cheikh Anta Diop, Cultural Unity of Black Kmt, appendix]

(ii) The cosmogony and wisdom literature of the Hebrews, Judeo-Christian theology and rites, being reworked excerpts from Kemetic religion, are to be mined for the elements of Kemetic religion that are imbedded in them. As Gerald Massey pointed out in his Book of Beginnings (1881):

The Hebrew Books of the Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, and Judges . . . are of the utmost importance as an aid in recovering the primeval types of Egyptian thought." –Quoted in Egypt Revisited, p. 405.

(iii) Those works of aAmw science and literature which derive from the early period of the aAmw conquest of Egypt, such as aAmw mathematics and the stories which make up the aAmwian Nights Entertainment, must be inspected for fragments of the Kemetic legacy which the aAmws appropriated. For, among the sources for the stories in the Thounited snakesnd and One Nights are Kemetic, Iranian, Indian stories.[7]

Of course, all these fragments of the Kemetic legacy do not make up for the lost legacy -- that part which vanished through the burning of Kemet's libraries and the closing of its temples by the Christian fanatics; but without them, Kemetic studies would be even more impoverished.

(e) The unrecognized legacies of Kemet could be identified and used to purge the taints of Melaphobia/Negrophobia and white chauvinism from the products of Egyptology. This would be done by comparing the legacy of Kemet, as presented by Egyptology, with Kemetic legacies which are uncovered in the other cultures of Black Kmt. Take, for example the Kemetic language. Where correspondences suggest that a specialist vocabulary diffused from Kemet to another Black Kmtyw society, Egyptology's rendition of that vocabulary can be corrected using that part of Kemet's legacy which diffused into that other Black Kmtyw culture. E.g. Egyptology's mnw is better rendered as mmanwu, from its diffused version found in Igbo. If a fresh study is made of those primary Kemetic sources which have survived—documents, monuments, artefacts, etc. --- using additional comparative resources from such hitherto unrecognized legacies, the taints of Melaphobia/Negrophobia and white chauvinism would be easier to remove.

Preliminary tasks in Kemetology

In order to correct the distortions of Egyptology, and get Kemetology off to a proper starting point, the following preliminary tasks must be accomplished, systematically and thoroughly:

1. A determination of the absolute chronology of Kemet; [okmt 2, 8, Bk 1.xls, Bk 2. xls]
2. A restoration of Kemetic names and rectification of terms; [okmt 3]
3. The development and application of techniques of mutual illumination; [okmt 4]
4. A cleansing of white chauvinist taints from the products of Egyptology; [okmt 5]
5. An Afrocentric determination of research themes and a research agenda for Kemetic studies. [okmt6]
6. Macro-ecological framework of Pharaonic civilization [kmteco]
Let us indicate what these tasks involve, before undertaking them in the studies which make up the rest of this work.

1. The absolute chronology of Kemet [okmt 2]

An accurate chronology supplies the basic framework for preparing the evolutionary history of a society or state. The directions in which external influence flowed will get mixed up, and cannot be sorted out, unless chronological sequences (preferably based on absolute dates) are established. This is all the more so in a field as highly ideologized as the study of Kemet. The correct chronology of Kemet is, therefore, the main tool for turning its ideologized historiography into scientific historiography, for crossing over from Egyptology into Kemetology.

There are four key events in Kemetic history:

[a] the establishment of permanent farming villages in its territory, ca 6000 BC;
the political unification of Kemet, (date to be determined);
[c] the Persian conquest of Kemet which broke Kemet's power and ended its independence and sovereignty, (525 BC.);
[d] the closing of the temples of Kemet, an act whereby Kemetic civilization lost its
organizing intellectual and spiritual centre, and became, as it were, braindead (529 AD.)

Of these four anchor dates, the last two are precisely known, the first has been reasonably estimated by archaeology and its radiocarbon dating technique; the second, however, has long been the subject of highly ideologized estimates and disagreement. Despite that still missing date, the effective period of Kemetic civilization, from its first beginnings to its final extinction, would be from ca. 6000BC to the 6th century AD, i.e. six-and-half millennia!
Within this very long sweep of time, there are other significant turning points which need to be dated if the chronology is to be more useful. Among them are the rise and fall of the dynasties and, derived from these, the dates for the groups of dynasties that make up the broad eras of Kemetic history. For a start, we fortunately have, through Manetho and a handful of kinglists, the dynastic divisions established by Kemet's own historians, as well as the durations for some of them.
The paramount task in Kemetic chronology is to determine the epochal date of Kemet's original unification under one state. Dating Mena absolutely would provide an accurate and firm anchor for historical studies of Kemet. Another main task is to sort out the confused dates in several of the dynasties, particularly during those "Intermediate Periods" when the central authority was very weak. However, it must be stressed that, frankly, it makes no difference to Kemetology when exactly Kemet was first unified, whether in 4500 BC or 4000 BC or 3400 BC or 3200 BC. All that is needed is the best estimate obtainable from factual data.

2. Restoration of Kemetic names and rectification of terms [okmt 3]

The remains of Kemet lie obscured by non-Kemetic names. These are mostly Greek and aAmw. Their retention by Egyptology subtly promotes the illusion that Kemet was not culturally Kmtyw, and helps to uphold the dogma that Kemet was not a country of Blacks. It is all part of the anti-Kmtyw and Melaphobic/Negrophobic commitments of a white chauvinist Egyptology. Of course, it is only right and proper that their indigenous names and terms be restored to the remains of Kemet. However, such a restoration is not simply needed for authenticity; it is crucial for understanding Kemet on its own terms. If its language is the key to a culture's mind and experience, and if it is the prime repository of its outlook on the world, then the proper study of Kemet requires that we maximize, not minimize, access to its own language and united snakesges.
These alien names (Greek or aAmw) obscure the original significance of the places, persons, deities, events, institutions and objects that they name, and they fail to reveal how the people of Kemet regarded these things. Take two examples: the objects called the sphinx and the pyramid. The word "sphinx" is Greek, and derives from "shesep ankh", the first part of a Kemetic phrase that means "the living image of Atum, the lord of the universe," which was the Kemetic name for the great sphinx at Giza. [Gardiner, EOP, p. 82] To know the proper Kemetic name for what we now call the Great Sphinx is to begin to appreciate what the Kemites saw in it: and such an insight enriches our understanding of that great monument. Without this illumination, the monument is just another mysterious object lying in the desert.
Similarly, the word "pyramid" is Greek, and is their rendition of "per m ws," the Kemetic term for those edifices. [Diop, C/B, p.355] If we knew the meaning of 'per m ws', we would understand how the Kemites regarded their pyramids; and we might even get some clue as to what they were built for. These are examples of how, by restoring the indigenous names for Kemet's towns, persons, gods, concepts, artefacts etc., our understanding of Kemet might be improved.
Furthermore, a return to the indigenous Kemetic names and terms is crucial for illuminating the relations between the cultures of Black Kmt. For example, from the conventional Grecized forms of their names, who would connect Osiris-Isis-Horus with the Osa, Ise and Eru of the Igbo and the Edo in Nigeria? However, once their Kemetic forms (Aunited snakesr, Ise and Heru) are restored, the connection is easier to spot. Similarly, who would suspect that behind the Grecized name "Chons" of the Egyptologists hides the Ekwensu of the Igbo and the Esu of the Yoruba? But just restore the less Grecized form "Khensu", and the connection is easier to make.
The restoration of indigenous Kemetic names is, therefore, a preliminary but crucial part of methodology in Kemetology. It wipes off the fog from the face of the glass so we can see clearly the treasures that are beneath. This restoration is one of the most important steps required in the move from Egyptology to Kemetology. It is an Afrocentric move, and one which powerfully illustrates the importance of the Afrocentric approach.
Accordingly, all names and terms pertaining to Kemet must be changed back to their Kemetic originals. The unvocalized Kemetic words may be used until an Afro-centric vocalization is discovered. Where an original cannot be recovered, the Greek or aAmw term may continue to be used, but with a clear indication that it is non-Kemetic, and is being provisionally retained pending the discovery of its Kemetic original.
Incorrect names and other misleading expressions, of course, need to be rectified for the sake of accuracy.

3. Mutual illumination techniques [Okmt 4]

The development and application of techniques of mutual illumination would help to recover the actual Kemetic practices and concepts through the study of other Black Kmtyw cultures. The examples of Khensu/Ekwensu and Aunited snakesr-Ise-Heru/Osa-Ise-Eru, which were discussed above, show how, by establishing a philological connection between words and concepts in two cultures, aspects of the two cultures can be illuminated. This technique of mutual illumination can be extended beyond philology, to the structural and functional aspects of concepts, rites, rituals, customs, beliefs and design styles. And where the name, concept, structure and function of an object or rite are the same in two cultures, it is reasonable to suppose that the two manifestations are historically connected; for we must note the statistical improbability of independent duplication in such cases, especially when there were no insuperable barriers to diffusion. In that case, elements in one manifestation can illuminate elements in the other. To illustrate this technique, consider the masquerade among the Igbo, and the outings or "coming forth" of the gods in Kemet.
In pre-Christian Igboland, masquerades were ceremonial public manifestations or outings of the deities and ancestral spirits in their functions as protectors of the public order, and as authority symbols of the community. These masked figures sometimes performed as oracles -- i.e. as the voices of the gods --, and announced judicial decisions or proclaimed legislative decisions and invested them with the sacred authority of the gods and ancestors. In Kemet, images of the gods were carried in great processions during festivals. These were their outings or coming forth from their hallowed shrines and sanctuaries. In some outings, the images of the gods functioned as oracles, and declared divine decisions or indicated divine choices. The parallelisms between the Igbo masquerades and the Kemetic outings of the gods go beyond these broad functions; they extend to sculptural details. For instance, in Kemet, during some of these festivals, use was made of "a portable shrine in the form of a bark mounted on poles, in which the statues of the gods were carried in procession"
. In Igboland, there are masks in the shape of altars with statues of gods and other spirits mounted on them.
How might such a multi-layered parallelism illuminate both cultures? Suppose we wanted to discover the etymology of the Igbo word for masquerade, "mmanwu", how do we do so, since it is no longer discoverable within the Igbo language? Luckily, the Kemetic word "mnw", meaning "image", occurs in a hymn in adoration of the god Khnum, the creator/moulder of bodies. The united snakesge there suggests that "mnw" is used for the physical image of the soul/spirit. Given the phonetic similarity between "mnw" and "mmanwu", and the multi-layered similarities in the contexts in which they occur, this passage in the Kemetic hymn suggests that the Kemetic meaning might be the original meaning of the Igbo word. In other words, from the Kemetic, we might infer that "mmanwu", the Igbo word for the masquerade, originally meant "the physical image of a spirit". Thus, when the Igbo talk of "Ibuputa Mmanwu" , they mean the bringing forth of the physical image of a deity or ancestor spirit.
Now, whereas, within this complex of phonetic, semantic, structural and functional relations, the Kemetic united snakesge casts light on the etymology of an Igbo term or expression, the illumination can work in the other direction too. If one wanted to glimpse something of how the Kemites experienced the outings of their gods, one might do no better than to observe an Igbo masquerade festival.
Furthermore, if one sought to discover the Kemetic vocalization of "mnw", the Igbo "mmanwu' would be a clue. Here we have an illustration of Cheikh Anta Diop's statement that

the way is open for the rediscovery of the vocalics of ancient Egyptian from comparative studies with the languages of Kmt. [Egypt Revisited, p. 26]

4. A cleansing of white chauvinist taints from the products of Egyptology: [Okmt 5]

If the white chauvinist taints on the products of Egyptology are not to be imported into Kemetology, this cleansing must be done with thoroughness. The principal taints derive from Hellenomania, Hebrew-centricity, Melaphobia/Negrophobia, Eurocentricity, and Anti-Kmtywism. Some of these are manifested in the down-dating mania, in the Mesopotamian stimulus dogma, in the dogma of a non-Black Kemet etc. Absolute chronologies based on radio-carbon and astronomical dating techniques would curb the down-dating mania and explode the "Mesopotamian Stimulus" dogma. The dogma of a non-Black Kemet has, of course, already been exploded by the array of evidence assembled by Diop. [See especially Chp. , Vol. , of the Unesco General History of Kmt.] Appropriate methods would have to be found for removing the other taints.

5. An Afrocentric research agenda for Kemetology [Okmt 6]

Research themes are not purpose-neutral. What a thief studies about a house is quite different from what a decorator focuses upon. Accordingly, the purposes of Kemetology will shape its interests in Kemet, and define its research themes and research agenda. The research agenda to be outlined is a starting point for those who wish to establish the discipline. All are invited to contribute.

Conclusion

The above considerations are a minimum groundwork for a new discipline of Kemetology. Two points may be made in summary:

1] Kemetology is Egyptology minus Melaphobia/Negrophobia and Hellenomania and Hebrewcentricity and Eurocentricity, plus absolute chronology and Afrocentricity.

2] Absolute chronology is the absolute anchor of Kemetology.

The studies which comprise the rest of this work, those in Vol. I as well as those to be included in Vol. II, are contributions toward the development of Kemetology. They first address the five preliminary tasks discussed above, and then move on to other issues.
================================================================

[1] See C. A. Diop, . . . . in the Unesco General History of Kmt

[2] See C. A. Diop, The Cultural Unity of Black Kmt, Chicago: Third World Press, 1978.

[3] Molefi Asante, The Afrocentric Idea, p. 61.

[4] Charles S. Finch, " " in Ivan Van Sertima, ed., Great Kmtyw Thinkers, p. 29.

[5] Cheikh Anta Diop, The Kmtyw Origin of Civilization, p. 155.

[6] Cheikh Anta Diop, Precolonial Black Kmt, , Chapter X, and The Kmtyw Origin of Civilization, Chapter IX.

[7] See "Thounited snakesnd and One Nights" in Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965) Vol. 22, p. 157.

Chinweizu · Dec 16, 2016, 10:37 PM

Chinweizu [OKMT2][Jan. 99] Oct. 97 [Sept. 96] (Oct. 95) [Kmt2]
Copyright © 1999 by Chinweizu Draft: Not for publication

Dating Mena Absolutely:The Chinweizu Chronology
(A fresh look at a problem that is about 25-centuries old.)

I: The chronologies presented
II: The chronologies compared
III: Some implications of the CC
IV: Dating Mena
V: Constructing the CC
VI: Project for dating Mena precisely
VII: Appendix A: Analysis of data from king-lists and monuments
VIII: Appendix B: Absolute dating techniques -- some observations

Summary
As this is a technical paper whose results are of first order importance for the discipline, a general summary is necessary for the untechnical reader.
One of the most important but still unresolved questions in Nile Valley history is the date of the unification of Kemet (the Egypt of the Pharaohs), Mena's Year One. Estimates by Egyptologists range from Lepsius' 5892 BC and Champollion's 5867 BC down to Helck's 2955 BC and Scharff's 2850 BC: they cover an amazing range of 3,000 years! Some 2,500 years ago, Herodotus estimated it at what would be ca. 12000 BC!
Mena's date is important in world history, for it is the date of the founding of Kemet's Pharaonic state, one of the earliest of the pioneer states in history, and incontestably the grandest, most long-lived and most influential of them all. And with its lasting, at a minimum, for between 3,000 and 4,000 years, its only near rival in longevity, in all of history, has been the Chinese state.
Mena's date is also important for North Kmtyw and Mediterranean historiography, and particularly for the Nile Valley: if it was determined, most of the problems in Kemetic chronology would be decidable, using the remnants of the various king-lists, the monuments and astronomical data. And all the chronologies that are based on Kemetic chronology would be made more accurate.
Surprisingly, therefore, it remains undetermined in this age of absolute dating by radiocarbon (RC), thermoluminescence (TL) and other techniques. Instead, recourse is still had to "downdating" and "updating" by arbitrary principles and ideological prejudices. So long as datable materials exist, or can be obtained, from the late predynastic and the early dynastic periods of Kemet, and so long as they have not been absolutely dated, decisive work remains to be done.
What follows is a re-examination of the data for determining Mena's date. What emerges is that three independent lines of evidence converge to situate it in the 45th century BC. First, a Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence in Dyn. I locates it somewhere in the period 4504-4241 BC. Second, an archeological upper limit, based on the absolute date for the first occupation level of one of the earliest farming villages in Kemet's territory, point to its being after ca. 4580 BC. And third, a fresh and detailed review of the data from the king-lists and the monuments puts it at before ca. 4381 BC. These overlap to place Mena somewhere in the interval 4504-4382 BC, i.e. 4443 ± 61 BC. Furthermore, a fourth calculation, based on art history, independently gives a date of ca. 4457 BC for Mena. When calculations based on four different kinds of evidence -- astro-calendrical, archeological, king-lists and monuments, art historical -- all converge on the 45th century BC, that date for Mena becomes as certain as can be.
From these results, a chronology is derived. This chronology, the Chinweizu Chronology, and the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies, are tested to see which gives the best fit for several independently dated events. A project is then proposed to pinpoint Mena's date by obtaining TL and RC dates for selected materials from the predynastic and early dynastic eras.
The chronology here proposed is upheld by six independent tests, including those based on dendrochronology and radiocarbon techniques. Among other consequences, it demolishes the Mesopotamian stimulus dogma, it indicates that the two predynastic kingdoms which Mena unified were both located outside the delta, and it results in a First Intermediate Period (FIP) that is eight centuries long. The reason for such a long FIP, and for the associated Kemetic colonization of Greece and Mesopotamia in the 3^rd Millennium BC, is ecological. Data produced by the earth sciences since 1980 show that there was a phase of disastrously low Niles, which lasted at lease five centuries, and was associated with the drying up of the Sahara: both of these effects were produced by shifts in the wind system across Kmt. These underlying ecological phenomena are the subject of another paper titled "Nile level profile: 8000-1000 BC".

Part I: The astro-calendrical evidence
Dr. Charles S. Finch has made mention of "an ivory tablet from the 1st dynasty on which is inscribed the words 'Sirius, Opener of the year, Inundation 1'". (Finch 1989: 349, n.

How do we interpret this laconic inscription?
As Dr. Finch points out, it implies the existence of the Sirius calendar during Dyn. I. But beyond that, as shall now be demonstrated, it could be a record of an independently datable astro-calendrical event in Dyn. I.
According to Alan Gardiner,

Ivory tablets of Dyn. I revealed that in the beginning the years of a reign were not numbered, but were remembered . . . by some outstanding event that occurred in them. (Gardiner, 1961: 70)

Gardiner further informs us that

the heliacal rising of Sirius . . . came to be regarded as the true New Year's Day . . ., the day with which 'first month of Inundation (the first season), day one' of the civil calendar ought always to have coincided. (Gardiner, 1961: 65)

Gardiner also provides some clue for interpreting and more fully rendering the laconic statements of Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom inscriptions. According to him, the Dyn. II laconic inscription recorded on the Palermo Stone, "Time 4 of the count", should be read as "Year of time 4 of the count of all oxen and small animals". Similarly, even more laconic inscriptions of the form "Year time n" should be read as "Year of time n of the count of all oxen and small animals". This is because the sense of such laconic dating was sometimes rendered in less laconic fashion, as in, for example, "Year of time 14 of the count of all oxen and small animals". (Gardiner, 1961: 70)
On the basis of Alan Gardiner's statements and his clue, how do we interpret that Dyn. I inscription: "Sirius, Opener of the year, Inundation 1"?
It probably records some outstanding event of Dyn. I; plausibly that Sirius, the opener of the astrono-mical year, did so on the first day of the Inundation season, i.e., on the Civil New Year day. Which would mean that a coincidence of the Sirius New Year day and the Civil New Year day (day one of the civil calendar) occurred some time in Dyn. I. Such would be an outstanding event, an astro-calendrical event worthy of being noted, e.g. on an ivory tablet.
Now, when would that have been? By all tenable accounts, Dyn. I ended long before the Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence of 2781 BC. The most aggressive down-dating, such as Helck's and Scharff's, which would place 2781 BC within Dyn. I, are untenable on such grounds as the Haas RC tests which require dating the Dyn. III pyramids before 3000 BC and the Great Pyramids of Dyn. IV before 2868 BC. (Bernal, 1991: 209-210) Therefore, the preceding Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence would have occurred during Dyn. I, and Mena's "Year One" would be before 4241 BC. Alternatively, the even earlier coincidence year, 5701 BC, could have been within Dyn. I; and Mena's "Year 1" would be close to the 5867 BC of Champollion or the 5892 BC of Lepsius. However, TL and RC dates for the start of the earliest farming villages in the Nile Valley, ca. 5500 BC, rule out this alternative. (Hoffman, 1984: 141-142)
If the above interpretation is correct and the ivory tablet inscription does indeed commemorate a Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence during Dyn I; and if the coincidence was that of 4241 BC; then Mena's "Year 1", the date for his unification of Kemet, would be any time within 263 years of 4241 BC, 263 years being, according to the actual reign lengths given in Manetho, the duration of Dyn. I. It would thus lie within the band 4504-4241 BC.
Now, if we knew the name of the king in whose reign the event commemorated on the ivory tablet took place, we could, from the king-lists (e.g. Manetho) almost pinpoint the year of Mena's unification of Kemet.

