HISTORIOGRAPHY: PRIMARY SOURCES AND BIAS

THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS

History is filled with unsolved mysteries. Your task in this research project is to compare theories on the

construction of the pyramids to explain how they were built, and who built them. You have been

provided with a cache of primary source materials that contain clues you can use to support your

conclusion. Follow the below steps to gain a feel for how historical research with primary sources is

done. Analyze the sources by following the steps below, and bring your analysis with you to class to

participate in this discussion.

Steps:

1. In most cases, you would find a subject that you are curious about, a mystery, so to say. In this

instance, I have provided that for you; the Pyramids of Egypt.

2. Now, we must turn our subject into a question that we can analyze. Again, I have provided this

step for you, Who constructed the Pyramids of Egypt?

3. Now, look at the assortment of primary source information I have provided you to start your

research. In historical research, we always begin with the historiography, which means

examining the secondary sources related to your subject first. However, this unit presents an

excellent opportunity to look at primary sources first. We normally look at the secondary

sources to see what competing theses there are regarding our subject, and how other historians

are looking at the primary source materials, and the differing conclusions they are drawing. I

have filled in in this instance, and have provided you with some competing theories.

A. The Pyramids were built by slaves

B. The Pyramids were built by volunteers

C. The Pyramids were built by paid employees

D. The Pyramids were built by aliens

E. The Pyramids were built by atypical black skinned Africans

F. The Pyramids were built by people of European or Middle Eastern descent

Use the guidelines below to evaluate these sources:

Question: Who Constructed the Pyramids of Egypt?

Source Name: An identifier of the source, such as (Graffiti in Great Pyramid One)

Source Description: A sentence to a paragraph describing the source, such as (Graffiti

mentioning the Pharaoh Khufu)

An analysis of what evidence or clue the source reveals to you, and where it fits into your thesis.

An analysis of the evidence, to include:

o Who made the source?

o When did they make it?

o Why was it made?

o What historical events contributed to its making?

o What does it tell us?

o What was the creator’s goal in making this?

o What does it tell us about the historical era?

o Do other documents or relics confirm or contest what this resource tells us?

o What discrepancies, if any, are there?

Finally, we need to ask what questions this source raise?

Once we have examined the sources, we will use them to apply to testing our hypothesis by asking

the following questions of our analysis:

What theory is most plausible?

What evidence can you present to support this theory?

What alternate theory is most likely to contend with the theory you support?

What evidence may support that alternative theory?

Why did you choose not to support it instead?

What did you learn about this historical period from your investigations?

Why was your investigation an important undertaking, or, in other words, why should it

matter to the rest of us?

From this analysis you should be prepared to engage in a roundtable discussion of the nature of primary

source analysis, why it can lead to controversy, and its proper use. Be able to cite passages that you

have effectively analyzed to support your contentions in the debate. You will be graded based on your

participation in the discussion, your degree of thoughtfulness, and consideration of the text’s deeper

meanings utilizing your analysis.

# 1

Recently in Egypt, near the Great Pyramid, a series of modest nine-foot-deep shafts held a dozen skeletons of pyramid builders, perfectly preserved by dry desert sand along with jars that once contained beer and bread meant for the workers' afterlife.- The tombs contained no gold or valuables, which safeguarded them from tomb-raiders throughout antiquity, and the bodies were not mummified. The skeletons were found buried in a fetal position — the head pointing to the West and the feet to the East according to ancient Egyptian beliefs, surrounded by the jars once filled with supplies for afterlife.

Their skeletons have signs of arthritis, and their lower vertebrae point to a life passed in

difficulty

The largest bakery in Egypt was found where it was theorized a large city that must have housed

the workers who built the pyramids would be. Inside, archaeologists found a cache of bread

pots, easily recognizable from tomb scenes that document the bread-making process.