Part II: The archeological evidence

Only Thermoluminescence (TL) or Radiocarbon (RC) dates for materials archeologically associated with state artefacts and architecture would directly date the stages of the evolving Pharaonic state. For example, dates for Ta-Seti artefacts found at Qustul together with Pharaonic paraphernalia, and particularly dates for those artefacts inscribed with pharaonic symbols, would be about nine generations before Mena, going by Bruce Williams' conclusion in "Lost Pharaohs of Nubia". (Williams, 1989: 102) Similarly, dates for Khasekhemui's Dyn. II Fort at Nekhen would be 565 years or less after Mena, going by Manetho. And dates for Dyn. I artefacts, if identifiable with specific reigns, would practically pinpoint Mena's date. However, in the absence of absolute dates for such artefacts, indirect estimates are still possible, based on the dates of first occupation for the earliest farming villages in the territory of Kemet. These yield an upper limit for Mena.

Estimate of upper limit for Mena

Mena's date cannot be earlier, or even as early as, the earliest stratum of farming settlement at Nekhen, the town from which he extended his rule to all of Kemet. In the absence of TL and RC dates for that stratum at Nekhen, a probably adequate approximation is that he cannot be earlier than the earliest settlement stratum of any of the earliest farming villages of Upper Kemet. At present, the earliest known is at Hemamieh, with a TL date of ca. 5580 ± 420 BC. (Hoffman, 1984: 141) This would rule out all dates for Mena that are earlier than the mid-6th millennium BC.
If we allow at least 1,000 years for the evolution of the oldest Nile Valley farming villages before their final unification by Mena, that would place Mena sometime after ca. 4580 BC. Now, would 1,000 years be too short for the predynastic period? Would it imply an impossibly rapid evolution? Probably not, especially when we consider similar evolutions elsewhere. In the case of Rome, it took just some four centuries (ca. 650-ca. 250 BC) for three not-long-settled farming villages to unify and dominate all of central and southern Italy. By that Roman yardstick, the march from Nile Valley farming villages to the Pharaonic state could have happened within 400 years! Hence, allowing at least 1,000 years for the predynastic period is comparatively quite conservative. This would put Mena, provisionally, after ca. 4580 BC.

Part III: Evidence of King-lists and Monuments

On matters of chronology, the best available sources are Manetho (M), the Turin Canon (T), and data from the monuments as presented by Gardiner (G) in his Egypt of the Pharaohs. Manetho has been so corrupted by his excerptors that, in some passages, it is almost impossible to exhume what Manetho himself wrote down. The Turin Canon is badly fragmented and full of lacunae. The monuments have their own deficiencies. They have the supreme weakness of incompleteness, due to lost, damaged or otherwise unavailable monuments. Furthermore, they are unhelpful about interregnums and parallel rulers in different segments of the country. Thus, they may not be used, as Gardiner tends to do, to automatically overrule the king-lists, especially when the monuments-total for a dynasty is less than its king-list total. And even when the monuments-total exceeds that of the king-lists, the former may not be presumed to be accurate: both may be distorted by not taking into account coregencies or rival dynasties occupying different parts of the land. In this situation, where no type of source has an inherent and automatic superiority, there is a need to rigorously compare the data from M, T and G, dynasty by dynasty, and even king by king, and sort out which seems best on each point, and then adopt it. Alas, that is the most that can be done with the fragmented material available.
In then constructing the chronology, an absolute respect for primary data is called for. First of all, dynastic totals must be checked for arithmetical errors and corrected, where necessary, from the individual reign lengths. Secondly, one can either accept or reject a figure, but must not increase or reduce it, or otherwise gerrymander it, to fit a preconceived notion of the situation. One does not solve a jigsaw puzzle by trimming some pieces and stretching others. So, if a king-list gives x as a reign length, you don't turn it into x+1 or x-1 just so that it can fit into a gap. Thirdly, the same respect must extend to numbers that are not available. You don't assign some arbitrary number of years to a pharaoh so that some event will be at a desirable date. We, alas, don't have that figure, and that should be that! Fourthly, if there is independent evidence of a coregency, then taking it into account when adding up the two affected reigns is a legitimate case of taking relevant facts into account. But, then again, you don't tamper with the length of the coregency just so as to make things "fit". Fifthly, where there is clear evidence of kingless years or dynastic overlaps, and definite lengths or minimum estimates are available in the records, these must be used to modify the numbers from the king-lists and monuments. It is only by such stringent and abstemious rules of procedure that the best can be gotten out of the available data.
By following the above procedure, the following dynastic totals have been obtained:

Table of Turin, Manetho and Monuments Totals

Dynasties	Turin (T)	Manetho (M)	Monuments (G)	Best total & Source*
I - V	955(?)	1281	----	1281 (M)
VI	181	197 (Real total)	----	197 (M) and 9+ (T/G)** = 206+ (M/T/G)
VII - X (FIP: 1st Intermed. Period)	----	740	----	740 (M)
XI	143/160+	43	----	160+ (T)
XII	213	176	184+	206– (T/G)***
XIII - XVII (SIP: 2nd Intermediate Period)	130+; 157+; 177+; 185+; 193+; 211 (Six alternatives)	604	£ 211 (Based on Sirius dates and monuments)	£211 (G)
XVIII - XIX	----	493	379+/384+	493 (M)
XX	----	135	97+	135 (M)
XXI	----	114	----	114 (M)
XXII (TIP: 3rd Intermed. Period)	----	116	194+/210+(?)	116 (M)
XXIII "	----	58 (minus Zet)	23+	58 (M)
XXIV "	----	6 (Bochchoris)	8 (Tefnakhte/Pian-khy interregnum)	8 (G)
XXV Nubian	----	40	52	40 (M)
XXVI Saite	----	150	139	150 (M)

(M): Source (Manetho, 1940); (T) & (G): Source (Gardiner, 1961: Appendix)
*For details of the calculations and choices made, see Appendix A.
**T gives five kings with 9+ years after M's last; and G gives monumentary evidence for one of these.
***Taking into account some unspecified coregencies at the end of Dyn. XII.
================================================================

Using the best of these dynastic totals, and calculating from 1872 BC, the independently established Yr 7 of Senwosre III (Gardiner, 1961: 65-67), the result is that Mena's Year 1 must be ca. 4381+ BC, i.e. before 4381 BC.

Part IV: Result of Parts I, II & III

From the foregoing reexamination of the evidence, the king-lists and monuments give Mena's date as ca. 4381+ BC, i.e. before 4381 BC; archeological data give it as after 4580 BC; and astro-calendrical data give it as ca. 4504-4241 BC. These ranges overlap in the interval 4504-4382 BC, i.e. 4443 ± 61 BC. Now, for evidence of three independent types to converge on the 45th century BC is remarkable.
It is time now to make the art history estimate for Mena's date, and compare it with the 4443 BC that has just been obtained.

Part V: The Art History estimate

This estimate for Mena's date is based on TL and RC dates for the Badarian-Amratian-Gerzean (BAG) culture era. Dates from Hemamieh, Badari and Nekhen, three locations associated with BAG artefacts, are the basis for this calculation. Hemamieh is of special importance because, as Gardiner says, Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean layers have been found in stratification there. Describing the situation there, Hoffman says:

Hemamieh is . . . the first and, to date, only well-stratified Predynastic site excavated in Egypt, boasting a sequence running from Badarian on the bottom, through Amratian, to Gerzean at the top (ca. 5000-3500 BC). The lowest stratum of Badarian materials, 6½ feet beneath the surface, was sealed by a foot of sterile breccia. Above the breccia was more Badarian material, then a mixed stratum overlaid by Amratian and Gerzean pottery. . . .(Hoffman, 1984: 141)

Hoffman also reports that

Recent radiocarbon estimates performed. . . on a number of Upper Egyptian Predynastic sites have raised the possibility that Badarian and Amratian might overlap, at least partially, in time . . . (Hoffman, 1984: 141)

The stratification in space at Hemamieh, and the overlap in time in different locations, together require that the entire BAG phenomenon be reinterpreted. And it is this reinterpretation which makes possible the determination of Mena's date from the duration of the BAG era. In order to make the calculation, it is necessary to determine the time span of the BAG era, and the political periods it spanned.

The time span of the BAG era

The data for the three farming locations are as follows: (Hoffman, 1984: 141-142)

Hemamieh (TL): Badarian level 5580 ± 420 BC --- 6½ foot level, below the breccia;
Amratian level 4450 ± 365 BC --- 5-5½ foot level, above the breccia;
Gerzean level 4360 ± 355 BC --- 3½-4 foot level
Badari (RC): Badarian material/not at first occupation level 3920 ± 190 BC
Nekhen (RC): Badarian material/not at first occupation level 3892 ± 108 BC

Note that Amratian and Gerzean levels at Hemamieh predate some of the Badarian levels at Nekhen and Badari. Clearly, the local stratification at Hemamieh does not translate into layered cake stratification everywhere, with Badarian ending all over Kemet before Amratian began; and Amratian ending all over Kemet before Gerzean began. This suggests that we should regard Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean as variant styles within the entire period; as styles which sometimes appear synchronously in different places, with no Nile-Valley-wide layered cake temporal sequencing.
The TL and RC dates displayed above are those so far available for the BAG era. They range between ca. 5580 BC and ca. 3892 BC. But they are not necessarily the boundary dates of the BAG era. Without a larger and more representative set of TL and RC dates for the earliest and for the latest BAG artefacts, the boundary dates of the BAG era cannot be precisely determined. It cannot be over-emphasized that dates for Mena which derive from these particular boundary dates are provisional.

The political span of the BAG era

It should not be presumed that the BAG era was entirely Predynastic, especially as there is considerable evidence of stylistic continuities between Predynastic BAG artefacts and Early Dynastic artefacts. In fact, as the following examples show, some Early Dynastic artefacts have indeed been indistinguishable from definitive BAG artefacts.

a) The Gebel el Arak knife, according to Hoffman, "apparently dates to the Late Gerzean or Protodynastic". (Hoffman, 1984: 340) This inability to place it in one and not the other period is evidence of the lack of a hard stylistic distinction between these periods.

b) Commenting on a photograph of a miniature groundstone vase, Hoffman says: "Stone vase grinding developed as a full-time craft during the Gerzean and reached a peak under the first two dynasties". (Hoffman, 1984: 342)

c) In emphasizing the continuities between Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean styles, Alan Gardiner points to their burial arrangements as basically unchanged. (Gardiner, 1961: 393). And Hoffman carries the picture of continuity forward into the protodynastic era when he notes that the tombs of "Protodynastic kings at Abydos, although much larger than the (Predynastic/Late Gerzean) Painted Tomb, are built according to the same plan". (Hoffman, 1984: 335)

d) Gardiner also notes that the commemorative palettes, of which the famous Narmer Palette is one, "belonged to the very latest predynastic times, if not in some cases to the protodynastic." (Gardiner, 1961: 393)

e) Similarly, there was a continuity in copper tools and ornaments, from Badarian into protodynastic times. Hammered and annealed copper objects were found in Badarian graves (Hoffman, 1984: 143); in both Badarian and Amratian sites (Hoffman, 1984: 207); and from Dyn. I at Saqqara (Hoffman, 1984: 153).

f) In architecture, Hoffman cites evidence of predynastic-to-protodynastic continuities, including the following: "At El Amrah . . . Petrie found a miniature clay model of a house in a grave of Gerzean date that looks like a typical Dynastic mud-brick dwelling . . . Baumgartel mentions a Gerzean rectangular house with typical dynastic room and forecourt plan under the temple at Badari . . ." (Hoffman, 1984: 148)

Such continuities and, more importantly, the lack of clear discontinuities, support Hoffman's contention that "the change from Predynastic to Dynastic society was largely organizational and political, not technological and cultural . . ." (Hoffman, 1984: 17.) In fact, no evidence of a technological break occurs until the transition from Dyn. II to Dyn. III, from the protodynastic period to the Pyramid Age. The Step Pyramid of Djoser is the most spectacular evidence that a new techno-cultural era began with the start of Dyn. III. At that point, Hoffman, says, "there was a change in the nature of royal power as well as in art and burial customs." (Hoffman, 1984: 351)
We may therefore conclude that the BAG era spanned both the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, lasting from the beginning of Nile Valley farming villages, as at Hemamieh, till the end of Dyn. II. The BAG era was, thus, the cultural context for the evolution and consolidation of the Pharaonic state. The date for Mena's unification of Kemet, Mena's Year One, would thus lie within its full time span.

The Mena estimate

Despite its provisional nature, what estimate for Mena is still possible from the ca. 5580-3892 BC time span for the BAG era? Using the present (and tentative) closing date of ca. 3892 BC for the BAG, and taking Dyns. I and II as having lasted 565 years (the correct total in Manetho), and as having occupied the closing years of the BAG era, Mena would be placed at c. 4457 BC. It must be emphasized that this is subject to revision if the proper terminal date for the BAG era turns out to be later than 3892 BC. Nevertheless, the close proximity of 4457 BC to the 4443 ± 61 that was obtained by other independent methods is quite remarkable. Altogether, therefore, a mid-45th century BC date for Mena is as certain as can be, given the available evidence.

Part VI: The Chinweizu Chronology

From the best of the kinglist/monuments dynastic totals, and using three pegs [ 525 BC; 1872 BC; and 4443 BC], the starting date for each dynasty has been calculated to give The Chinweizu Chronology. It is displayed below, side by side with the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies, for comparison.

The Chinweizu, Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies`¢

	Kinglist/Monument (M; T; G)^†	Chinweizu	Bernal*	Gardiner**
Dynasty	Duration (years)	Starting date (BC)	Starting date (BC)	Starting date (BC)
I Early Dynastic	263 (M: Real total)	4443±61	3400	3100 ± 150
II "	302 "	4180	3200	-----
III Old Kingdom	214 "	3878	3000	2700
IV "	284 "	3664	2920	2620
V "	218 "	3380	2800	2480
VI "	206+ (M/T/G)	3162	2630	2340
VII FIP	0 (70 days) (M)	2956-	2470	-----
VIII "	146 "	2956-	2470	-----
IX "	409 "	-----	2440	-----
X "	185 "	2339+	-----	-----
XI Middle K'dom	160+ (T/Bernal)	2154+	2140	2134
XII "	206– (T/G)	1994	1979	1991
XIII SIP	Total SIP = 149+;	1788+ ***	1801	1786
XIV "	130 £ SIP £ 211	-----	-----	-----
XV "		-----	1750	-----
XVI "		-----	-----	-----
XVII "		-----	-----	-----
XVIII New K'dom	284 (M: Real total)	1639	1567	1575
XIX "	209 "	1355	1320	1308
XX "	135 (M)	1146	1200	1184
XXI "	114 (M: Real total)	1011	-----	1087
XXII TIP	116 "	897	-----	945
XXIII "	58 (M/Petrie)	781	-----	817(?)
XXIV "	8 (G)	723	-----	720
XXV Late K'dom	40 (M)	715	-----	716
XXVI "	150 (M)	675	-----	664
Persian conquest	----	525	525	525

`¢ For a comparative evaluation of these chronologies, see Appendix B.
^† M = Manetho; T = Turin; G = Monuments as by Gardiner.
* Source: (Bernal, 1991: xxviii)
** Source: (Gardiner, 1961: 430-451)
*** Because of some unspecified coregencies at the end of Dyn. XII.
================================================================

These three chronologies shall be evaluated in detail in Appendix B. However, it is pertinent to highlight here the chief attributes and merits of the Chinweizu Chronology. First of all, it is ultimately anchored on three independently established dates:

1) 525 BC as the date of the first Persian conquest of Kemet, a date independently established and generally accepted.
2) 1872 BC as Year 7 of Senwosre III of Dyn. XII. This is based on the testimony of the papyrus records and on astro-calendrical calculations.
3) 4241 BC as a first dynasty date. This is based on an ivory tablet's testimony and on astro-calendrical calculations.

Furthermore, the Chinweizu Chronology passes six independent tests which the Bernal and Gardiner and other chronologies do not pass, namely:

· The Haas test: that Dyn. III begin before 3000 BC; this is implied by some RC results. (Bernal, 1991: 209-210)
· The Sneferu test: that the dates for the first ruler of Dyn. IV should fall within the range established by the calibrated radiocarbon method.
· The Wadi Howar test: that events associated with a low Nile phase be dated at ca. 2900-2400 BC.
· The Second Intermediate Period (SIP) test: that its duration be somewhere between 130 years and 211 years; these limits are derived from detailed analysis of the Turin Canon data, and from astro-calendrical calculations.
· The Thera Eruption test: that 1628 BC, the independently established date for the Thera eruption, be Year 11 of some Pharaoh, as recorded in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. (Bernal, 1991: 328)
· The Olympics test: that 776 BC, the year of the first Olympics, fall within the reign of Petubates of Dyn. XXIII.

It should be noted that these tests apply to five different sections of the chronology -- the Old Kingdom, the FIP, the SIP, the New Kingdom, and the TIP respectively. Together, they test the key stretches of Kemetic chronology. A chronology which passes all six tests would be of good quality.
It should, furthermore, be noted that the Chinweizu Chronology is basically Manethonian, in as much as its dynastic details are primarily based on Manetho, with amendments by the Turin Canon and the evidence of the monuments. And in so far as its three anchor points are absolute rather than relative dates, it is an absolute chronology.
A pinpoint date for Mena would sort out the extant chronologies, and improve the best of them. So, how might that kind of date be obtained?

Part VII: Project for dating Mena more precisely

Here is a sample of the diverse dates which have been proposed for Mena, each on its own grounds, in the last two centuries:

Lepsius 5892 BC Mellaart 3400 BC
Champollion 5867 BC Bernal 3400 BC
Mariette 5004 BC Meyer 3315 BC
Brugsch 4455 BC Gardiner 3100 BC
Chinweizu 4443 BC The CAH 3100 BC (The Cambridge Ancient History)
Petrie 4326 BC Helck 2955 BC
Breasted 3400 BC Scharff 2850 BC

They spread across some 3,000 years! All these alternative dates are nothing but the fruits of elaborate and valiant detective and jigsaw puzzle work, each proceeding from much-damaged data. They could all be wrong, and probably are! The only way to find out is to embark on the project now to be outlined. It calls for the TL and RC dating of appropriate materials, either materials already collected from previous digs, or fresh materials from digs yet to be undertaken.

(A) For Mena directly

Materials from 1) The Mena/Narmer tomb at Abtu [Abydos] (Hoffman, 1984: 270), and
2) Neithhotep's tomb at Naqada. As Neithhotep was a contemporary and relative of both Mena and his successor, Aha, her dates would pinpoint Mena's. (Hoffman, 1984: 280, 322-323.)

As controls for (A) the following would be required:

(B1) Materials from undisturbed, stratified, occupation sites that go from Early Dynastic debris down to the Predynastic first occupation level. The best candidate for a fresh excavation would be Khasekhemui's Fort at Nekhen -- unexcavated as of 1980 (Hoffman, 1984: 354) -- a Dyn II structure which sits on top of a Predynastic occupation site.

(B2) Materials from Predynastic and Early-dynastic graves which would fix upper and lower limits for Mena.

Upper limits: Materials from

(i) Predynastic tombs in Abtu and Nekhen, and
(ii) Predynastic Qustul

Lower limits: Materials from

(I) Early-dynastic tombs and mortuary temples at Abtu and Nekhen;
(II) the Saqqara tombs of Early-dynastic Pharaohs;
(III) the Helwan tombs of Early-dynastic courtiers

Conclusion: Now, after 25 centuries of heroic guesses, Mena's date could at last be absolutely determined by obtaining absolute dates for the above materials.
================================================================

Appendix A

This is the tedious heart of the calculations that produced the reign lengths used for the Chinweizu Chronology. Readers who have no taste for the toil, and who are content with the results already presented, may skip this section.

Dyns I-VI: The monuments are no help. The Turin Canon is less than satisfactory because most of its totals are lost. Consequently, Manetho is the only unequivocal source.

Is the Turin Canon's restored and disputed total of 955 years to be assigned to Dyns I-V or Dyns I-VI (Gardiner, 1961: 67); or to Dyns I-VIII (Bernal, 1991: 207)?
An inspection of the Turin Canon data presented in Gardiner's appendix shows, at the end of Dyn. V:

"T_3.26 'Total. Kings from Meniti(?) to [Unis]' lost." (Gardiner, 1961: 435)

At the end of Dyn. VI:

"T_4.14 '[Total] . Kings [from Teti to . . . ] 181 yrs." (Gardiner, 1961: 436)

Now, is there another entry after T_4.14 that gives a total for Dyns I-VI? Or is the alleged 955(?) the restored entry for T_3.26 , and thus the total for Dyns I-V? If 955(?) is indeed for T_3.26, then Dyns I-VI would total 955(?) + 181, i.e. 1136(?) years!
How trustworthy is the 955(?) total, regardless of where it should belong? As a restoration, and especially a restoration by ideologically fanatical downdaters, it cannot be assumed superior to the sum of the Manetho totals for each of the dynasties involved. These totals are:

Dyn. I 263 years [Real total]
Dyn. II 302
Dyn. III 214
Dyn. IV 284
Dyn. V 218

For Dyn. VI, an inspection of the Manetho and Turin Canon lists of names requires an amendment to the Manetho total. The Manetho real total is 197; however, Turin Canon gives five kings with 9+ years after Manetho's last-named king; and the monuments give evidence for one of these. Therefore,

Dyn. VI = 206+ years.

Incidentally, if the broken total which has been restored as 955 years is for Dyns I-V, and if the Turin Canon's Dyn. VI total of 181 years is then included in Gardiner's calculations, his date for Mena would become 3189 (or 3289) BC + 181 = 3370 (or 3470) BC, which is close to Breasted's 3400 BC. (Gardiner, 1961: 67)
By the way, the Palermo Stone is no help at all in all this, as no totals have survived -- if ever it had them. Besides, calculations based on guessing its overall dimensions and the widths of the variable compartments are not worth much, despite their laudable ingenuity.

Dyns VII-X: The First Intermediate Period (FIP). The Turin Canon and the monuments are of no help here. Manetho is, therefore, the only substantive source. His totals are:

Dyn. VII 70 days
Dyn. VIII 146 years
Dyn. IX 409 years
Dyn. X 185 years
Total 740 years

Some might quibble about this total. But is there any reason why such a long period of decline-stagnation-and-recovery would be impossible or improbable? After all, eureurasia's Medieval Age – from the collapse of the Roman Empire through the Dark Ages and the Age of Feudal Stagnation to the beginning of Modern eureurasia – was just as long or longer (ca. 5^th century AD to the 15^th century AD: some one thounited snakesnd years); and Kmt's current Holocaust Age has lasted some five centuries (15^th to 20^th century AD); and the Eastern Zhou period, when China crumbled into some 170 warring statelets, lasted some 550 years under nominal emperors. In that comparative light, Manetho's 740 years for Kemet's FIP is not implausible. Attempts to shorten it, without evidence, and on analogy with the Second Intermediate Period (SIP), must reckon with the fact that there are astro-calendrical data and Turin Canon data which together put an upper limit on the possible duration of the SIP, but there are no external controls (astro-calendrical, monumentary or kinglist) to challenge Manetho on the duration of the FIP. Pending the appearance of challenging data, Manetho should be accepted.

Dyn. XI: The Turin Canon's figure for the total has been variously read as 143 or 160+ years, by equally competent decipherers. Bernal's argument for accepting 160+ are persuasive. (Bernal, 1991: 578, n. 74) In contrast, Manetho's 43 years, given without individual reign lengths, is unpersuasive. Could it possibly have been 143, with his excerptors having, in error, left out the initial digit?

Dyn. XII: The Turin Canon's total is 213 years; the monuments give 199+/184+, taking coregencies into account; Manetho gives 176 = 160 + 16 for Amenemhe, who he places apart from Dyn. XII but who, conventionally, heads this dynasty. A detailed computation, based on Turin Canon, with supplements from the monuments when the Turin Canon figures are inexact, gives the following:

Turin Canon G/Monuments Coregencies
Amenemhe I 29 30 9 years
Senwosre I 45 44 1 year
Amenemhe II 30+ 35 3 years
Senwosre II 19 6
Senwosre III 30+ 33
Amenemhe III 40+ 45 2(?) years }
Amenemhe IV 9 6+ unspecified }= r years
Sebeknofru 4 unspecified }
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total of the underlined 219 –(13+r) = 206–r

Note: 1872 BC, Year 7 of Senwosre III, is 135 years –13 (coregency) years from the start of Dyn. XII. Thus, the start of Dyn XII = 1872 + 122 = 1994 BC. As the Dyn. XII total is 206–r years, Dyn. XIII starts at 1788+ r BC.

Dyns XIII-XVII: For this, the SIP, the Manetho we have is at its worst. However, astronomical data and monumentary data provide grounds for making estimates of the duration of the SIP. The estimate that is needed here is the maximum possible duration of the SIP, which Gardiner has calculated as 211 years.
The dates calculated for two recorded heliacal risings of Sirius are:

Year 7 of Senwosre III 1872 BC
Year 9 of Amenhotpe I 1536 BC (Gardiner, 1961: 65-66)

These dates are on either side of the SIP. From the reign lengths and sequences based on the monuments and the Turin Canon, Gardiner has calculated that Dyn. XI ended ca. 1786 BC and Dyn. XVIII began ca. 1575 BC. Thus, the SIP lasted some 211 years. Other estimates, based on assorted analyses of the surviving totals on the Turin Canon, range from 130+ to 193+ years; at any rate, the six foreign kings of the Turin Canon totaled 108 years, making 108 < SIP £ 211 years.

Dyn XVIII-XX: Manetho's totals are Dyn. XVIII: 284; Dyn. XIX: 209; Dyn. XX: 135. These totals are determined by where Manetho actually divides the dynasties. Gardiner divides Dyns XVIII and XIX differently, and it is impossible to do a reign by reign comparison of the two, given the great divergence in the names and sequences of the kings as presented by the two. One is obliged to take one or the other in its entirety. Given how often Manetho is upheld in the other dynasties by other sources, it seems preferable to take Manetho's totals here. Besides, Gardiner himself expressed confidence in Manetho's lengths of reigns for Dyn. XVIII, despite the confusion in the names and sequences. (Gardiner, 1961: 242.)

Dyn. XXI: Adding up the individual reign lengths, the actual Manetho total is 114 years. The monuments are no help.

Dyns XXII-XXIV: For this, the Third Intermediate Period (TIP), a considerable sorting out is required. For Dyn. XXII, adding up the individual reign lengths, the correct Manetho total is 116 years. The monuments total is 194+/210+; but there is much confusion about this data, as Gardiner admits in frustration. (Gardiner, 1961: 333-334) So, these alternative totals from the monuments cannot be taken at face value.
For Dyn. XXIII, accepting Petrie's argument about Zet (Manetho, 1940: 161, n. 4), and Gardiner's view that it was an error (Gardiner, 1961: 334), and therefore removing it, makes the Dyn. XXIII total 58 years.
For Manetho, Dyn. XXIV consists of Bochchoris/Bekenrinef alone. For Gardiner, it consists of Tefnakhte (in whose time Piankhy intervened) and Bochchoris/Bekenrinef. But the reign of Bochchoris coincided with the first years of Shabako of Dyn. XXV. (Gardiner, 1961: 449, 450) Accordingly, the Dyn. XXIV total is the 8 years of Tefnakhte.

Dyns XXV-XXVI: For this, the Late Kingdom or the Nubian-Saitean Renaissance, the Manetho total is 190 years and 6 months, and Gardiner's is 191 years; this is because Gardiner, following the monuments, counts the last six months, which constitutes the entire reign of Psamtek III, as one year. Thus, both Manetho and Gardiner actually agree. Manetho breaks this down into 40 years for Dyn. XXV and 150 years for Dyn. XXVI.

************************************************************************
Appendix B:

The Chinweizu, Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies: A Comparison.

For each proposed chronology, a validity test is how well it accommodates such independently dated or datable events as are not assumed in its own construction.
There are 5 independently determined dates which are associated, in the extant records, with specified reigns, and sometimes with specific reign years of pharaohs; four other tests, which put certain events within or outside specific time bands, are also available:

1. 1469 BC as a year in the reign of Dhutmose III of Dyn. XVIII;
2. 1536 BC as Year 9 of Amenhotpe I of Dyn. XVIII;
3. 1872 BC as Year 7 of Senwosre III of Dyn. XII;
4. The year of the Thera eruption as year 11 of some pharaoh;
5. 776 BC, the year of the first Olympics, as a year in the reign of Petubates of Dyn. XXIII;
6. Two of the above dates, 1872 BC and 1536 BC, imply a maximum of 211 years for the duration of the SIP;
7. The Haas Test, which is supplied by the radiocarbon results from some pyramids, requires that the Cambridge Ancient History dates for the Old Kingdom dynasties be raised by "at least 374 years". (Bernal, 1991: 209.] This means that Dyn. III should start before 3000 BC.
8. The Sneferu Test, which uses the raw RC results of 2850 ± 210 bc from Sneferu's pyramid at Meydum. When calibrated, these radiocarbon years become 3770-3400 BC for Sneferu's tomb.
9. The Wadi Howar Test, which requires that events associated with a low Nile phase be dated at ca. 2900-2400 BC.

Now, the 1872 BC test cannot be applied to any of these three chronologies, for they all assume it in their construction. Nor can the 1536 BC and 1469 BC tests be applied to them because of the confused state of the Manethonian names and sequences for Dyn. XVIII. This leaves us with six tests to apply to these chronologies. How do they perform?

The Thera eruption test

1628 BC is the date newly established – by dendrochronology, radiocarbon and ice core techniques – for the Thera eruption. (Bernal, 1991: 287-288) According to Bernal, the effects of that eruption are referred to in a note on the back of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP) which "refers to the 'voice of Seth' and the 'precipitation of Isis' in the eleventh year of an unnamed pharaoh's reign." (Bernal, 1991: 328; 593, n. 80; 598, n. 21) Bernal goes on to say that Hans Goedicke has maintained that the pharaoh referred to was Ahmose, founder of Dyn. XVIII. However, on the Bernal chronology, which puts Ahmose at 1567 BC, 1628 BC cannot be Ahmose's Year 11. Instead, Bernal argues for 1628 BC as Year 11 of the Hyksos pharaoh Apopi. But there are problems with this proposal. The scribe who made the RMP dated his manuscript to Apopi's Year 33. Presumably, the note on its back which refers to these volcanic activities, if penned at the same time, would refer to an event of Apopi's Year 11. Or it could even refer to Year 11 of some preceding pharaoh. But was it written down at the same time as the front of the RMP? It is possible that the note on the back was added much later, like anytime after Year 11 of some pharaoh subsequent to Apopi. So, the inference that it refers to Year 11 of Apopi is not conclusive.
Furthermore, 1628 BC cannot be shown to be Year 11 of Apopi. Bernal makes it so only by the roughest approximation: by arbitrarily assigning 6 to 8 years to Khamudy who is presumed to be the successor to Apopi, and by starting Ahmose's reign at ca. 1570 BC instead of the 1567 BC given on the Bernal Chronology. (Bernal, 1991: xxviii) Thus, strictly speaking, on the Bernal Chronology, 1628 BC is not Year 11 of Apopi, or of Ahmose, or of any known pharaoh. Which means that the Bernal Chronology does not pass the 1628 BC test.
The Gardiner Chronology fares no better. His date for Ahmose's founding of Dyn. XVIII is 1575 BC, so Ahmose's Year 11 cannot be 1628 BC. Gardiner accepts the order of kings on a Memphis stela which places Apopi just before Ahmose. (Gardiner, 1961: 50, 160) If Apopi ruled for 61 years, as given in Manetho, then, on the Gardiner Chronology, 1628 BC was his Year 8!
On the Chinweizu Chronology, 1639 BC is Year 1 of Ahmose for whom Manetho gives 25 years and whose highest date from the monuments is year 22. Thus, there was a Year 11 of Ahmose and, on the Chinweizu chronology, it falls exactly on 1628 BC. This exact fit between 1628 BC and Year 11 of Ahmose vindicates Hans Goedicke's contention that the pharaoh in question was Ahmose.
Thus, whereas the Gardiner and Bernal Chronologies do not pass the 1628 BC test, the Chinweizu Chronology passes it excellently.

The Olympics test

On the Chinweizu Chronology, the first Olympic Games of the Greeks, 776 BC, correctly falls within the reign of Petubates (Pedibaste) of Dyn. XXIII. (Gardiner, 1961: 449) On the Gardiner Chronology, Petubates' reign of 40 years commenced in 817 BC, and would have ended in 777 BC; in which case the first Olympics would have been in the reign of his successor. The Bernal Chronology does not go as far down as Dyn. XXIII; it stops at Dyn XX. But on the Breasted Chronology, which is very closely matched with the Bernal Chronology for as far as the latter goes, Dyn. XXIII is dated 745-718 BC, (Manetho, 1940: 160, n. 2.) which would put the first Olympics in Dyn XXII!
Thus, the Chinweizu Chronology passes the Olympics test while the others do not.

The SIP £ 211 years test

On the Chinweizu Chronology, the SIP is (1788 + r) – 1639 = (149 + r) years, where r < 13. So, the SIP < 162 years, which passes Gardiner's SIP £ 211 years test.
On the Bernal Chronology, the SIP = 1801 – 1567 BC = 234 years > 211 years. Of course, this test does not apply to the Gardiner Chronology which assumes SIP=211 years.
So, the Chinweizu Chronology passes the SIP test and the others do not.

The Haas test

The Haas test, which is a consequence of some radiocarbon tests on the pyramids, requires that Dyn. III start before 3000 BC. On the Chinweizu Chronology, Dyn. III starts and ends well before the 3000 BC lower limit required for its start by the Haas Test. In contrast, the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies start Dyn. III in 3000 BC and 2700 BC respectively.
So, the Chinweizu Chronology passes the Haas Test while the others do not.

The Sneferu test

Four samples of a cypress beam from the tomb of the Pharaoh Sneferu at Meydum when analysed by this [Carbon –14] method gave an average age of 4802 ± 210 years; i.e., they indicated that the king was buried probably between 3060 and 2640 BC."
-- "Chronology: III Egyptian", Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 5, p. 723.

This date was obtained when the RC technique was quite new and the need for calibration was unknown. Subsequent calibration techniques required that dates of ca. 3000 BC be pushed back by about 700 years. Using the H. E. Suess calibration graph (Renfrew, 1978: 292), those dates calibrate into 3770 and 3400 BC.
On the Chinweizu Chronology, the start of Sneferu's reign of 24 years, was 3664 BC, which places the date for his accession, as well as that for his Meydum pyramid, within the calibrated RC range. The Chinweizu Chronology thus passes the Sneferu Test. The Gardiner and Bernal Chronologies clearly do not pass the test, since they start Dyn. IV, and hence Sneferu's reign, at 2620 BC and 2920 BC respectively.

The Wadi Howar test

Data developed since 1980 by the earth sciences indicate that, in the 3^rd millennium BC, for at least five centuries, between ca. 2900 and 2400 BC, the Nile levels below Old Dongola were extremely low. This was principally due to the loss of the discharge from one of its main tributaries, the Wadi Howar, which drained western Nubia. In order to be valid, a chronology must be consistent with this phenomenon and, therefore, date events associated with a low Nile phase to the early 3^rd millennium BC. That is the Wadi Howar test.
On the Chinweizu Chronology, the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom each falls within a period of high Nile floods, while the FIP – with its famines, civil wars, collapsed central political authority and social upheaval – falls, quite appropriately, within that 3^rd millennium period of disastrously low Niles. On the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies, however, the Old Kingdom, that great pyramid building era, falls within that resource-poor and starving period of disastrously low Niles. That implies the implausible conclusion that a desperately poor and famished population, torn by strife, carried out projects that required sustained and orderly effort and enormous resources. We must therefore conclude that the Chinweizu Chronology passes the Wadi Howar test while the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies do not.

These six tests clearly and strongly validate the Chinweizu Chronology. They actually validate its dates for different stretches of the chronology. The Old Kingdom stretch is validated by the Sneferu and Haas tests; the FIP is validated by the Wadi Howar test; the SIP is validated by the SIP test; the New Kingdom stretch is validated by the Thera eruption test; and the TIP by the Olympics test. And what is more, the Chinweizu Chronology is validated in the all-important Old Kingdom stretch where a valid absolute date is especially important if the down-dating impulse is to be curbed. If a reign year of Sneferu's could be corelated with an absolutely datable astrocalendrical event, then, using data from the king lists, the range within which Mena's date falls would be minimized.

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Appendix C

An absolute upper limit for Mena: a Zodiac-Bull cult indicator.

Knowledge of the twelve ages of the Zodiac gave rise to certain changes of state symbolism and royal cults in Kemet, from the bull cult in the Age of the Bull (Taurus), 4565-2410 BC, to the ram cult in the Age of the Ram (Aries), 2410-255 BC.
When Kemet was founded, one of the Pharaoh's symbols was the bull; Ptah, the chief god of the new capital Mennefer (Memphis to the Greeks), had the bull for a symbol; and the bull cult was the foremost in the land. During the Age of the Ram (Aries), the ram was the symbol of Amon, the dominant god of the age; the ram was sacred to Amon, the chief deity of Waset (Thebes to the Greeks), the then capital of Kemet. This is evidence of Kemetic sensitivity to the ages of the Zodiac, a sensitivity in keeping with their devoted attention to celestial seasons in sacred matters. This devotion was symbolized by their six-pointed Star of Creation which signified "As above, so below", i.e. as in the celestial sphere, so too in the terrestrial.
With this background in mind, the bull symbolism of the founding Pharaoh makes it most likely that Mena's unification of Kemet took place in the Taurean Age, and not in the preceding Age of the Twins (Gemini). The unification of Kemet would have taken place not earlier than 4565 BC, which was when the Taurean Age began. We thus have another indicator of an upper limit to Mena's date.
Needless to say, on the Chinweizu chronology, Mena's date, 4443±61 BC, falls within this limit. But so do all but the longest of the proposed chronologies, such as those of Lepsius, Champollion and Mariette. This limit does not, of course, materially affect the calculations made above for Mena's date; but it is from an indicator of an unusual and interesting sort, and it validates the estimate of 1000 years from the first farming villages to the unification by Mena. Besides, it gives an absolute date, an astro-calendrical date, 4565 BC, for Mena's upper limit.

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Appendix D

Absolute dating techniques: some observations

There are three main types of absolute dating techniques:

A] Astronomy techniques, which are based on calculating dates for astronomical events;
B] Annalist techniques, which are based on counting a sequence of consecutive annual deposits or records of one sort or another, such as ice cores (varves), tree rings (dendrochronology) and historical annals;
C] Radioactivity techniques (radiocarbon, potassium-argon, thermoluminescence etc.) which use radioactive materials to give a range of dates, together with the statistical probability of the event falling within the range.

Astronomy techniques give precise results; annalist techniques give precise results in the range where the sequence is continuous; and radioactivity techniques, though the least precise, have the advantage of locating the range within which the precise date should fall. Where these three techniques are used in concert, and where their results are mutually consistent, the result is as scientifically unassailable as possible.
The virtue of radiocarbon dating, and of dating by other radioactivity techniques, is to fix the range within which other methods (e.g. astronomy, annalist) can then be applied to pinpoint an event's date. The statistical "scattering" (the ± number) is precisely what fixes the range; it is not an error but a guide, and a date which falls outside that range has a very high probability of being wrong.
The proper use of radioactivity dating methods is to determine the time band within which an event occurred. In this regard, the 2s band is more useful than the s band, because it carries a 95% probability instead of 68%. Of course, the 2s band is adequate for most purposes, but a 3s band, with its 99.5% probability, is even more useful. In other words, any date outside the 2s or 3s band may, with confidence, be ruled out. The task, therefore, is to minimize the s by repeated measurements on the same sample material. For example, if s is reduced to 50 years, then the ±3s bandwidth is only 300 years. In which case, the technique would confine the date to within a 300 year band, with a 99.5% probability. It is then up to other techniques to more precisely locate the event within the 2s or 3s time band, thereby yielding as precise a date as is humanly possible.
Those archeologists and ancient historians are in error who regard the "scattering" as reason for rejecting radiocarbon dates. These dates have the same validity as other statistically determined values, such as those of quantum mechanics and those of the actuary.
The anti-radiocarbon crowd includes
(a) the conservatives who still cling to old intellectual habits, and who resist the new, like Ptolemaists rejecting Copernican astronomy. Among these are Astrom, Gerald Cadogan. (Bernal, 1991: 278, 279)
(b) the ideological crooks who accept RC dates when these support their dogma and reject them when they don't, and who invent spurious arguments for doing so. Colin Renfrew, for example, accepted RC dating for eureurasia, but not for the Aegean and places to its east, on the claim that there existed a "fault line" in the domain of the technique. (Renfrew, 1978: 93, 115-116)
(c) the diffidents who reinterpret their raw RC data so as to accommodate the traditional archeological authorities who cling to outdated techniques. (Bernal, 1991: ? )
Egyptologists have, in the main, either evaded radiocarbon dating, or they have, like Renfrew, stuck to uncalibrated dates which happen to agree with their pre-radiocarbon dates and their prejudices. For example, the uncalibrated Sneferu date is still found in the latest books and encyclopaedias. Kemetology, in contrast, is dedicated to using the most accurate dating techniques.

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Appendix E

Some implications of the Chinweizu Chronology

There are some old problems (P) which the Chinweizu Chronology helps to resolve and there are some new questions (Q) which it raises and helps to answer.