Also found at the site were tremendous quantities of cattle, sheep, and goat bone, "enough to feed several thousand people, even if they ate meat every day," A faunal expert, who has worked at archaeological sites all over the Middle East, "was astounded by the amount of cattle bone he was finding," He could identify much of it as "young, under two years of age, and it tended to be male." Here was evidence of many people—feasting on prime beef, the best meat available.

Harvard's George Reisner found workers' graffiti early in the twentieth century that revealed that the pyramid builders were organized into labor units with names like "Friends of Khufu" or "Drunkards of Menkaure." Within these units were five divisions (their roles still unknown)—the same groupings, according to papyrus scrolls of a later period, that served in the pyramid temples. We do know based on papyrus records, that service in these temples was rendered by a special class of people on a rotating basis determined by those five divisions.

We also know from records that Egyptian society was organized somewhat like a feudal system, in which almost everyone owed service to a lord. The Egyptians called this "bak." Everybody owed bak of some kind to people above them in the social hierarchy. "Even the highest officials owed bak."

# 2

It’s estimated that it took 20,000 workers about 20 years to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu. At first that might sound about right, until you realize that there are about 2.5 million blocks in the pyramid, which means, if crews worked 10 hours per day, a block had to be put in place every couple of minutes. That’s not considering moving ramps around and all the other stuff that must have gone into building.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built to very precise alignments. It is said the pyramid is aligned to true north to an accuracy of 3/60th of a degree. And, at the time it was built, it was likely aligned exactly to true north, as true north shifts over time.

There is no evidence the Egyptians had anything near a compass, which was not discovered until some 5,000 years later.

There is no evidence the Egyptians knew of, or had use of the wheel

The monolith blocks which were used to build the pyramids weight 2 tons each, with some of them weighing as high as 50 ton as well.

The perimeter of the Great Pyramid when divided by two times the height of the monument gives a number which exactly equal to pi, and it is matching till the 15th decimal place.

The height of the Great Pyramid is 481 feet. This height is absolutely 1/1,000,000,000th of the

distance between the earth and the sun.

Going by the longitudinal and latitudinal positioning of the Great pyramid, it is believed to be at

the absolute center of the land mass of the planet.

# 3

Some researchers say the three largest pyramids reflect the alignment of the stars in Orion’s belt.

According to the Orion Constellation Theory, the entire layout of the pyramid region, the Nile River included, was intended to match the alignment of the Milky Way Galaxy. But here’s the kicker: When researchers look back at the constellations and how they would have appeared to earthly observers over centuries past, the age of the pyramid region appears to date back to around 10,500 BC!

# 4

There are hieroglyphs present in the wall carvings in the Temple of Seti I at Abydos that resembles the helicopter exactly. There are cravings of other modern day vehicles on the same wall carving as well. The hieroglyphic carving includes a submarine, and a spaceship.

The walls of the underground crypt at the temple of Dendera have reliefs that looks exactly like

light bulbs.

# 5

The structural similarities between the pyramids of Egypt and the Mayan Pyramids which were

built at a difference of many thousand years point to the fact that it was one source of

knowledge which had allowed the ancient Egyptians and then the Mayans to build such colossal

structures.

While the mainstream scientists and Egyptologists claim that the Great pyramid was

commissioned by Pharaoh Khufu, there is no documentation of the same. Ancient Egyptians

were good at record keeping hence it is very mysterious why they would not keep the records of

the individual who would have built such a magnificent and massive structure

# 6

Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) did many studies into the origins of the Egyptian people. Diop

concluded that most of the skeletons and skulls of the ancient Egyptians clearly indicate they

were Negroid people with features very similar to those of modern Black Nubians and other

people of the Upper Nile and East Africa. He called attention to studies that included

examinations of skulls from the predynastic period (6000 B.C.) that showed a greater

percentage of Black characteristics than any other type.

Diop invented a method for determining the level of melanin in the skin of human beings.