Old problems resolved

P1] The Mesopotamian Stimulus: On the Chinweizu Chronology, Mesopotamia could not have stimulated or influenced the rise of a Kemetic civilization which preceded it by almost 2000 years! The direction of any demonstrable stimulus between the Nile and Mesopotamia would have to be from the Nile to Mesopotamia.
If the Chaldeans (Kaldu) were indeed a colony of astronomers from Kemet, they would exhibit some Old Kingdom cultural traits. These should be investigated.

P2] The date for Kush: This can approximately be determined. If the Qustul data implies that the first Pharaonic state emerged in Kush some 12 generations before Mena, that is some 300 to 400 years before Mena, then it would be dated to ca. 4850-4750 BC

P3] The Nile delta, before Mena, was hardly inhabited. On the Chinweizu Chronology, Mena's unification of Kemet occurred in ca. 4443 BC. And from the absolute dates available at present, Merimde, the earliest farming village in Lower Kemet, located on the edge of the Delta, was first settled ca. 4880 BC, and was occupied for some 650 years, i.e. till ca. 4230 BC when it was abandoned. (Hoffman, 1984: 169) The next two villages nearest to the delta were Fayum A, 4441+115 BC and Omari A, ca. 4000 BC. These dates and locations suggest – in the absence of any older datings from the delta proper—that the delta was a wilderness frontier at the time of the unification of Kemet, and was settled only in dynastic times. Thus, the two kingdoms which Mena unified were two sections of what became Upper Kemet. This will be argued in detail in Vol. II.

P4] If Maadi was

Chinweizu · Dec 16, 2016, 10:40 PM

Chinweizu [OKMT2][Jan. 99] Oct. 97 [Sept. 96] (Oct. 95) [Kmt2]
Copyright © 1999 by Chinweizu Draft: Not for publication

Dating Mena Absolutely:The Chinweizu Chronology
(A fresh look at a problem that is about 25-centuries old.)

I: The chronologies presented
II: The chronologies compared
III: Some implications of the CC
IV: Dating Mena
V: Constructing the CC
VI: Project for dating Mena precisely
VII: Appendix A: Analysis of data from king-lists and monuments
VIII: Appendix B: Absolute dating techniques -- some observations

Summary
As this is a technical paper whose results are of first order importance for the discipline, a general summary is necessary for the untechnical reader.
One of the most important but still unresolved questions in Nile Valley history is the date of the unification of Kemet (the Egypt of the Pharaohs), Mena's Year One. Estimates by Egyptologists range from Lepsius' 5892 BC and Champollion's 5867 BC down to Helck's 2955 BC and Scharff's 2850 BC: they cover an amazing range of 3,000 years! Some 2,500 years ago, Herodotus estimated it at what would be ca. 12000 BC!
Mena's date is important in world history, for it is the date of the founding of Kemet's Pharaonic state, one of the earliest of the pioneer states in history, and incontestably the grandest, most long-lived and most influential of them all. And with its lasting, at a minimum, for between 3,000 and 4,000 years, its only near rival in longevity, in all of history, has been the Chinese state.
Mena's date is also important for North Kmtyw and Mediterranean historiography, and particularly for the Nile Valley: if it was determined, most of the problems in Kemetic chronology would be decidable, using the remnants of the various king-lists, the monuments and astronomical data. And all the chronologies that are based on Kemetic chronology would be made more accurate.
Surprisingly, therefore, it remains undetermined in this age of absolute dating by radiocarbon (RC), thermoluminescence (TL) and other techniques. Instead, recourse is still had to "downdating" and "updating" by arbitrary principles and ideological prejudices. So long as datable materials exist, or can be obtained, from the late predynastic and the early dynastic periods of Kemet, and so long as they have not been absolutely dated, decisive work remains to be done.
What follows is a re-examination of the data for determining Mena's date. What emerges is that three independent lines of evidence converge to situate it in the 45th century BC. First, a Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence in Dyn. I locates it somewhere in the period 4504-4241 BC. Second, an archeological upper limit, based on the absolute date for the first occupation level of one of the earliest farming villages in Kemet's territory, point to its being after ca. 4580 BC. And third, a fresh and detailed review of the data from the king-lists and the monuments puts it at before ca. 4381 BC. These overlap to place Mena somewhere in the interval 4504-4382 BC, i.e. 4443 ± 61 BC. Furthermore, a fourth calculation, based on art history, independently gives a date of ca. 4457 BC for Mena. When calculations based on four different kinds of evidence -- astro-calendrical, archeological, king-lists and monuments, art historical -- all converge on the 45th century BC, that date for Mena becomes as certain as can be.
From these results, a chronology is derived. This chronology, the Chinweizu Chronology, and the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies, are tested to see which gives the best fit for several independently dated events. A project is then proposed to pinpoint Mena's date by obtaining TL and RC dates for selected materials from the predynastic and early dynastic eras.
The chronology here proposed is upheld by six independent tests, including those based on dendrochronology and radiocarbon techniques. Among other consequences, it demolishes the Mesopotamian stimulus dogma, it indicates that the two predynastic kingdoms which Mena unified were both located outside the delta, and it results in a First Intermediate Period (FIP) that is eight centuries long. The reason for such a long FIP, and for the associated Kemetic colonization of Greece and Mesopotamia in the 3^rd Millennium BC, is ecological. Data produced by the earth sciences since 1980 show that there was a phase of disastrously low Niles, which lasted at lease five centuries, and was associated with the drying up of the Sahara: both of these effects were produced by shifts in the wind system across Kmt. These underlying ecological phenomena are the subject of another paper titled "Nile level profile: 8000-1000 BC".

Part I: The astro-calendrical evidence
Dr. Charles S. Finch has made mention of "an ivory tablet from the 1st dynasty on which is inscribed the words 'Sirius, Opener of the year, Inundation 1'". (Finch 1989: 349, n.

How do we interpret this laconic inscription?
As Dr. Finch points out, it implies the existence of the Sirius calendar during Dyn. I. But beyond that, as shall now be demonstrated, it could be a record of an independently datable astro-calendrical event in Dyn. I.
According to Alan Gardiner,

Ivory tablets of Dyn. I revealed that in the beginning the years of a reign were not numbered, but were remembered . . . by some outstanding event that occurred in them. (Gardiner, 1961: 70)

Gardiner further informs us that

the heliacal rising of Sirius . . . came to be regarded as the true New Year's Day . . ., the day with which 'first month of Inundation (the first season), day one' of the civil calendar ought always to have coincided. (Gardiner, 1961: 65)

Gardiner also provides some clue for interpreting and more fully rendering the laconic statements of Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom inscriptions. According to him, the Dyn. II laconic inscription recorded on the Palermo Stone, "Time 4 of the count", should be read as "Year of time 4 of the count of all oxen and small animals". Similarly, even more laconic inscriptions of the form "Year time n" should be read as "Year of time n of the count of all oxen and small animals". This is because the sense of such laconic dating was sometimes rendered in less laconic fashion, as in, for example, "Year of time 14 of the count of all oxen and small animals". (Gardiner, 1961: 70)
On the basis of Alan Gardiner's statements and his clue, how do we interpret that Dyn. I inscription: "Sirius, Opener of the year, Inundation 1"?
It probably records some outstanding event of Dyn. I; plausibly that Sirius, the opener of the astrono-mical year, did so on the first day of the Inundation season, i.e., on the Civil New Year day. Which would mean that a coincidence of the Sirius New Year day and the Civil New Year day (day one of the civil calendar) occurred some time in Dyn. I. Such would be an outstanding event, an astro-calendrical event worthy of being noted, e.g. on an ivory tablet.
Now, when would that have been? By all tenable accounts, Dyn. I ended long before the Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence of 2781 BC. The most aggressive down-dating, such as Helck's and Scharff's, which would place 2781 BC within Dyn. I, are untenable on such grounds as the Haas RC tests which require dating the Dyn. III pyramids before 3000 BC and the Great Pyramids of Dyn. IV before 2868 BC. (Bernal, 1991: 209-210) Therefore, the preceding Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence would have occurred during Dyn. I, and Mena's "Year One" would be before 4241 BC. Alternatively, the even earlier coincidence year, 5701 BC, could have been within Dyn. I; and Mena's "Year 1" would be close to the 5867 BC of Champollion or the 5892 BC of Lepsius. However, TL and RC dates for the start of the earliest farming villages in the Nile Valley, ca. 5500 BC, rule out this alternative. (Hoffman, 1984: 141-142)
If the above interpretation is correct and the ivory tablet inscription does indeed commemorate a Sirius and Civil New Year coincidence during Dyn I; and if the coincidence was that of 4241 BC; then Mena's "Year 1", the date for his unification of Kemet, would be any time within 263 years of 4241 BC, 263 years being, according to the actual reign lengths given in Manetho, the duration of Dyn. I. It would thus lie within the band 4504-4241 BC.
Now, if we knew the name of the king in whose reign the event commemorated on the ivory tablet took place, we could, from the king-lists (e.g. Manetho) almost pinpoint the year of Mena's unification of Kemet.

Part II: The archeological evidence

Only Thermoluminescence (TL) or Radiocarbon (RC) dates for materials archeologically associated with state artefacts and architecture would directly date the stages of the evolving Pharaonic state. For example, dates for Ta-Seti artefacts found at Qustul together with Pharaonic paraphernalia, and particularly dates for those artefacts inscribed with pharaonic symbols, would be about nine generations before Mena, going by Bruce Williams' conclusion in "Lost Pharaohs of Nubia". (Williams, 1989: 102) Similarly, dates for Khasekhemui's Dyn. II Fort at Nekhen would be 565 years or less after Mena, going by Manetho. And dates for Dyn. I artefacts, if identifiable with specific reigns, would practically pinpoint Mena's date. However, in the absence of absolute dates for such artefacts, indirect estimates are still possible, based on the dates of first occupation for the earliest farming villages in the territory of Kemet. These yield an upper limit for Mena.

Estimate of upper limit for Mena

Mena's date cannot be earlier, or even as early as, the earliest stratum of farming settlement at Nekhen, the town from which he extended his rule to all of Kemet. In the absence of TL and RC dates for that stratum at Nekhen, a probably adequate approximation is that he cannot be earlier than the earliest settlement stratum of any of the earliest farming villages of Upper Kemet. At present, the earliest known is at Hemamieh, with a TL date of ca. 5580 ± 420 BC. (Hoffman, 1984: 141) This would rule out all dates for Mena that are earlier than the mid-6th millennium BC.
If we allow at least 1,000 years for the evolution of the oldest Nile Valley farming villages before their final unification by Mena, that would place Mena sometime after ca. 4580 BC. Now, would 1,000 years be too short for the predynastic period? Would it imply an impossibly rapid evolution? Probably not, especially when we consider similar evolutions elsewhere. In the case of Rome, it took just some four centuries (ca. 650-ca. 250 BC) for three not-long-settled farming villages to unify and dominate all of central and southern Italy. By that Roman yardstick, the march from Nile Valley farming villages to the Pharaonic state could have happened within 400 years! Hence, allowing at least 1,000 years for the predynastic period is comparatively quite conservative. This would put Mena, provisionally, after ca. 4580 BC.

Part III: Evidence of King-lists and Monuments

On matters of chronology, the best available sources are Manetho (M), the Turin Canon (T), and data from the monuments as presented by Gardiner (G) in his Egypt of the Pharaohs. Manetho has been so corrupted by his excerptors that, in some passages, it is almost impossible to exhume what Manetho himself wrote down. The Turin Canon is badly fragmented and full of lacunae. The monuments have their own deficiencies. They have the supreme weakness of incompleteness, due to lost, damaged or otherwise unavailable monuments. Furthermore, they are unhelpful about interregnums and parallel rulers in different segments of the country. Thus, they may not be used, as Gardiner tends to do, to automatically overrule the king-lists, especially when the monuments-total for a dynasty is less than its king-list total. And even when the monuments-total exceeds that of the king-lists, the former may not be presumed to be accurate: both may be distorted by not taking into account coregencies or rival dynasties occupying different parts of the land. In this situation, where no type of source has an inherent and automatic superiority, there is a need to rigorously compare the data from M, T and G, dynasty by dynasty, and even king by king, and sort out which seems best on each point, and then adopt it. Alas, that is the most that can be done with the fragmented material available.
In then constructing the chronology, an absolute respect for primary data is called for. First of all, dynastic totals must be checked for arithmetical errors and corrected, where necessary, from the individual reign lengths. Secondly, one can either accept or reject a figure, but must not increase or reduce it, or otherwise gerrymander it, to fit a preconceived notion of the situation. One does not solve a jigsaw puzzle by trimming some pieces and stretching others. So, if a king-list gives x as a reign length, you don't turn it into x+1 or x-1 just so that it can fit into a gap. Thirdly, the same respect must extend to numbers that are not available. You don't assign some arbitrary number of years to a pharaoh so that some event will be at a desirable date. We, alas, don't have that figure, and that should be that! Fourthly, if there is independent evidence of a coregency, then taking it into account when adding up the two affected reigns is a legitimate case of taking relevant facts into account. But, then again, you don't tamper with the length of the coregency just so as to make things "fit". Fifthly, where there is clear evidence of kingless years or dynastic overlaps, and definite lengths or minimum estimates are available in the records, these must be used to modify the numbers from the king-lists and monuments. It is only by such stringent and abstemious rules of procedure that the best can be gotten out of the available data.
By following the above procedure, the following dynastic totals have been obtained:

Table of Turin, Manetho and Monuments Totals

Dynasties	Turin (T)	Manetho (M)	Monuments (G)	Best total & Source*
I - V	955(?)	1281	----	1281 (M)
VI	181	197 (Real total)	----	197 (M) and 9+ (T/G)** = 206+ (M/T/G)
VII - X (FIP: 1st Intermed. Period)	----	740	----	740 (M)
XI	143/160+	43	----	160+ (T)
XII	213	176	184+	206– (T/G)***
XIII - XVII (SIP: 2nd Intermediate Period)	130+; 157+; 177+; 185+; 193+; 211 (Six alternatives)	604	£ 211 (Based on Sirius dates and monuments)	£211 (G)
XVIII - XIX	----	493	379+/384+	493 (M)
XX	----	135	97+	135 (M)
XXI	----	114	----	114 (M)
XXII (TIP: 3rd Intermed. Period)	----	116	194+/210+(?)	116 (M)
XXIII "	----	58 (minus Zet)	23+	58 (M)
XXIV "	----	6 (Bochchoris)	8 (Tefnakhte/Pian-khy interregnum)	8 (G)
XXV Nubian	----	40	52	40 (M)
XXVI Saite	----	150	139	150 (M)

(M): Source (Manetho, 1940); (T) & (G): Source (Gardiner, 1961: Appendix)
*For details of the calculations and choices made, see Appendix A.
**T gives five kings with 9+ years after M's last; and G gives monumentary evidence for one of these.
***Taking into account some unspecified coregencies at the end of Dyn. XII.
================================================================

Using the best of these dynastic totals, and calculating from 1872 BC, the independently established Yr 7 of Senwosre III (Gardiner, 1961: 65-67), the result is that Mena's Year 1 must be ca. 4381+ BC, i.e. before 4381 BC.

Part IV: Result of Parts I, II & III

From the foregoing reexamination of the evidence, the king-lists and monuments give Mena's date as ca. 4381+ BC, i.e. before 4381 BC; archeological data give it as after 4580 BC; and astro-calendrical data give it as ca. 4504-4241 BC. These ranges overlap in the interval 4504-4382 BC, i.e. 4443 ± 61 BC. Now, for evidence of three independent types to converge on the 45th century BC is remarkable.
It is time now to make the art history estimate for Mena's date, and compare it with the 4443 BC that has just been obtained.

Part V: The Art History estimate

This estimate for Mena's date is based on TL and RC dates for the Badarian-Amratian-Gerzean (BAG) culture era. Dates from Hemamieh, Badari and Nekhen, three locations associated with BAG artefacts, are the basis for this calculation. Hemamieh is of special importance because, as Gardiner says, Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean layers have been found in stratification there. Describing the situation there, Hoffman says:

Hemamieh is . . . the first and, to date, only well-stratified Predynastic site excavated in Egypt, boasting a sequence running from Badarian on the bottom, through Amratian, to Gerzean at the top (ca. 5000-3500 BC). The lowest stratum of Badarian materials, 6½ feet beneath the surface, was sealed by a foot of sterile breccia. Above the breccia was more Badarian material, then a mixed stratum overlaid by Amratian and Gerzean pottery. . . .(Hoffman, 1984: 141)

Hoffman also reports that

Recent radiocarbon estimates performed. . . on a number of Upper Egyptian Predynastic sites have raised the possibility that Badarian and Amratian might overlap, at least partially, in time . . . (Hoffman, 1984: 141)

The stratification in space at Hemamieh, and the overlap in time in different locations, together require that the entire BAG phenomenon be reinterpreted. And it is this reinterpretation which makes possible the determination of Mena's date from the duration of the BAG era. In order to make the calculation, it is necessary to determine the time span of the BAG era, and the political periods it spanned.

The time span of the BAG era

The data for the three farming locations are as follows: (Hoffman, 1984: 141-142)

Hemamieh (TL): Badarian level 5580 ± 420 BC --- 6½ foot level, below the breccia;
Amratian level 4450 ± 365 BC --- 5-5½ foot level, above the breccia;
Gerzean level 4360 ± 355 BC --- 3½-4 foot level
Badari (RC): Badarian material/not at first occupation level 3920 ± 190 BC
Nekhen (RC): Badarian material/not at first occupation level 3892 ± 108 BC

Note that Amratian and Gerzean levels at Hemamieh predate some of the Badarian levels at Nekhen and Badari. Clearly, the local stratification at Hemamieh does not translate into layered cake stratification everywhere, with Badarian ending all over Kemet before Amratian began; and Amratian ending all over Kemet before Gerzean began. This suggests that we should regard Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean as variant styles within the entire period; as styles which sometimes appear synchronously in different places, with no Nile-Valley-wide layered cake temporal sequencing.
The TL and RC dates displayed above are those so far available for the BAG era. They range between ca. 5580 BC and ca. 3892 BC. But they are not necessarily the boundary dates of the BAG era. Without a larger and more representative set of TL and RC dates for the earliest and for the latest BAG artefacts, the boundary dates of the BAG era cannot be precisely determined. It cannot be over-emphasized that dates for Mena which derive from these particular boundary dates are provisional.

The political span of the BAG era

It should not be presumed that the BAG era was entirely Predynastic, especially as there is considerable evidence of stylistic continuities between Predynastic BAG artefacts and Early Dynastic artefacts. In fact, as the following examples show, some Early Dynastic artefacts have indeed been indistinguishable from definitive BAG artefacts.

a) The Gebel el Arak knife, according to Hoffman, "apparently dates to the Late Gerzean or Protodynastic". (Hoffman, 1984: 340) This inability to place it in one and not the other period is evidence of the lack of a hard stylistic distinction between these periods.

b) Commenting on a photograph of a miniature groundstone vase, Hoffman says: "Stone vase grinding developed as a full-time craft during the Gerzean and reached a peak under the first two dynasties". (Hoffman, 1984: 342)

c) In emphasizing the continuities between Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean styles, Alan Gardiner points to their burial arrangements as basically unchanged. (Gardiner, 1961: 393). And Hoffman carries the picture of continuity forward into the protodynastic era when he notes that the tombs of "Protodynastic kings at Abydos, although much larger than the (Predynastic/Late Gerzean) Painted Tomb, are built according to the same plan". (Hoffman, 1984: 335)

d) Gardiner also notes that the commemorative palettes, of which the famous Narmer Palette is one, "belonged to the very latest predynastic times, if not in some cases to the protodynastic." (Gardiner, 1961: 393)

e) Similarly, there was a continuity in copper tools and ornaments, from Badarian into protodynastic times. Hammered and annealed copper objects were found in Badarian graves (Hoffman, 1984: 143); in both Badarian and Amratian sites (Hoffman, 1984: 207); and from Dyn. I at Saqqara (Hoffman, 1984: 153).

f) In architecture, Hoffman cites evidence of predynastic-to-protodynastic continuities, including the following: "At El Amrah . . . Petrie found a miniature clay model of a house in a grave of Gerzean date that looks like a typical Dynastic mud-brick dwelling . . . Baumgartel mentions a Gerzean rectangular house with typical dynastic room and forecourt plan under the temple at Badari . . ." (Hoffman, 1984: 148)

Such continuities and, more importantly, the lack of clear discontinuities, support Hoffman's contention that "the change from Predynastic to Dynastic society was largely organizational and political, not technological and cultural . . ." (Hoffman, 1984: 17.) In fact, no evidence of a technological break occurs until the transition from Dyn. II to Dyn. III, from the protodynastic period to the Pyramid Age. The Step Pyramid of Djoser is the most spectacular evidence that a new techno-cultural era began with the start of Dyn. III. At that point, Hoffman, says, "there was a change in the nature of royal power as well as in art and burial customs." (Hoffman, 1984: 351)
We may therefore conclude that the BAG era spanned both the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, lasting from the beginning of Nile Valley farming villages, as at Hemamieh, till the end of Dyn. II. The BAG era was, thus, the cultural context for the evolution and consolidation of the Pharaonic state. The date for Mena's unification of Kemet, Mena's Year One, would thus lie within its full time span.

The Mena estimate

Despite its provisional nature, what estimate for Mena is still possible from the ca. 5580-3892 BC time span for the BAG era? Using the present (and tentative) closing date of ca. 3892 BC for the BAG, and taking Dyns. I and II as having lasted 565 years (the correct total in Manetho), and as having occupied the closing years of the BAG era, Mena would be placed at c. 4457 BC. It must be emphasized that this is subject to revision if the proper terminal date for the BAG era turns out to be later than 3892 BC. Nevertheless, the close proximity of 4457 BC to the 4443 ± 61 that was obtained by other independent methods is quite remarkable. Altogether, therefore, a mid-45th century BC date for Mena is as certain as can be, given the available evidence.

Part VI: The Chinweizu Chronology

From the best of the kinglist/monuments dynastic totals, and using three pegs [ 525 BC; 1872 BC; and 4443 BC], the starting date for each dynasty has been calculated to give The Chinweizu Chronology. It is displayed below, side by side with the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies, for comparison.

The Chinweizu, Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies`¢

	Kinglist/Monument (M; T; G)^†	Chinweizu	Bernal*	Gardiner**
Dynasty	Duration (years)	Starting date (BC)	Starting date (BC)	Starting date (BC)
I Early Dynastic	263 (M: Real total)	4443±61	3400	3100 ± 150
II "	302 "	4180	3200	-----
III Old Kingdom	214 "	3878	3000	2700
IV "	284 "	3664	2920	2620
V "	218 "	3380	2800	2480
VI "	206+ (M/T/G)	3162	2630	2340
VII FIP	0 (70 days) (M)	2956-	2470	-----
VIII "	146 "	2956-	2470	-----
IX "	409 "	-----	2440	-----
X "	185 "	2339+	-----	-----
XI Middle K'dom	160+ (T/Bernal)	2154+	2140	2134
XII "	206– (T/G)	1994	1979	1991
XIII SIP	Total SIP = 149+;	1788+ ***	1801	1786
XIV "	130 £ SIP £ 211	-----	-----	-----
XV "		-----	1750	-----
XVI "		-----	-----	-----
XVII "		-----	-----	-----
XVIII New K'dom	284 (M: Real total)	1639	1567	1575
XIX "	209 "	1355	1320	1308
XX "	135 (M)	1146	1200	1184
XXI "	114 (M: Real total)	1011	-----	1087
XXII TIP	116 "	897	-----	945
XXIII "	58 (M/Petrie)	781	-----	817(?)
XXIV "	8 (G)	723	-----	720
XXV Late K'dom	40 (M)	715	-----	716
XXVI "	150 (M)	675	-----	664
Persian conquest	----	525	525	525

`¢ For a comparative evaluation of these chronologies, see Appendix B.
^† M = Manetho; T = Turin; G = Monuments as by Gardiner.
* Source: (Bernal, 1991: xxviii)
** Source: (Gardiner, 1961: 430-451)
*** Because of some unspecified coregencies at the end of Dyn. XII.
================================================================

These three chronologies shall be evaluated in detail in Appendix B. However, it is pertinent to highlight here the chief attributes and merits of the Chinweizu Chronology. First of all, it is ultimately anchored on three independently established dates:

1) 525 BC as the date of the first Persian conquest of Kemet, a date independently established and generally accepted.
2) 1872 BC as Year 7 of Senwosre III of Dyn. XII. This is based on the testimony of the papyrus records and on astro-calendrical calculations.
3) 4241 BC as a first dynasty date. This is based on an ivory tablet's testimony and on astro-calendrical calculations.

Furthermore, the Chinweizu Chronology passes six independent tests which the Bernal and Gardiner and other chronologies do not pass, namely:

· The Haas test: that Dyn. III begin before 3000 BC; this is implied by some RC results. (Bernal, 1991: 209-210)
· The Sneferu test: that the dates for the first ruler of Dyn. IV should fall within the range established by the calibrated radiocarbon method.
· The Wadi Howar test: that events associated with a low Nile phase be dated at ca. 2900-2400 BC.
· The Second Intermediate Period (SIP) test: that its duration be somewhere between 130 years and 211 years; these limits are derived from detailed analysis of the Turin Canon data, and from astro-calendrical calculations.
· The Thera Eruption test: that 1628 BC, the independently established date for the Thera eruption, be Year 11 of some Pharaoh, as recorded in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. (Bernal, 1991: 328)
· The Olympics test: that 776 BC, the year of the first Olympics, fall within the reign of Petubates of Dyn. XXIII.

It should be noted that these tests apply to five different sections of the chronology -- the Old Kingdom, the FIP, the SIP, the New Kingdom, and the TIP respectively. Together, they test the key stretches of Kemetic chronology. A chronology which passes all six tests would be of good quality.
It should, furthermore, be noted that the Chinweizu Chronology is basically Manethonian, in as much as its dynastic details are primarily based on Manetho, with amendments by the Turin Canon and the evidence of the monuments. And in so far as its three anchor points are absolute rather than relative dates, it is an absolute chronology.
A pinpoint date for Mena would sort out the extant chronologies, and improve the best of them. So, how might that kind of date be obtained?

Part VII: Project for dating Mena more precisely

Here is a sample of the diverse dates which have been proposed for Mena, each on its own grounds, in the last two centuries:

Lepsius 5892 BC Mellaart 3400 BC
Champollion 5867 BC Bernal 3400 BC
Mariette 5004 BC Meyer 3315 BC
Brugsch 4455 BC Gardiner 3100 BC
Chinweizu 4443 BC The CAH 3100 BC (The Cambridge Ancient History)
Petrie 4326 BC Helck 2955 BC
Breasted 3400 BC Scharff 2850 BC

They spread across some 3,000 years! All these alternative dates are nothing but the fruits of elaborate and valiant detective and jigsaw puzzle work, each proceeding from much-damaged data. They could all be wrong, and probably are! The only way to find out is to embark on the project now to be outlined. It calls for the TL and RC dating of appropriate materials, either materials already collected from previous digs, or fresh materials from digs yet to be undertaken.

(A) For Mena directly

Materials from 1) The Mena/Narmer tomb at Abtu [Abydos] (Hoffman, 1984: 270), and
2) Neithhotep's tomb at Naqada. As Neithhotep was a contemporary and relative of both Mena and his successor, Aha, her dates would pinpoint Mena's. (Hoffman, 1984: 280, 322-323.)

As controls for (A) the following would be required:

(B1) Materials from undisturbed, stratified, occupation sites that go from Early Dynastic debris down to the Predynastic first occupation level. The best candidate for a fresh excavation would be Khasekhemui's Fort at Nekhen -- unexcavated as of 1980 (Hoffman, 1984: 354) -- a Dyn II structure which sits on top of a Predynastic occupation site.

(B2) Materials from Predynastic and Early-dynastic graves which would fix upper and lower limits for Mena.

Upper limits: Materials from

(i) Predynastic tombs in Abtu and Nekhen, and
(ii) Predynastic Qustul

Lower limits: Materials from

(I) Early-dynastic tombs and mortuary temples at Abtu and Nekhen;
(II) the Saqqara tombs of Early-dynastic Pharaohs;
(III) the Helwan tombs of Early-dynastic courtiers

Conclusion: Now, after 25 centuries of heroic guesses, Mena's date could at last be absolutely determined by obtaining absolute dates for the above materials.
================================================================

Appendix A

This is the tedious heart of the calculations that produced the reign lengths used for the Chinweizu Chronology. Readers who have no taste for the toil, and who are content with the results already presented, may skip this section.

Dyns I-VI: The monuments are no help. The Turin Canon is less than satisfactory because most of its totals are lost. Consequently, Manetho is the only unequivocal source.

Is the Turin Canon's restored and disputed total of 955 years to be assigned to Dyns I-V or Dyns I-VI (Gardiner, 1961: 67); or to Dyns I-VIII (Bernal, 1991: 207)?
An inspection of the Turin Canon data presented in Gardiner's appendix shows, at the end of Dyn. V:

"T_3.26 'Total. Kings from Meniti(?) to [Unis]' lost." (Gardiner, 1961: 435)

At the end of Dyn. VI:

"T_4.14 '[Total] . Kings [from Teti to . . . ] 181 yrs." (Gardiner, 1961: 436)

Now, is there another entry after T_4.14 that gives a total for Dyns I-VI? Or is the alleged 955(?) the restored entry for T_3.26 , and thus the total for Dyns I-V? If 955(?) is indeed for T_3.26, then Dyns I-VI would total 955(?) + 181, i.e. 1136(?) years!
How trustworthy is the 955(?) total, regardless of where it should belong? As a restoration, and especially a restoration by ideologically fanatical downdaters, it cannot be assumed superior to the sum of the Manetho totals for each of the dynasties involved. These totals are:

Dyn. I 263 years [Real total]
Dyn. II 302
Dyn. III 214
Dyn. IV 284
Dyn. V 218

For Dyn. VI, an inspection of the Manetho and Turin Canon lists of names requires an amendment to the Manetho total. The Manetho real total is 197; however, Turin Canon gives five kings with 9+ years after Manetho's last-named king; and the monuments give evidence for one of these. Therefore,

Dyn. VI = 206+ years.

Incidentally, if the broken total which has been restored as 955 years is for Dyns I-V, and if the Turin Canon's Dyn. VI total of 181 years is then included in Gardiner's calculations, his date for Mena would become 3189 (or 3289) BC + 181 = 3370 (or 3470) BC, which is close to Breasted's 3400 BC. (Gardiner, 1961: 67)
By the way, the Palermo Stone is no help at all in all this, as no totals have survived -- if ever it had them. Besides, calculations based on guessing its overall dimensions and the widths of the variable compartments are not worth much, despite their laudable ingenuity.

Dyns VII-X: The First Intermediate Period (FIP). The Turin Canon and the monuments are of no help here. Manetho is, therefore, the only substantive source. His totals are:

Dyn. VII 70 days
Dyn. VIII 146 years
Dyn. IX 409 years
Dyn. X 185 years
Total 740 years

Some might quibble about this total. But is there any reason why such a long period of decline-stagnation-and-recovery would be impossible or improbable? After all, eureurasia's Medieval Age – from the collapse of the Roman Empire through the Dark Ages and the Age of Feudal Stagnation to the beginning of Modern eureurasia – was just as long or longer (ca. 5^th century AD to the 15^th century AD: some one thounited snakesnd years); and Kmt's current Holocaust Age has lasted some five centuries (15^th to 20^th century AD); and the Eastern Zhou period, when China crumbled into some 170 warring statelets, lasted some 550 years under nominal emperors. In that comparative light, Manetho's 740 years for Kemet's FIP is not implausible. Attempts to shorten it, without evidence, and on analogy with the Second Intermediate Period (SIP), must reckon with the fact that there are astro-calendrical data and Turin Canon data which together put an upper limit on the possible duration of the SIP, but there are no external controls (astro-calendrical, monumentary or kinglist) to challenge Manetho on the duration of the FIP. Pending the appearance of challenging data, Manetho should be accepted.

Dyn. XI: The Turin Canon's figure for the total has been variously read as 143 or 160+ years, by equally competent decipherers. Bernal's argument for accepting 160+ are persuasive. (Bernal, 1991: 578, n. 74) In contrast, Manetho's 43 years, given without individual reign lengths, is unpersuasive. Could it possibly have been 143, with his excerptors having, in error, left out the initial digit?

Dyn. XII: The Turin Canon's total is 213 years; the monuments give 199+/184+, taking coregencies into account; Manetho gives 176 = 160 + 16 for Amenemhe, who he places apart from Dyn. XII but who, conventionally, heads this dynasty. A detailed computation, based on Turin Canon, with supplements from the monuments when the Turin Canon figures are inexact, gives the following:

Turin Canon G/Monuments Coregencies
Amenemhe I 29 30 9 years
Senwosre I 45 44 1 year
Amenemhe II 30+ 35 3 years
Senwosre II 19 6
Senwosre III 30+ 33
Amenemhe III 40+ 45 2(?) years }
Amenemhe IV 9 6+ unspecified }= r years
Sebeknofru 4 unspecified }
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total of the underlined 219 –(13+r) = 206–r

Note: 1872 BC, Year 7 of Senwosre III, is 135 years –13 (coregency) years from the start of Dyn. XII. Thus, the start of Dyn XII = 1872 + 122 = 1994 BC. As the Dyn. XII total is 206–r years, Dyn. XIII starts at 1788+ r BC.

Dyns XIII-XVII: For this, the SIP, the Manetho we have is at its worst. However, astronomical data and monumentary data provide grounds for making estimates of the duration of the SIP. The estimate that is needed here is the maximum possible duration of the SIP, which Gardiner has calculated as 211 years.
The dates calculated for two recorded heliacal risings of Sirius are:

Year 7 of Senwosre III 1872 BC
Year 9 of Amenhotpe I 1536 BC (Gardiner, 1961: 65-66)

These dates are on either side of the SIP. From the reign lengths and sequences based on the monuments and the Turin Canon, Gardiner has calculated that Dyn. XI ended ca. 1786 BC and Dyn. XVIII began ca. 1575 BC. Thus, the SIP lasted some 211 years. Other estimates, based on assorted analyses of the surviving totals on the Turin Canon, range from 130+ to 193+ years; at any rate, the six foreign kings of the Turin Canon totaled 108 years, making 108 < SIP £ 211 years.

Dyn XVIII-XX: Manetho's totals are Dyn. XVIII: 284; Dyn. XIX: 209; Dyn. XX: 135. These totals are determined by where Manetho actually divides the dynasties. Gardiner divides Dyns XVIII and XIX differently, and it is impossible to do a reign by reign comparison of the two, given the great divergence in the names and sequences of the kings as presented by the two. One is obliged to take one or the other in its entirety. Given how often Manetho is upheld in the other dynasties by other sources, it seems preferable to take Manetho's totals here. Besides, Gardiner himself expressed confidence in Manetho's lengths of reigns for Dyn. XVIII, despite the confusion in the names and sequences. (Gardiner, 1961: 242.)

Dyn. XXI: Adding up the individual reign lengths, the actual Manetho total is 114 years. The monuments are no help.

Dyns XXII-XXIV: For this, the Third Intermediate Period (TIP), a considerable sorting out is required. For Dyn. XXII, adding up the individual reign lengths, the correct Manetho total is 116 years. The monuments total is 194+/210+; but there is much confusion about this data, as Gardiner admits in frustration. (Gardiner, 1961: 333-334) So, these alternative totals from the monuments cannot be taken at face value.
For Dyn. XXIII, accepting Petrie's argument about Zet (Manetho, 1940: 161, n. 4), and Gardiner's view that it was an error (Gardiner, 1961: 334), and therefore removing it, makes the Dyn. XXIII total 58 years.
For Manetho, Dyn. XXIV consists of Bochchoris/Bekenrinef alone. For Gardiner, it consists of Tefnakhte (in whose time Piankhy intervened) and Bochchoris/Bekenrinef. But the reign of Bochchoris coincided with the first years of Shabako of Dyn. XXV. (Gardiner, 1961: 449, 450) Accordingly, the Dyn. XXIV total is the 8 years of Tefnakhte.

Dyns XXV-XXVI: For this, the Late Kingdom or the Nubian-Saitean Renaissance, the Manetho total is 190 years and 6 months, and Gardiner's is 191 years; this is because Gardiner, following the monuments, counts the last six months, which constitutes the entire reign of Psamtek III, as one year. Thus, both Manetho and Gardiner actually agree. Manetho breaks this down into 40 years for Dyn. XXV and 150 years for Dyn. XXVI.

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Appendix B:

The Chinweizu, Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies: A Comparison.

For each proposed chronology, a validity test is how well it accommodates such independently dated or datable events as are not assumed in its own construction.
There are 5 independently determined dates which are associated, in the extant records, with specified reigns, and sometimes with specific reign years of pharaohs; four other tests, which put certain events within or outside specific time bands, are also available:

1. 1469 BC as a year in the reign of Dhutmose III of Dyn. XVIII;
2. 1536 BC as Year 9 of Amenhotpe I of Dyn. XVIII;
3. 1872 BC as Year 7 of Senwosre III of Dyn. XII;
4. The year of the Thera eruption as year 11 of some pharaoh;
5. 776 BC, the year of the first Olympics, as a year in the reign of Petubates of Dyn. XXIII;
6. Two of the above dates, 1872 BC and 1536 BC, imply a maximum of 211 years for the duration of the SIP;
7. The Haas Test, which is supplied by the radiocarbon results from some pyramids, requires that the Cambridge Ancient History dates for the Old Kingdom dynasties be raised by "at least 374 years". (Bernal, 1991: 209.] This means that Dyn. III should start before 3000 BC.
8. The Sneferu Test, which uses the raw RC results of 2850 ± 210 bc from Sneferu's pyramid at Meydum. When calibrated, these radiocarbon years become 3770-3400 BC for Sneferu's tomb.
9. The Wadi Howar Test, which requires that events associated with a low Nile phase be dated at ca. 2900-2400 BC.

Now, the 1872 BC test cannot be applied to any of these three chronologies, for they all assume it in their construction. Nor can the 1536 BC and 1469 BC tests be applied to them because of the confused state of the Manethonian names and sequences for Dyn. XVIII. This leaves us with six tests to apply to these chronologies. How do they perform?

The Thera eruption test

1628 BC is the date newly established – by dendrochronology, radiocarbon and ice core techniques – for the Thera eruption. (Bernal, 1991: 287-288) According to Bernal, the effects of that eruption are referred to in a note on the back of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP) which "refers to the 'voice of Seth' and the 'precipitation of Isis' in the eleventh year of an unnamed pharaoh's reign." (Bernal, 1991: 328; 593, n. 80; 598, n. 21) Bernal goes on to say that Hans Goedicke has maintained that the pharaoh referred to was Ahmose, founder of Dyn. XVIII. However, on the Bernal chronology, which puts Ahmose at 1567 BC, 1628 BC cannot be Ahmose's Year 11. Instead, Bernal argues for 1628 BC as Year 11 of the Hyksos pharaoh Apopi. But there are problems with this proposal. The scribe who made the RMP dated his manuscript to Apopi's Year 33. Presumably, the note on its back which refers to these volcanic activities, if penned at the same time, would refer to an event of Apopi's Year 11. Or it could even refer to Year 11 of some preceding pharaoh. But was it written down at the same time as the front of the RMP? It is possible that the note on the back was added much later, like anytime after Year 11 of some pharaoh subsequent to Apopi. So, the inference that it refers to Year 11 of Apopi is not conclusive.
Furthermore, 1628 BC cannot be shown to be Year 11 of Apopi. Bernal makes it so only by the roughest approximation: by arbitrarily assigning 6 to 8 years to Khamudy who is presumed to be the successor to Apopi, and by starting Ahmose's reign at ca. 1570 BC instead of the 1567 BC given on the Bernal Chronology. (Bernal, 1991: xxviii) Thus, strictly speaking, on the Bernal Chronology, 1628 BC is not Year 11 of Apopi, or of Ahmose, or of any known pharaoh. Which means that the Bernal Chronology does not pass the 1628 BC test.
The Gardiner Chronology fares no better. His date for Ahmose's founding of Dyn. XVIII is 1575 BC, so Ahmose's Year 11 cannot be 1628 BC. Gardiner accepts the order of kings on a Memphis stela which places Apopi just before Ahmose. (Gardiner, 1961: 50, 160) If Apopi ruled for 61 years, as given in Manetho, then, on the Gardiner Chronology, 1628 BC was his Year 8!
On the Chinweizu Chronology, 1639 BC is Year 1 of Ahmose for whom Manetho gives 25 years and whose highest date from the monuments is year 22. Thus, there was a Year 11 of Ahmose and, on the Chinweizu chronology, it falls exactly on 1628 BC. This exact fit between 1628 BC and Year 11 of Ahmose vindicates Hans Goedicke's contention that the pharaoh in question was Ahmose.
Thus, whereas the Gardiner and Bernal Chronologies do not pass the 1628 BC test, the Chinweizu Chronology passes it excellently.

The Olympics test

On the Chinweizu Chronology, the first Olympic Games of the Greeks, 776 BC, correctly falls within the reign of Petubates (Pedibaste) of Dyn. XXIII. (Gardiner, 1961: 449) On the Gardiner Chronology, Petubates' reign of 40 years commenced in 817 BC, and would have ended in 777 BC; in which case the first Olympics would have been in the reign of his successor. The Bernal Chronology does not go as far down as Dyn. XXIII; it stops at Dyn XX. But on the Breasted Chronology, which is very closely matched with the Bernal Chronology for as far as the latter goes, Dyn. XXIII is dated 745-718 BC, (Manetho, 1940: 160, n. 2.) which would put the first Olympics in Dyn XXII!
Thus, the Chinweizu Chronology passes the Olympics test while the others do not.

The SIP £ 211 years test

On the Chinweizu Chronology, the SIP is (1788 + r) – 1639 = (149 + r) years, where r < 13. So, the SIP < 162 years, which passes Gardiner's SIP £ 211 years test.
On the Bernal Chronology, the SIP = 1801 – 1567 BC = 234 years > 211 years. Of course, this test does not apply to the Gardiner Chronology which assumes SIP=211 years.
So, the Chinweizu Chronology passes the SIP test and the others do not.

The Haas test

The Haas test, which is a consequence of some radiocarbon tests on the pyramids, requires that Dyn. III start before 3000 BC. On the Chinweizu Chronology, Dyn. III starts and ends well before the 3000 BC lower limit required for its start by the Haas Test. In contrast, the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies start Dyn. III in 3000 BC and 2700 BC respectively.
So, the Chinweizu Chronology passes the Haas Test while the others do not.

The Sneferu test
Four samples of a cypress beam from the tomb of the Pharaoh Sneferu at Meydum when analysed by this [Carbon –14] method gave an average age of 4802 ± 210 years; i.e., they indicated that the king was buried probably between 3060 and 2640 BC."
-- "Chronology: III Egyptian", Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 5, p. 723.

This date was obtained when the RC technique was quite new and the need for calibration was unknown. Subsequent calibration techniques required that dates of ca. 3000 BC be pushed back by about 700 years. Using the H. E. Suess calibration graph (Renfrew, 1978: 292), those dates calibrate into 3770 and 3400 BC.
On the Chinweizu Chronology, the start of Sneferu's reign of 24 years, was 3664 BC, which places the date for his accession, as well as that for his Meydum pyramid, within the calibrated RC range. The Chinweizu Chronology thus passes the Sneferu Test. The Gardiner and Bernal Chronologies clearly do not pass the test, since they start Dyn. IV, and hence Sneferu's reign, at 2620 BC and 2920 BC respectively.

The Wadi Howar test
Data developed since 1980 by the earth sciences indicate that, in the 3^rd millennium BC, for at least five centuries, between ca. 2900 and 2400 BC, the Nile levels below Old Dongola were extremely low. This was principally due to the loss of the discharge from one of its main tributaries, the Wadi Howar, which drained western Nubia. In order to be valid, a chronology must be consistent with this phenomenon and, therefore, date events associated with a low Nile phase to the early 3^rd millennium BC. That is the Wadi Howar test.
On the Chinweizu Chronology, the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom each falls within a period of high Nile floods, while the FIP – with its famines, civil wars, collapsed central political authority and social upheaval – falls, quite appropriately, within that 3^rd millennium period of disastrously low Niles. On the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies, however, the Old Kingdom, that great pyramid building era, falls within that resource-poor and starving period of disastrously low Niles. That implies the implausible conclusion that a desperately poor and famished population, torn by strife, carried out projects that required sustained and orderly effort and enormous resources. We must therefore conclude that the Chinweizu Chronology passes the Wadi Howar test while the Bernal and Gardiner Chronologies do not.

These six tests clearly and strongly validate the Chinweizu Chronology. They actually validate its dates for different stretches of the chronology. The Old Kingdom stretch is validated by the Sneferu and Haas tests; the FIP is validated by the Wadi Howar test; the SIP is validated by the SIP test; the New Kingdom stretch is validated by the Thera eruption test; and the TIP by the Olympics test. And what is more, the Chinweizu Chronology is validated in the all-important Old Kingdom stretch where a valid absolute date is especially important if the down-dating impulse is to be curbed. If a reign year of Sneferu's could be corelated with an absolutely datable astrocalendrical event, then, using data from the king lists, the range within which Mena's date falls would be minimized.

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Appendix C
An absolute upper limit for Mena: a Zodiac-Bull cult indicator.

Knowledge of the twelve ages of the Zodiac gave rise to certain changes of state symbolism and royal cults in Kemet, from the bull cult in the Age of the Bull (Taurus), 4565-2410 BC, to the ram cult in the Age of the Ram (Aries), 2410-255 BC.
When Kemet was founded, one of the Pharaoh's symbols was the bull; Ptah, the chief god of the new capital Mennefer (Memphis to the Greeks), had the bull for a symbol; and the bull cult was the foremost in the land. During the Age of the Ram (Aries), the ram was the symbol of Amon, the dominant god of the age; the ram was sacred to Amon, the chief deity of Waset (Thebes to the Greeks), the then capital of Kemet. This is evidence of Kemetic sensitivity to the ages of the Zodiac, a sensitivity in keeping with their devoted attention to celestial seasons in sacred matters. This devotion was symbolized by their six-pointed Star of Creation which signified "As above, so below", i.e. as in the celestial sphere, so too in the terrestrial.
With this background in mind, the bull symbolism of the founding Pharaoh makes it most likely that Mena's unification of Kemet took place in the Taurean Age, and not in the preceding Age of the Twins (Gemini). The unification of Kemet would have taken place not earlier than 4565 BC, which was when the Taurean Age began. We thus have another indicator of an upper limit to Mena's date.
Needless to say, on the Chinweizu chronology, Mena's date, 4443±61 BC, falls within this limit. But so do all but the longest of the proposed chronologies, such as those of Lepsius, Champollion and Mariette. This limit does not, of course, materially affect the calculations made above for Mena's date; but it is from an indicator of an unusual and interesting sort, and it validates the estimate of 1000 years from the first farming villages to the unification by Mena. Besides, it gives an absolute date, an astro-calendrical date, 4565 BC, for Mena's upper limit.

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Appendix D
Absolute dating techniques: some observations
There are three main types of absolute dating techniques:

A] Astronomy techniques, which are based on calculating dates for astronomical events;
B] Annalist techniques, which are based on counting a sequence of consecutive annual deposits or records of one sort or another, such as ice cores (varves), tree rings (dendrochronology) and historical annals;
C] Radioactivity techniques (radiocarbon, potassium-argon, thermoluminescence etc.) which use radioactive materials to give a range of dates, together with the statistical probability of the event falling within the range.

Astronomy techniques give precise results; annalist techniques give precise results in the range where the sequence is continuous; and radioactivity techniques, though the least precise, have the advantage of locating the range within which the precise date should fall. Where these three techniques are used in concert, and where their results are mutually consistent, the result is as scientifically unassailable as possible.
The virtue of radiocarbon dating, and of dating by other radioactivity techniques, is to fix the range within which other methods (e.g. astronomy, annalist) can then be applied to pinpoint an event's date. The statistical "scattering" (the ± number) is precisely what fixes the range; it is not an error but a guide, and a date which falls outside that range has a very high probability of being wrong.
The proper use of radioactivity dating methods is to determine the time band within which an event occurred. In this regard, the 2s band is more useful than the s band, because it carries a 95% probability instead of 68%. Of course, the 2s band is adequate for most purposes, but a 3s band, with its 99.5% probability, is even more useful. In other words, any date outside the 2s or 3s band may, with confidence, be ruled out. The task, therefore, is to minimize the s by repeated measurements on the same sample material. For example, if s is reduced to 50 years, then the ±3s bandwidth is only 300 years. In which case, the technique would confine the date to within a 300 year band, with a 99.5% probability. It is then up to other techniques to more precisely locate the event within the 2s or 3s time band, thereby yielding as precise a date as is humanly possible.
Those archeologists and ancient historians are in error who regard the "scattering" as reason for rejecting radiocarbon dates. These dates have the same validity as other statistically determined values, such as those of quantum mechanics and those of the actuary.
The anti-radiocarbon crowd includes
(a) the conservatives who still cling to old intellectual habits, and who resist the new, like Ptolemaists rejecting Copernican astronomy. Among these are Astrom, Gerald Cadogan. (Bernal, 1991: 278, 279)
(b) the ideological crooks who accept RC dates when these support their dogma and reject them when they don't, and who invent spurious arguments for doing so. Colin Renfrew, for example, accepted RC dating for eureurasia, but not for the Aegean and places to its east, on the claim that there existed a "fault line" in the domain of the technique. (Renfrew, 1978: 93, 115-116)
(c) the diffidents who reinterpret their raw RC data so as to accommodate the traditional archeological authorities who cling to outdated techniques. (Bernal, 1991: ? )
Egyptologists have, in the main, either evaded radiocarbon dating, or they have, like Renfrew, stuck to uncalibrated dates which happen to agree with their pre-radiocarbon dates and their prejudices. For example, the uncalibrated Sneferu date is still found in the latest books and encyclopaedias. Kemetology, in contrast, is dedicated to using the most accurate dating techniques.

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Appendix E
Some implications of the Chinweizu Chronology
There are some old problems (P) which the Chinweizu Chronology helps to resolve and there are some new questions (Q) which it raises and helps to answer.

Old problems resolved
P1] The Mesopotamian Stimulus: On the Chinweizu Chronology, Mesopotamia could not have stimulated or influenced the rise of a Kemetic civilization which preceded it by almost 2000 years! The direction of any demonstrable stimulus between the Nile and Mesopotamia would have to be from the Nile to Mesopotamia.
If the Chaldeans (Kaldu) were indeed a colony of astronomers from Kemet, they would exhibit some Old Kingdom cultural traits. These should be investigated.

P2] The date for Kush: This can approximately be determined. If the Qustul data implies that the first Pharaonic state emerged in Kush some 12 generations before Mena, that is some 300 to 400 years before Mena, then it would be dated to ca. 4850-4750 BC

P3] The Nile delta, before Mena, was hardly inhabited. On the Chinweizu Chronology, Mena's unification of Kemet occurred in ca. 4443 BC. And from the absolute dates available at present, Merimde, the earliest farming village in Lower Kemet, located on the edge of the Delta, was first settled ca. 4880 BC, and was occupied for some 650 years, i.e. till ca. 4230 BC when it was abandoned. (Hoffman, 1984: 169) The next two villages nearest to the delta were Fayum A, 4441+115 BC and Omari A, ca. 4000 BC. These dates and locations suggest – in the absence of any older datings from the delta proper—that the delta was a wild

Chinweizu · Dec 16, 2016, 11:51 PM

[h=5]Chinweizu [OKMT44] (May 2002) (Feb. 98) Oct. 97 Sept. 96](Oct. 95) [Kmt1][/size]Copyright © 1997 by Chinweizu (Draft; not for publication)

Igbo-Kemetic Correspondences: Parts I and II
A Diopian exercise in mutual illumination by two Black Kmtyw cultures.

The way is open for the rediscovery of the vocalics of ancient Egyptian from comparative studies with the languages of Kmt.
-- Cheikh Anta Diop

This paper shall examine some correspondences between elements of Kemetic culture (i.e. Black Egyptian or Pharaonic culture) and Igbo culture. Part I shall present some philological correspondences -- phonetic, semantic and concept-cluster correspondences between words from the two languages. Part II shall present correspondences from a variety of areas of culture, correspondences which are not necessarily philological. Part III shall present correspondences specific to the Pharaoh and the Nri kingships.
How these correspondences arose – coincidence, loan of words and practices, dispersal of population, etc. – is a matter for subsequent inquiry. The establishment of correspondences is, indeed, the necessary preliminary to investigations of how the correspondences arose and what they imply. Correspondences are culture tracers. And a culture tracer is "a device which enables us to trace the source or derivation of cultural items which appear to be alien to a society." [Afigbo, 1992:52] Subsequent inquiry shall explore the significance of these correspondences for Igbo culture history and historiography, as well as for Black World Studies.
Diop's theses that Black Kmt has cultural unity, and that Kemet (Pharaonic or Black Egypt) is to Kmt what Greece is to eureurasia, provide the basic context for this inquiry. Accordingly, of the correspondences between Igbo and many other Kmtyw cultures, the Igbo-Kemetic deserve special attention in Igbo culture history.

Part I: Philological Correspondences

These are drawn from the following areas of life:

A) Anatomy of personality or personality theory;
B) Deities;
C) Valuation: ethical, aesthetical and technical;
D) Education, knowledge, enlightenment;
E) Astronomy: dawn and dusk phenomena;
F) Miscellaneous.

I should point out that phonetic correspondences are based on the consonantal structures of words. This is because Kemetic writing uses consonants only; as a result, the vowels used by Egyptology in rendering a word are conjectural and those arbitrarily adopted by convention result in what has been called Egypto-speak. For the vocalizations and meanings of Igbo words, I am relying on a variety of Igbo dialects, and particularly on the Isuikwuato dialect, the one with which I am most familiar. Some of these phonetic correspondences are not easy to spot if any one Igbo dialect is used exclusively; a correspondence that is not apparent in one dialect may become apparent in some other. For example, consider Aha (Egypto-speak) and Aro (Onitsha) and Ahwa (Isuikwuato); or Herushu (Egypto-speak) and Alusi (Nri) and Erusi (Afikpo).

Igbo words and concepts with Pharaonic counterparts

'"

Chi (spirit double, procreative power, sun)
Eke (portion, destiny)
Chi-na-Eke (the twin gods of destiny)
Arusi/Erusi (demigod)
Ahu (body)
Obi (heart)
Ako (intellect, judgement, wisdom)
Ike (strength, power)
Ekwensu (mischief spirit, 'devil')
Ikenga (strength of the arm)
Mma (good, beautiful, just)
Mmanwu (masquerade)
Ima (to know)
Imu (to learn)
Ide (to write)
Otu (one)
Otu (union)
Anyasi/Enyasu (early night)
Ndi (things of/ people of)
Obu/obi (domestic temple)
Imenka (to carve, chisel)
Ime (inside)
Itu (to command)
Oto (upright)
Mmam (spirit)
Zibe (teaching)
Na (and, with)
Iru (face)
Evhu ala (viper)
Anwu (sun)
Ma/macha (measure)
Agha (battle, war)
Uma (character, behaviour)
Tomie (grow greatly)
Gwuo (dig)
Kuo (strike, hit)
Bu (is, are)
Eke (python)
Aku (wealth)
Isogbu (to trouble)
Tuo (make libation)
Imesu ozhu (to awaken the dead)
Ogbenye (poverty)
Mmanwu (masquerade)
Oyi (cold)
Ehi (cow)
Ahwa/aho (year)
Ebe (place)

Okhu (hot)
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50. Ise (may it be so)

'"

Nwa mmadu (wellborn)
Umu ife/ndi ife (sons of light, the enlightened)

').'")."n[/list type=decimal]"'

53. Igbo names that are Kemetic words

'"

Eri
Nri
Ufere
Amobi
Isu
Ipeh
Khamannu/Khanu/Kanu

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Igbo doctrines and practices with Kemetic counterparts

'"

Divine kingship
Nrimenri doctrine of collective kingship
The Council of Thirty (Illimmadunato)
Eze Nri's dwarfs
Osu temple sanctuary and ostracism
Obu/obi domestic temple
Nsibidi symbols and pictographs
The family compound complex
Ofo, the god of Truth, Justice and Righteousness
The Eri creation story
Rituals for opening the eyes and other senses
Dualities and dialectics
Persons consecrated to the gods
Pantheon structures – dyads and trinities
Orientation of sacred structures
Anatomy of personality
Efi alusi, the sacred bull
Pervasive power of oracles and diviners
Doctrine of the four fundamental elements
Death and resurrection doctrines and rituals
Doctrines and worship of the Sun god, Anyanwu
Doctrines " Chi
Doctrines " Chi-na-Eke
Doctrines " Ekwensu
Doctrines " arusi
Doctrine of masquerades as manifestations of gods and ancestors
Doctrines and practices on arbitration

').'")."n[/list type=decimal]"'

'"

" on wealth
" on education
" on a tripartite ontology
" on suicide
Number symbolisms
Offerings in lots of seven and nine

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A) Anatomy of personality or personality theory

In the Kemetic anatomy of personality, there are nine component parts: one physical and eight spiritual. For five of the nine, I have found both phonetic and conceptual counterparts in Igbo. Three of the nine go under Igbo names that are phonetically different from their Kemetic counterparts, but denote the same concepts. For one of these nine, I have not yet found a conceptual equivalent in Igbo. But I believe that the experts in the Igbo science of the soul can supply it if such a part is still recognized in Igbo thought. Such a degree of correspondence, as is displayed below, is reason to believe that the two systems are identical, and that we have, in the Igbo, a remnant of the Kemetic. Here they are:

Kemetic*	Igbo
A1) *Khat*: The physical body as a whole; the mortal flesh-and-bone-and-blood that is subject to corruption and decay and is buried after death.	*Ahu: The physical body; as in ahu* *okhu* = fever, i.e. hot body. (See *Sahu:*A2, below)
A2) *Sahu*: The spiritual body, everlasting and incorruptible; a purified version of the human body which can ascend into heaven and dwell in the company of the gods.	No conceptual equivalent. [Note that, in Kemet, there was, at times, a confusion of the *Khat* with the *Sahu. (Budge, 1967: lxi) This confusion has, it seems, been carried over into Igbo, where ahu, the phonetic equivalent of Sahu, is used to denote the Khat, with a loss, it seems, of whatever word the Igbo might have earlier used for the Khat*.]
A3) Ab: The spiritual aspect of the heart; the heart as the seat of the power of life and the fountain of good and evil thoughts. It is the part of the person which is examined and weighed on the scales of righteousness in the judgment hall of the dead. It contrasts with *Hati*, the physical aspect of the heart that can be swallowed, wounded, etc.	*Obi:* The heart as the location of feeling, moral character, conscience, scruples, thinking, courage, etc.; the non-physical aspect of the biological heart. As in phrases like *Onye obi oma* = a good-hearted person; *Onye ma obi?* = who knows the heart/feeling (of another)? *Onye obi ikhe* = a strong-hearted person. For *Hati, the physical heart, the Igbo equivalent is Mkpuru obi* = the seed of the heart.
A4) Ka: The spirit double of a person; his image, genius, character. The personification of his fate or destiny, which decreed what should happen to him in life. It comes into being with the person and follows him throughout his life and, at his death, returns to the Divine Ka. It has "an absolutely independent existence. It could move freely from place to place, separating itself from, or uniting itself to, the body at will, and also enjoy life with the gods in heaven." (Budge, 1967: lxi-lxii) The Divine Ka is equivalent to the Chukwu of the Igbo.	*Chi:* The spirit director of a person. It is the keeper, personification of a person's destiny, character, attributes. It dwells in the land of spirits. It knows the heart/mind/feeling (*Chimaobi); protects or saves (Chiazor); arranges properly the affairs of its counterpart in the world of the living (Chiedozie). [Note: Ka was transcribed in Coptic and Greek in various vocalizations: Shai* (Budge, 1967: cxxv); *Shay* (Lichtheim, 1980: 144, 151); Ke, Ki and *Choi* (Bernal, 1991: 264). The versions *choi* and ki establish a phonetic link between Ka and *Chi.*]
A5) *Khaibit/Khaba:* The shade or shadow. It can be shut in, captured, confined, fettered, as in *Khetami her khaibit mitmitu* = who shut in the shades of the dead; and in *sauti* *khaibit*-a = let not be fettered my shadow.	Onyonyoh: The shadow which may be captured or stolen by an enemy, through the evil eye; hence the fear of photography and the refunited snakesl to be photographed when photography was first introduced into Igboland.

[TH]

Kemetic*
[/TH]
[TH] Igbo
[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A6) Ba: The soul or breath of life. It is symbolized by a human-headed hawk. It flies away at a person's death, and flies back and reunites with his sahu at his resurrection. It has the power of metamorphosis, and changes its form at will. It could take any form or shape it pleased. It is eternal, and has the power of passing into heaven and dwelling with the perfect souls that abide there.
[/TD]
[TD]Mmam/Mmuo: The spirit. It flies off to the land of spirits at a person's death. It is believed to be "the very thing that flew out when a man died and perched on the head of the coffin on the way to the cemetery." (Achebe, 1988:24) This is, surely, a variant of the Kemetic idea illustrated in many papyri where "the soul of the deceased in the form of a human-headed bird is seen hovering over the dead body." (Budge, 1967:277, fn. 4 and Fig. 1.)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A7) Akh/Akhu/Khu: The intelligence, mental perception and judgment, the analytic and reflective powers of a person. It was both the rational and ethical, and could be trained and disciplined. It was examined and weighed on the scale of justice against a feather on the judgement day of the dead person.
[/TD]
[TD]Ako: That part of the person which is the seat of common sense and wisdom. In the dualistic noun phrase Ako na Uche, Ako is wit; the practical, operational intelligence; cleverness; common sense. Uche is the mind; the abstracting, theoretical intelligence or power of thought and understanding. Inwe ako na uche = being wise, sensible, intelligent, having sense; having "the manipulative ability to adjust to the fortunes and tracks of life." (Nwoga, 1984: 47)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A8) Sekhem: The vital force or power of a person. [Note: (1) Sekhem probably means se-khem, i.e. to make strong, which would give it a phonetic and semantic correspondence with the Igbo Sie-ikhe = grow strong; become strong. This would also establish a correspondence between Khem and the Igbo Ikhe. (2) The concept of a person's "strong right arm" occurs in Kemetic. E.g., in the 15th c. BC, in Pharaoh Amenhotep II's account of one of his victories, it is said: "There was none with his Majesty save himself and his strong right arm. His Majesty slew them with a shot." (Gardiner, 1961: 201.)]
[/TD]
[TD]Ikhe: Strength, force, power, authority.
[Note: The Igbo concept of Ikhenga (Ikhe m'ji aga) = the strength or life force with which I go forth. It is symbolized by a sculpture, placed in a person's private shrine, representing the person's right hand (or left hand for the left-handed person), the repository of his active strength, his Aka-ikhenga. i.e. the arm of the strength with which I go forth.]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A9): Ren: The name; an essential attribute for the preservation of a being, as, without a name, the person ceases to exist.
[/TD]
[TD]Eha/Aha: The name. Its importance or function is noted by such sayings as Ahamefula = May my name not be lost. Should the name be lost or forgotten by all, then the person is truly dead and ceases to exist. Descendants are necessary to keep one's name going and continually invoked. Similarly, the naming ceremony of a child is vital. It admits it into the human community, makes it a person in the community, a human with a name as distinct from an animal. Should a child die before its naming ceremony, it is not accorded the burial rites of a full member of the community. Thus, its name is a crucial part of the person.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

* (Budge, 1967: lviii - lxix); (Akbar, 1985: 126-127).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the Kemetic theory of personality, all these nine parts

were bound together insepaAmwly, and the welfare of any single one of them concerned the welfare of all. For the well-being of the spiritual parts it was necessary to preserve from decay the natural body; and certain passages in the pyramid texts seem to show that a belief in the resurrection of the natural body existed in the earliest dynasties.
--(Budge, 1967: lxix-lxx)

According to the Kemetic science of personality, after death, these nine parts of the personality were transformed into two: "The Aunited snakesr of a man" and the Krst. The Aunited snakesr is a compound of the eight spiritual parts of the anatomy, i.e. the Sahu, the Ka, the Ab, the Ba, the Khu, the Khaibit, the Sekhem and the Ren. (Budge, 1967: lxx, n.2) After death, these eight spiritual parts assembled in a form, the Aunited snakesr, that resembled the dead person exactly; whereas the Khat, the physical body, on being mummified, became the Krst (the Christ of Christianity in English). The Aunited snakesr received the honors and offerings made to the Krst, the mummified physical body. The Aunited snakesr then proceeded on the journey from the tomb to the judgment hall; and from there, if vindicated, journeyed on to heaven to join the immortal gods as a living soul, as a "God, the son of God". All the gods in heaven welcomed the vindicated Aunited snakesr of the deceased and became his brethren.

Speculation: Did the Igbo anatomy of personality also recognize the Krst and the Aunited snakesr of a man? And where, if at all, does the Igbo term "Ozhu", meaning corpse, fit into this schema? "Zet, in Egyptian: the corpse purified and rigid". (Diop, 1967: 190) Would ozhu correspond to Egyptology's Zet/*Ozu(t)?

The correspondences analyzed above fall into three groups:

Group I: Ab--Obi; Ka/Choi—Chi; Akhu—Ako; Sekhem—Ikhe. These four pairs correspond both conceptually and phonetically.

Group II: Khat—Ahu; Khaibit—Onyonyoh; Ba—Mmam/Mmuo; Ren—Eha/Aha. These four pairs correspond in concept only.

Group III: Sahu—(?). There is no corresponding concept yet found.

Needless to say, this degree of correspondence suggests that one system is a version of the other.

A10) The self-creative power
Kemetic: Seb
Igbo: Chi

In Kemetic cosmogony, Seb is said to have laid the egg from which the world sprang. (Budge, 1967: cxii) In the Kemetic concept of the psyche, the Seb is the ancestral soul, the creative power of a person. It does not manifest itself until puberty. According to Na'im Akbar, "Seb is the soul of pubescence . . . the self-creative power of Being . . .Seb reminds the person that his nature is not only one that permits reproduction, but is procreative and self-creative." (Akbar, 1985: 127, 129, 135)
It is not clear just where the Seb fits in the personality theory, especially whether or not it becomes part of the Aunited snakesr. The Seb is probably the divine body referred to in this line from the Sinuhe story:
"The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Sehetepibre, flew to heaven and united with the sun-disk, the divine body merging with its maker."

According to Onwuejeogwu, the Chi of the Igbo is the procreative force for the continuation of the lineage. It is a fragment of Chukwu that dwells in the individual, Chukwu being the big or universal Chi that dwells in the sun. A person's chi is manifested at puberty. When the Chi of a man manifests itself through procreating his first child, his chi-tree, the ogbu or fig, is planted in front of his compound. The chi of a woman is ritually brought down from the sun and planted in the earth after she has given birth to many children. At a person's death, the chi ceases to manifest itself and flies off and reunites with the sun. (Onwuejeogwu, 1997a: 17-18) Furthermore, four of the Awka social titles are associated with chi. There is the chi title itself, and the three titles which redeem it. And the chi title is peculiar in that it extends for two generations; it is the only title which is inherited. That is done by the senior son of the man who performed it, but not by his son's son. (Isichei, 1977: 65-66)
This all suggests that (a) there are two senses of chi in Igbo personality theory; and (b) that these correspond to the Kemetic Ka and Seb. The existence of these two versions of Chi has led to some disagreement between Igbo scholars. Chinua Achebe, like most Igbos, take chi as the spirit director or spirit double, the equivalent of the Kemetic Shai/Choi/Ki; Onwuejeogwu has, however, objected to that united snakesge, saying that chi in Igbo is the procreative power, which would correspond to the Kemetic Seb. (Onwuejeogwu, 1997a: 17-18)Both united snakesges, we can now see, are correct. The confusion and disagreement is actually caused by the fact that a term different from chi is not applied to Seb by Igbo united snakesge.

B) Deities

We shall now consider several deities from the Kemetic and Igbo pantheons, and see the similarities in their names and attributes.

B1) The gods of destiny

Kemetic: Shai/Shay; Renenet and Meskhenet
Igbo: Chi-na-Eke

Shai was the personification of fate, of destiny. He decreed what should happen to a person. Renenet, the personification of fortune, was the goddess of plenty. Shai and Renenet, said to be the hands of Tehuti, the divine intelligence, were usually coupled together, a pair that governed a person's fate and fortune. Meskhenet appears to be a goddess personifying luck, destiny and all the concepts underlying Shai and Renenet. At the birth of the children of Re, the Sun god, a childbirth midwifed by four goddesses, it was Meskhenet who pronounced its destiny, the allotment made to it by the gods. (Budge, 1967: cxxv-cxxvi; Lichtheim, 1980: 151, n. 5.)
For the Igbo, Chi, the spirit double, is the custodian of a person's destiny. A person cannot challenge or defy his chi and hope to prevail. Eke is a person's allotment or portion of fortune, good or bad, as set aside by the gods at his creation or reincarnation. Its etymological root is the verb, kee = to divide, share, cut up, apportion. Ihe ekenyerem = my share, my lot, what is apportioned to me. Hence the noun Eke, the apportioner. Like Shai and Renenet, Chi and Eke are usually coupled together as Chi-na-Eke, i.e. "Chi and Eke". For example, in the exclamation Chim na Ekem yee! = Oh my Chi and my Eke!, whereby the gods of destiny are invoked when one is alarmed or shocked.
There is a plausible derivation of Chi, Eke and Chi-na-Eke from Shai-Renenet-Meskhenet:

1] Ka/Ki/Choi/Shai/Shay are alternative renditions, by Egyptology, of the Kemetic name for the same deity. (Bernal, 1991: 264; Lichtheim, 1980: 144, 151) The versions Ki/Choi are the plausible sources of the Igbo Chi.

2] Eke is plausibly derived from Meskhenet by a process of contraction that, through non-vocalization, dropped the initial "M" and the final "net": for instance, the non-vocalization of the feminine ending "et" was the practice even by Old Kingdom times. (Gardiner, 1961: ix)] Thus,

M (eskhe) n (et) --------------> *Eskhe(n) -----------> *Ekhe -----------> Eke

3] Given the more prominent role assigned to Meskhenet in some situations where destiny was being decreed, it is plausible that in some contexts the coupling was of Shai and Meskhenet rather than Shai and Renenet. And on the model of "Amen-hena-Ament"= "Amen and Ament", (Budge, 1967: xciv, n. 3),

Shai and Meskhenet would be rendered as Shai-hena-Meskhenet.

4] Starting with the Choi/Ki versions of Shai, and the Shai-hena-Meskhenet coupling, would give us

*Ki-hena-Meskhenet. A succession of elisions would yield:
|
*Ki-hena-Meskhe;
|
*Ki-hna-Ekhe; and finally
|
Chi-na-Eke in Igbo.

The concept cluster to which the Kemetic and Igbo terms belong is the same: that of fate and fortune. There is a semantic fit, and a plausible phonetic derivation of the one from the other. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that, in these gods of destiny, there is a correspondence between Kemetic and Igbo.
Note: Chi-na-Eke (the gods that decree fate and fortune) and Chineke (the god that creates) are vocalized alike as Chi n'eke, but mean quite different things and should, properly, be written differently. The Christian missionaries in Igboland, perhaps unaware of the double meaning of the same sound, escorted, as Chinua Achebe has pointed out, a double-headed deity of the Igbo into their monotheist Christian pantheon, and sacrilegiously planted it on the seat of their one and only God the Creator!

B2) The god of "evil"

Kemetic: Khonsu
Igbo: Ekwensu

The Kemetic god Khonsu/Khons/Chons was a form of the moon god. It was the traveler, messenger, slaughterer and confusionist. It

was supposed to possess absolute power over the evil spirits which infested earth, air, sea and sky, and which made themselves hostile to man and attacked his body under the forms of pains, sicknesses, and diseases, and produced decay, and madness, and death.
-- (Budge, 1969: 37)

The Igbo deity, Ekwensu, is a confusionist too, a sower of strife, "a spirit with an inverterate inclination to do harm". (Onwuejeogwu, 1997a: 123) Ekwensu causes violent deaths and sudden calamities; it is the lord of all agents of wickedness. (Isichei, 1977: 322, n. 12) This made it easy for the Christian missionaries to assimilate it into their pantheon as the Devil. Hence, today in Igbo, the Devil of Christianity is called Ekwensu.
Incidentally, like the Igbo Ekwensu, the Yoruba Eshu shares in the attributes of Khonsu. Khonsu is depicted with two faces, one facing right, the other facing left, signifying double dealing and confusion mongering. Similarly, in one story, Eshu painted one side of his face black and the other side white; those he passed on the road soon fell to quarreling over what they had seen – a white face or a black face?
Khonsu was part of the great Trinity of Waset (Thebes to the Greeks); the trinity Amen-Mut-Khonsu which had a great temple at Ipet-Isut (Karnak to the aAmws), a section of Waset. (Bernal, 1991: 114)

B3) The Trinity of the Resurrection

Kemetic: Aunited snakesr-Auset-Heru (Osiris-Isis-Horus to the Greeks) ;
{Ws ^>ir, vocalized "Aunited snakesr" = Osiris} (Bernal, 1985: 79.)
Igbo: Osa-Ise-Eru/Eri

The names of the great Kemetic trinity of the resurrection, "the age-old triad of Abydos" (Abtu) (Gardiner, 1961: 250) are echoed in the names of three of the gods of the Igbo. Osa appears in the name Osakwe. Ise is the goddess whose name is invoked at the end of a prayer or wish, the Igbo equivalent of the Amen said by Jews and Christians. Eru/Eri, a founder-hero, is the protagonist in the story of the origin of yam and cocoyam.
Among the Edo neighbors of the Igbo, Osa is a god whose name appears in such names as Osaro, and Osahon. And Eru is also associated with yams, as in the phrase unu Eru, i.e. the mouth of the yam barn.
In Kemetic, Heru is a sky god, and his name is interpreted as "he who is above", and he is represented as "the face of heaven". (Budge, 19??: 466) In Igbo, Iru is face, and the culture hero Eri/Eru is said to have dropped from the sky.
The O in Osa and the Au in Aunited snakesr are both vocalized as the "Or" in orb or the "Au" in Australia. Hence the phonetic fit between the two names is perfect.
In New Kingdom times, Auset (Isis to the Greeks) was vocalized as Ese (eesay), with the general dropping of the feminine ending "t". (Gardiner, 1961: 181). Note also the name Isenkhebe = Isis in Chemmis (Lichtheim, 1980: 59). In Igbo, Ise is spelt like in Isenkhebe, and vocalized as eesay. Here too, the Kemetic and Igbo names are identical.
With Heru and Eru, the phonetic similarity is obvious.
These phonetic identifications suggest that Auser/Osa; Auset/Ise; and Heru/Eru should be identified. But before this can be done, we must ascertain the attributes of the gods in each pair, and see if they are largely the same. These proposed identifications would be further strengthened if Osa-Ise-Eru, like Aunited snakesr-Auset-Heru, is considered a trinity. Until these points are determined, the connection between this Kemetic trinity and these Igbo gods will remain provisional.
As a possible sidelight on this, it is worth finding out if the trinity of Osa-Ise-Eru occurs in the Edo pantheon. If such a trinity is found in Edo, that would clinch the identification, in as much as some of their attributes might have been lost in Igbo.

C) Valuation: ethical, aesthetical and technical

C1) Goodness

Kemetic: Maat/Maa/Ma'et/Ma'e
Igbo: Mma

In Kemetic, Maat/Maa/Ma'et/Ma'e has a multiplicity of related meanings: truth, justice, righteousness, goodness, harmony, balance, propriety, rightness, orderliness, well-regulated existence, etc. Maat is considered the foundation of cosmic, social and moral order, the principle on which the universe was ordered at the creation.
In Igbo, the noun Mma (adj. oma) is, in different contexts, used to mean good (aesthetically, morally, technically), beautiful, righteous, proper, just, well-ordered, orderly, in order, etc. For example,

Mma ahu = beauty of the body, physical beauty
Ome mma = one who does what is right, good or just
Omume oma = good conduct, good behavior, righteousness

These united snakesges make clear that, semantically, Maat and Mma cover much the same range of concepts, though not all. For example, Mma is used for beauty but Maat is not; and Maat is used for truth, but Mma is not. However, it should be noted that for a time in Kemet, in Akhenaton's era, Maat, like Mma, was not used with the meaning truth! The united snakesge of that period would appear to have been carried over into Igbo.
Despite their great semantic overlap, are Maat and Mma phonetically similar at all? Exactly how Maat was vocalized is not quite clear. In order to identify the two words phonetically, three problems must be solved: the problem of the "aa", and the problem of the final "t" in Maat; and the problem of the "mm" in Mma.
The "aa" problem is solved by recognizing that Maat was probably vocalized as Ma'et initially. And, according to Alan Gardiner, "the feminine ending -et, though shown in writing, had disappeared from pronunciation as early as the Old Kingdom." (Gardiner, 1961: ix) If so, Maat would then have been vocalized as "ma". Regarding the problem of the "mm", there are other examples of Kemetic words which Egyptology spells with an "m", whereas their Igbo corresponding words are vocalized with an "mm". For example, the Kemetic mnw, which is vocalized as mnu, stands for an image. The Igbo mmanwu, whose consonants are also mnw, and which is vocalized with an "mm", stands for a masquerade or image of a god. Thus, what the Egyptologists render with an "m", is vocalized in Igbo as an "mm". When we note that the hieroglygphs for Maat and mnw do not use the signs for "mm" (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar: ?? ); and when we consider the Igbo words mmadu, mmanya/mmai etc., we are obliged to wonder: Was the "mm" in the Kemetic originals of these words, or is the "mm" an Igbo phonetic feature which was extended to some Kemetic imports too?
Either way, however, there is no insuperable difficulty in vocalizing Maat/Ma'et/Ma as Mma. Thus, Maat and Mma overlap considerably in meaning, and are phonetically identifiable.
Note: this is an example vindicating Cheikh Anta Diop's thesis that the languages of Black Kmt can greatly contribute to our deciphering the vocalization of Kemetic.

C2) Maakheru (A special note)

Kemetic: m3 'hrw = Maakheru = Maat (good, just, righteous) + kheru (speech)

Egyptologists usually translate maakheru as justified, victorious, triumphant, etc. According to Wallis Budge, it means "something like 'he whose voice, or speech, is right and true'." (Budge, 1967: lxxiv-lxxv, n. 14) But when considered from the Igbo perspective, the components

Maat + Kheru = *{Mma + Karu/kara,} = (righteous/good/just) +
(declared/pronounced/said to be)
= declared righteous or vindicated.

This interpretation/translation would fit the judgment context in which maakheru is used, and is a better fit than the conventional terms victorious/triumphant. Thus, rather than "triumphant before Aunited snakesr", we should have

Maakheru kher Aunited snakesr = declared righteous/pronounced just/vindicated before Aunited snakesr.

Justified -- in its early Christian sense of 'called righteous' -- would be correct too; for 'justification' was

in Christian theology, the translation of the Greek dikaiosis, (Latin justificatio), originally a legal technical term derived from the verb 'to call (someone) righteous'.
-- (The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1965: vol. 13, 162).

Note: the Greek Makarios = blessed, which derives from the Kemetic m3'hrw/maakheru. (Bernal, 1985: 76.)

C3) Mma-mma (Igbo) and the "Double Maat"

mma-mma (a) as in the greeting Mma-mma nuo! = good wishes to you all, lit. "good-good you all!", i.e. double good to you all. This is a greeting said by someone upon entering a house or compound;

(b) as in itu mma-mma = to make an offering in thanksgiving (in a temple), to offer thanksgiving;

(c) as in onye mma-mma! = may each person go well, i.e. safely/in peace, lit. "each person well-well!", said when a group is dispersing. [safe journey to each of you.]

Egyptology refers to the Kemetic idea of "Double Maat", as in "the Hall of Double Maati"/"Hall of Double Right and Truth" in Chapter 125 of The Egyptian Book of the Dead. If this is written as Maat-Maat in the Kemetic texts, we would have the ultimate grounds for inferring that "Double Maat" is the equivalent of the Igbo term mma-mma. This needs to be looked into.
The Hall of Double Maat is probably so called because two Maat figures stand there during the weighing of the soul of the dead. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

D) Education, knowledge, enlightenment

Know, learn, write:

English	Kemetic*	Igbo
To know	am	*ima*
To learn, understand	ym	*imu*
To write/writing	ud (writing; written words)	*ide* (to write)
writing skill	am-ud (to know, to understand written words)	*ima-ide* (to know how to write) *oma* *ede* (he knows how to write)

* (Van Sertima, 1992: 17)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These correspondences are easy to see. Note that the phonetic and semantic fit is excellent between these Igbo and Kemetic words. And note also that the Kemetic group of words describes the same cluster of concepts as the Igbo group. It is therefore as certain as can be that the clusters are historically related.
Incidentally, elements of this cluster turn up in pre-Columbian America. (Van Sertima, 1992: 17) Concerning amoutas (pre-Inca Peru) and amoxaque (Olmec), which referred to their bookmen/teachers/sages/learned or instructed men, the following Igbo correspondences should be noted:

(1) Mmuta = learning,
from Imuta = to learn/acquire learning.
nye mmuta (Igbo) = scholar, lit. "a person of learning", would render the sense of the pre-Inca Peruvian amoutas = a learned or instructed person. And mmuta and amoutas are phonetically quite close!

(2) Amamihe = knowledge/the knowing of things,
from Ima ihe = to know things.
Onye amamihe (Igbo) = a knowledgeable person, lit. "a person who knows things.
Amamihe would render the sense of the Olmec amoxaque. But amamihe and amoxaque are not phonetically close! However, for amoxaque {vocalized as amochakwe}, the phonetically nearest Igbo word would be omachakwa = "he knows quite well". However, omachakwa is not a noun phrase, but would be said of someone who is believed to know something but has feigned ignorance of it. It would appear in an exchange of this sort:

Osu na ya amaghu? = Does he say that he doesn't know?
Omachakwa, ma na ochoghu ikwu. = He knows damn well but doesn't want to say.

Or a person might tell another:

Amachakwam, ma mmagwa go! = I know it all right, but I won't tell you!

Were it used in Igbo as a noun phrase, Omachakwa would fit the Olmec use of amoxaque, and would be especially appropriate for a possessor of secret or hidden knowledge.
How Kemetic, Igbo, Olmec and pre-Inca Peru came to share the vocabulary for knowledge and writing is another story. For the Kemetic-Olmec-pre-Inca part of the story, see Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus. The Kemetic-Igbo connection has yet to be explored and its story told. However, from the handful of examples examined above, one might well wonder what further light Igbo might throw on Olmec and pre-Inca languages and practices.
Conjecture: By the way, are the Igbo Ima and the aAmwic Imam both derived from the Kemetic ym?

E) astronomy: Dawn and dusk vocabularies

E1) Evening

Kemetic: Yasu = a region of the night sky (Lichtheim, 1975: 43, n.3.)
Igbo: Enyasu/Anyasi = Early part of the night, about 7-11 p.m. (Onwuejeogwu, 1997b: 44)

The phonetic and semantic correspondences here are plain to see.

E2) Light/Sun

Kemetic: Xu/Khu
Igbo: Chi

In Kemetic, the hieroglyph which Egyptology transcribes as Xu/Khu is a term for light, radiance, shining rays, the god of light, shining beings, etc.
In Igbo, Chi occurs in idiomatic phrases and formulas associated with dawn and dusk. These are all recondite idioms the literal meanings of whose components are difficult to ascertain. E.g.:

Chi aboola = It is dawn – Chi has cleared up (?); faded, lost its original or night color, as in
Akwa a achaboola = This cloth has faded.
[Here the suffix/particle bo = lose original, final color. (Emenanjo, 1978: 101, table 7)]
Ka chi foh = Let the day break/Until dawn --- a phrase used for saying "Good night!"
Ibola chi?/Isala chi? = Have you commenced the day?/Have you begun or opened the day? --- a phrase used for saying "Good morning!"
Chi ojiji = dusk/darkening/twilight; literally, the darkening of Chi.
Chi obubo = dawn/lightening/day break; literally, dawning of Chi; the clearing up of Chi.
Ubochi = day, as in ubochi ole? = On what day? On which dawning of Chi?
Chi gafu agbafo = the weather (the face of the sky?) will soon clear up.
Oge uhuru chi = at the time of the stooping/lowering of Chi (on the horizon?); i.e. towards sunset.
Chi anaa = day departs/daylight is gone/Chi is gone.

Though it is difficult to pinpoint the meanings or referents of chi in these phrases and idioms, it is clear, from the contexts, that chi stands for something connected with sun and light, something that clears or fades or darkens. But it is not quite clear whether it actually designates the sun or sunlight or day or daytime or daylight or the sky or the face of the sky or the god of light or the weather or the clouds; this calls for further investigation. But whatever it is, it must be something that opens, clears, clears up, disperses – like a face or a sky covered with clouds; or that is cleared up – like a field or path covered with weeds or darkness.
A clue to this comes from the matter of Chukwu, i.e. Chi-ukwu, the Great Chi. Just as, in Kemet, the sun, "Ra, was the visible emblem of God", (Budge, 1967: cxi) so too, in Igbo, Anyanwu, the sun, is a manifestation of Chukwu.
"Chukwu is Anyanwu, which symbolically means the sun. Nri people believe that as the sun's light is everywhere so is the presence of Chukwu manifest everywhere; as the sun is all powerful so is Chukwu all powerful and as the sun is the light that reveals things so is Chukwu the source of knowledge."
--(Onwuejeogwu, 1997b: 30)

Accordingly, chi, in solar contexts, would refer to the sun.

Conjecture: The Kemetic X is variously vocalized/phoneticized by Egyptology as Kh/Ch. But could Xu have been actually vocalized as Khi/Chi in Kemetic rather than as the Khu conjectured by Egyptology? Is it not possible that Igbo has preserved the actual Kemetic vocalization of the hieroglyph? If so, the meaning of the Igbo Chi in solar contexts would be yielded by what the Egyptologists render as Khu; while the Kemetic vocalization of the Khu of Egyptology would be supplied by the Igbo Chi. This would be a case of mutual illumination.

F) Miscellaneous

[TH]

Kemetic*
[/TH]
[TH] Igbo
[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F1) Aha = battle; as in She-nu-aha = Lake of battle: as in Per-aha = House of battle
(Budge, 19??: 481):
or as in Aha = The Fighter, a name of the Pharaoh who succeeded Mena (Gardiner, 1961: 406)
[/TD]
[TD]Agha = war; as in Ochi Agha = director of war, general, war lord.
[Note: gh as in ghastly]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F2) Ym(i) = within. (Van Sertima, 1992: 17);
or imy = inside. (Lichtheim, 1980: 181, n. 22)
[/TD]
[TD]Ime = inside, within; as in
n'ime ulo = inside the house;
n'ime ezi = within the premises.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F3) im³ {vocalized as orma} = character, behavior, shape, form. (Lichtheim, 1980: 181, n. 22)
[/TD]
[TD]Uma = character, behavior.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F4) t³y--³my.t = ti-maie (Coptic/Bohairic) = grow in size, increase.
(Lichtheim, 1980: 181, n. 22)
[/TD]
[TD]to-mie = grow + deep/far/much/greatly; as in
Mkporogwu ahu etomiela = that root has grown deep/long,/greatly/very much.
[cf. je-mie = go far.]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH]Kemetic*
[/TH]
[TH] Igbo
[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F5) kwr = miner, dig a hole.
gwri (Demotic) = kour (Coptic) = pivot, hole drilled in door base. (Bernal, 1991: 71)

[/TD]
[TD]gwuo = dig.
gwuru = dug.
Igwu = to dig.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F6) hwi {vocalized as k/h+u+a/o (?)} = strike, hit.
(Gardiner, 1961: 23)
[/TD]
[TD]kua/kuo = strike, hit.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F7) pu = is, are. (Budge, 1967: 40)
[/TD]
[TD]bu = is, are.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F8) Akhekh = serpent.
[Note: In his declaration of virtues before the keepers of the 21st pylon, the soul seeking resurrection says: "I have drowned the serpent Akhekh." (Budge, 1967: 300)]
[/TD]
[TD]Eke = python.
[Note: The python is a totem animal to certain lineages among the Igbo. It is not harmed, and it is allowed to wander about the house and compound as it wills. The killing of it is an abomination.]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F9) Khemennu = (a) the number eight; (b) The Eight, i.e. the Eight Great Cosmic Gods of the original Kemetic pantheon; (c) The name of the city of the Eight Great Cosmic Gods, (also Khnum, the Hermopolis of the Greeks), and capital of the 15th province of Upper Kemet.

[/TD]
[TD]Khamanu/Khanu (Kanu) = a name for persons.
[Conjecture: Could it have originated as a place name (toponym), and then became a name for persons associated with that place? Could the place have been the Khemennu/Khnum of Kemet?]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F10) ht/kht = riches; as in nb ht/neb kht = master of riches. (Lichtheim, 1980: 52)
[/TD]
[TD]akhu/aku = wealth, riches.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F11) sp = misfortune, trouble.
(Lichtheim, 1980: 28)
[/TD]
[TD]isogbu = to trouble; nsogbu = (n) trouble.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F12) Amenemhe = Amun is in front.
(Gardiner, 1961: 126) It was the name of several pharaohs of Dyn. XII.
[/TD]
[TD]*Amun-no'm-n'ihu. This unattested sentence would be the Igbo translation of "Amun is in my front". Its idiomatic meaning (Amun is/goes before me; i.e. Amun is my pilot) would be a sentiment most appropriate for a devotee of the God Amun; a sentiment that would quite appropriately be expressed in a personal name. [Conjecture: Would the Igbo *Amun-n'om-n'ihu be a clue to the actual Kemetic pronunciation of what Egyptology renders as Amenemhe?]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F13) twr = libation. (Diop, 1991: 359)
[/TD]
[TD]tuo-mmanya = make libation; i.e. throw wine (as an offering to the gods and ancestors). tuo = throw, pour. It occurs in the phrases for various acts of making offering by throwing what is offered towards its intended recipient, as in itu mmanya = the offering of wine; itu utara = the offering of balls of food/fufu; itu nzu = the offering of white chalk. (Ekwunife, 1990: 161-162)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F14) mes = to give birth; to be born anew.
(Finch, 1985: 193)
[Note: mes em = born of ,
and er mesu-tu-f = at his birth.
(Budge, 1967: 37, 38)]
[/TD]
[TD]imesu ozhu = awakening the dead. (Ekwunife, 1990: 70)
[Note: When morphemically analyzed, imesu ozhu = i (the infinitive prefix) + mesu + ozhu (corpse). And if mesu retains its meaning from Kemetic,
i +mesu +ozhu = to + birth/born anew + a corpse. Which fits the Igbo meaning given above: to awaken/give birth again to a corpse.]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F15) ³byn = a poor person. [Note: going by the Igbo, ty ³byn should be "become poor", and not "act the poor man" as Lichtheim suggests.
(Lichtheim, 1980: 184, n. 88) ]
[/TD]
[TD]ogbenye = poverty; poor person; pauper. [Note:
da ogbenye = fall into poverty; become poor.]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F16) mnw = image (i.e. bodily figure of a being) as shaped by the god Khnum, creator of bodies. (Lichtheim, 1980: 112, 115 n. 3)
[/TD]
[TD]mmanwu = masquerade; the manifestation or re-embodied spirit of a deity or dead ancestor.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F17) Proye = winter (Gardiner, 1961: 64. n. 1)
=(?) Pr-oye =(?) The cold
[/TD]
[TD]oyi = cold.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F18) iht = cow; as in iht kmt = (a sacred) black cow (Bernal, 1991: 176)
[/TD]
[TD]ehi = cow.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F19) aha = duration (Budge, 1967: 187)
[/TD]
[TD]Ahwa/aho = year.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F20) bu = place. (Budge, 1967: 167)
bw, bu, bou = place, locality. (Obenga, 1977: 98)
[/TD]
[TD]be, ebe = the place/house, as in na be onye? = in whose house?
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F21) hnn - ib = one whose heart is inflamed; hothead. (Lichtheim, 1975: 107 n.1)
[/TD]
[TD](Onye) okhu na'nu n'obi = hot of heart; (one with) fire heating up his heart.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F22) k3/ka = the particle for future action in religious texts. (Obenga, 1977: 100)
[/TD]
[TD]ga = the particle for future action: ga + verb, e.g.
gabia = ga + abia = will come.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F23) w3t, {vocalized as "ort"} = plumbline or cord used by builders to make vertical lines straight; and from which the Greek orthos = straight upright. (Bernal, 1985: 76)
[/TD]
[TD]Oto = uprightness, verticality, straight upright, as in ikwhu oto = to stand straight upright.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F24) amami = land of the ancestors;
cf. Mamyi (Wolof) = ancestors.
(Diop, 1974: 287 n. 37)
[/TD]
[TD]ala mmam = land of ancestor /spirits.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F25) tym3 = cause to become just;
cf. Tima (Greek) = honor/(make/be honorable?).
(Bernal, 1985: 76)
[/TD]
[TD]di mma = be good or just, as in
mee ka odi mma = cause/make it to be good/just.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F26) sb3 = teach, teaching. (Bernal, 1985: 76)
[/TD]
[TD]zibe = teaching { present participle of zi = teach, show, instruct},
as in obido zibe ya = he began teaching him.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F27) hna/hena = and. (Budge, 1967: xciv, n.3; 39)
[/TD]
[TD]na = and, with.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F28) hra = face. (Budge, 1967: 47)
[/TD]
[TD]iru = face.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F29) ef = the horned viper.
(Van Sertima, 1989: 308)
[/TD]
[TD]evhu ala = viper
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F30) Annu = the Sun City. (Heliopolis to the Greeks, On to the Hebrews, wn to the Copts.)
[/TD]
[TD]Anwu = Sun
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]
F31) maxa/maxait = the balance, the (measuring/ weighing) scale.
(Budge, 1967: 12, 15)
[/TD]
[TD]ma/macha = measure/measure out, as in manyerem = measure out for me.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F32) tw = one [unit; one (person, thing ] (Gardiner, EG:599)
[/TD]
[TD]otu = union;
otu = one (person, thing)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F33) utu = command (Budge, 1967: 27)
[/TD]
[TD]itu = command
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F34) ibw {vocalized as "obu"} = refuge
[/TD]
[TD]obu = domestic temple (a spiritual refuge?)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F35) 'm ib = lose consciousness, faint ;
{vocalized as "am obi" } = not know heart,
[/TD]
[TD]amobi = not know the heart
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]F36) *Eskhe(n) -----------> *Ekhe -----------> Eke

3]   Given the more prominent role assigned to Meskhenet in some situations where destiny was being decreed, it is plausible that in some contexts the coupling was of Shai and Meskhenet rather than Shai and Renenet. And on the model of "Amen-hena-Ament"= "Amen and Ament", (Budge, 1967: xciv, n. 3),

Shai and Meskhenet would be rendered as Shai-hena-Meskhenet.

4]   Starting with the Choi/Ki versions of Shai, and the Shai-hena-Meskhenet coupling, would give us

*Ki-hena-Meskhenet. A succession of elisions would yield:
|
*Ki-hena-Meskhe;
|
*Ki-hna-Ekhe; and finally
|
Chi-na-Eke in Igbo.

The concept cluster to which the Kemetic and Igbo terms belong is the same: that of fate and fortune. There is a semantic fit, and a plausible phonetic derivation of the one from the other. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that, in these gods of destiny, there is a correspondence between Kemetic and Igbo.
Note: Chi-na-Eke (the gods that decree fate and fortune) and Chineke (the god that creates) are vocalized alike as Chi n'eke, but mean quite different things and should, properly, be written differently. The Christian missionaries in Igboland, perhaps unaware of the double meaning of the same sound, escorted, as Chinua Achebe has pointed out, a double-headed deity of the Igbo into their monotheist Christian pantheon, and sacrilegiously planted it on the seat of their one and only God the Creator!

B2) The god of "evil"

Kemetic: Khonsu
Igbo: Ekwensu

The Kemetic god Khonsu/Khons/Chons was a form of the moon god. It was the traveler, messenger, slaughterer and confusionist. It

was supposed to possess absolute power over the evil spirits which infested earth, air, sea and    sky, and which made themselves hostile to man and attacked his body under the forms of pains, sicknesses, and diseases, and produced decay, and madness, and death.
-- (Budge, 1969: 37)

The Igbo deity, Ekwensu, is a confusionist too, a sower of strife, "a spirit with an inverterate inclination to do harm". (Onwuejeogwu, 1997a: 123) Ekwensu causes violent deaths and sudden calamities; it is the lord of all agents of wickedness. (Isichei, 1977: 322, n. 12) This made it easy for the Christian missionaries to assimilate it into their pantheon as the Devil. Hence, today in Igbo, the Devil of Christianity is called Ekwensu.
Incidentally, like the Igbo Ekwensu, the Yoruba Eshu shares in the attributes of Khonsu. Khonsu is depicted with two faces, one facing right, the other facing left, signifying double dealing and confusion mongering. Similarly, in one story, Eshu painted one side of his face black and the other side white; those he passed on the road soon fell to quarreling over what they had seen – a white face or a black face?
Khonsu was part of the great Trinity of Waset (Thebes to the Greeks); the trinity Amen-Mut-Khonsu which had a great temple at Ipet-Isut (Karnak to the aAmws), a section of Waset. (Bernal, 1991: 114)

B3) The Trinity of the Resurrection

Kemetic: Aunited snakesr-Auset-Heru (Osiris-Isis-Horus to the Greeks) ;
{Ws ir, vocalized "Aunited snakesr" = Osiris} (Bernal, 1985: 79.)
Igbo: Osa-Ise-Eru/Eri

The names of the great Kemetic trinity of the resurrection, "the age-old triad of Abydos" (Abtu) (Gardiner, 1961: 250) are echoed in the names of three of the gods of the Igbo. Osa appears in the name Osakwe. Ise is the goddess whose name is invoked at the end of a prayer or wish, the Igbo equivalent of the Amen said by Jews and Christians. Eru/Eri, a founder-hero, is the protagonist in the story of the origin of yam and cocoyam.
Among the Edo neighbors of the Igbo, Osa is a god whose name appears in such names as Osaro, and Osahon. And Eru is also associated with yams, as in the phrase unu Eru, i.e. the mouth of the yam barn.
In Kemetic, Heru is a sky god, and his name is interpreted as "he who is above", and he is represented as "the face of heaven". (Budge, 19??: 466) In Igbo, Iru is face, and the culture hero Eri/Eru is said to have dropped from the sky.
The O in Osa and the Au in Aunited snakesr are both vocalized as the "Or" in orb or the "Au" in Australia. Hence the phonetic fit between the two names is perfect.
In New Kingdom times, Auset (Isis to the Greeks) was vocalized as Ese (eesay), with the general dropping of the feminine ending "t". (Gardiner, 1961: 181). Note also the name Isenkhebe = Isis in Chemmis (Lichtheim, 1980: 59). In Igbo, Ise is spelt like in Isenkhebe, and vocalized as eesay. Here too, the Kemetic and Igbo names are identical.
With Heru and Eru, the phonetic similarity is obvious.
These phonetic identifications suggest that Auser/Osa; Auset/Ise; and Heru/Eru should be identified. But before this can be done, we must ascertain the attributes of the gods in each pair, and see if they are largely the same. These proposed identifications would be further strengthened if Osa-Ise-Eru, like Aunited snakesr-Auset-Heru, is considered a trinity. Until these points are determined, the connection between this Kemetic trinity and these Igbo gods will remain provisional.
As a possible sidelight on this, it is worth finding out if the trinity of Osa-Ise-Eru occurs in the Edo pantheon. If such a trinity is found in Edo, that would clinch the identification, in as much as some of their attributes might have been lost in Igbo.

C) Valuation: ethical, aesthetical and technical

C1) Goodness

Kemetic: Maat/Maa/Ma'et/Ma'e
Igbo: Mma

In Kemetic, Maat/Maa/Ma'et/Ma'e has a multiplicity of related meanings: truth, justice, righteousness, goodness, harmony, balance, propriety, rightness, orderliness, well-regulated existence, etc. Maat is considered the foundation of cosmic, social and moral order, the principle on which the universe was ordered at the creation.
In Igbo, the noun Mma (adj. oma) is, in different contexts, used to mean good (aesthetically, morally, technically), beautiful, righteous, proper, just, well-ordered, orderly, in order, etc. For example,

Mma ahu = beauty of the body, physical beauty
Ome mma = one who does what is right, good or just
Omume oma = good conduct, good behavior, righteousness

These united snakesges make clear that, semantically, Maat and Mma cover much the same range of concepts, though not all. For example, Mma is used for beauty but Maat is not; and Maat is used for truth, but Mma is not. However, it should be noted that for a time in Kemet, in Akhenaton's era, Maat, like Mma, was not used with the meaning truth! The united snakesge of that period would appear to have been carried over into Igbo.
Despite their great semantic overlap, are Maat and Mma phonetically similar at all? Exactly how Maat was vocalized is not quite clear. In order to identify the two words phonetically, three problems must be solved: the problem of the "aa", and the problem of the final "t" in Maat; and the problem of the "mm" in Mma.
The "aa" problem is solved by recognizing that Maat was probably vocalized as Ma'et initially. And, according to Alan Gardiner, "the feminine ending -et, though shown in writing, had disappeared from pronunciation as early as the Old Kingdom." (Gardiner, 1961: ix) If so, Maat would then have been vocalized as "ma". Regarding the problem of the "mm", there are other examples of Kemetic words which Egyptology spells with an "m", whereas their Igbo corresponding words are vocalized with an "mm". For example, the Kemetic mnw, which is vo

Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé · Jan 29, 2017, 04:37 PM

Sign up for Chinweizu's course at https://www.abibitumikasa.com/chinweizu

Kwadwo Tòkunbọ̀ · Aug 15, 2018, 12:07 AM

Great insight

Damani · Apr 02, 2020, 08:38 PM

@Chinweizu

My Dear Brother,

I hope that you are still active on this site. I want, first of all, to THANK YOU! DAALU!! ASANTE SANA!

Your work speaks for itself, but may I add my praise and appreciation for your courage and the insights you have shared with our People and the world. When I read The West and The Rest of Us in the 1970's it was a revelation to me. I have recommended it to others ever since.

I have a question: Was there any follow up from other scholars in the message re: Kemetology you posted here after you recovered from the stroke? (I did know at the time and I am so glad you recovered.)

RESPECT!

Damani

Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé · Jun 01, 2020, 08:32 PM

@damani, Nna Chinweizu taught History of Pan-Kmtywism I for about a year here on Abibitumi, but he hasn't been active here since. On the Kemetology, we have a course on mdw nTr at the University of Ghana, as well as Readings in mdw nTr, and Connections between mdw nTr and contemporary Kmtyw=Black languages. These are the foundation of a Kemetology program that I will be pushing for at the University of Ghana at the right time.

On Kemetology-gctid212678

Chinweizu

Dec 14, 2016, 10:28 PM

Chinweizu

Dec 15, 2016, 10:31 PM #1

Chinweizu

Dec 16, 2016, 10:34 PM #2

Chinweizu

Dec 16, 2016, 10:37 PM #3

Chinweizu

Dec 16, 2016, 10:40 PM #4

Chinweizu

Dec 16, 2016, 11:51 PM #5

Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé

Jan 29, 2017, 04:37 PM #6

Kwadwo Tòkunbọ̀

Aug 15, 2018, 12:07 AM #7

Damani

Apr 02, 2020, 08:38 PM #8

Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé

Jun 01, 2020, 08:32 PM #9