Melanin is the chemical responsible for skin pigmentation and it is preserved for millions of

years in the skins of fossil animals. Diop conducted the melanin test on Egyptian mummies at

the Museum of Man in Paris, and determined the levels found in the dermis and epidermis of a

small sample would classify all ancient Egyptians as “unquestionably among the Black races.”

According to Diop, osteological measurements (analysis of bones) are perhaps the least

misleading of the criteria accepted in physical anthropology for classifying the races of men. A

first study of this kind was completed by a German archeologist Karl Richard Lepsius at the end

of the 19th century. The Lepsius canon, which distinguishes the bodily proportions of various

racial groups, categories the “ideal Egyptian” as “short-armed and of Negroid or Negrito physical

type.”

Diop found that even after hundreds of years of intermixing with foreign invaders, the blood

type of modern Egyptians is the “same group B as the populations of Western Africa on the

Atlantic seaboard and not the A2 group characteristic of the white race prior to any

crossbreeding.”

Diop noted that “Egyptians had only one term to designate themselves: KMT, which literally

means ‘the Blacks.’ This is the strongest term existing in the Pharaonic tongue to indicate

blackness.” He added: “The term is a collective noun which thus described the whole people of

Pharaonic Egypt as a Black people.” For further evidence, Diop focused on both the monuments

and how the ancient Egyptians represented themselves in their art.

Diop found that in ancient Egypt there existed “African cultural commonalities” of matriarchy,

totemism, divine kinship, and cosmology.”Through a study of circumcision and totemism, he

offers detailed data on the cultural unity between Egypt and the rest of Africa. He noted:

“Historians are in general agreement that the Ethiopians, Egyptians, Colchians, and people of

the Southern Levant were among the only people on earth practicing circumcision, which

confirms their cultural affiliations, if not their ethnic affiliation.” He added: “The Egyptian style

of (adolescent) circumcision was different from how circumcision is practiced in other parts of

the world but similar to how it is practiced throughout the African continent.”

Diop wrote: “The Bible tells us that ‘…the sons of Ham [were] Cush and Mizraim [i.e. Egypt], and

Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah and

Sabtechah.” According to biblical tradition, Ham was the father of the Black race. Diop asserted

that “generally speaking, all Semitic tradition (Jewish and Arab) class ancient Egypt with the

countries of the Blacks.”

In a detailed study of languages, Diop illustrated the strength of the cultural ties between

ancient Egypt and its African neighbors by comparing the Egyptian language with Wolof, a

Senegalese language spoken in West Africa near the Atlantic Ocean. Diop clearly demonstrates

that ancient Egyptian, modern Coptic of Egypt, and Wolof are related, with the latter two having

their origin in the former. “The kinship between ancient Egyptian and the languages of Africa,”

Diop wrote in the General History of Africa, “is not a hypothetical but a demonstrable fact which

it is impossible for modern scholarship to thrust aside.” He believed the kinship to be

genealogical, and he provided examples: In ancient Egyptian “kef” means “to grasp, to take a

strip (of something)”; in Wolof it means “to seize a prey.” “Feh” means “go away” in ancient

Egyptian; in Wolof it means “to rush off.” To further demonstrate similarity between the two

languages, Diop also examined verb forms, demonstratives, and phonemes. The results, he

found, showed little difference between the two.

Virtually all of the early Latin eyewitnesses described the ancient Egyptians as black-skinned

with woolly hair. Several ancient Greek historians noted that Egyptians and Ethiopians had

complexions that were “melanchroes,” which most scholars translate as black, while some

scholars translate it as “dark” or “dark skinned.” Some of the most-often quoted historians are

Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus. According to most translations, Herodotus wrote that a Greek

oracle was known to be from Egypt because she was “black,” that the natives of the Nile region

are “black with heat,’ and that Egyptians were “black skinned with woolly hair.” Diodorus

Siculus wrote that the Ethiopians considered the Egyptians their colony. Lucian observes an

Egyptian boy and notices that he is not merely black, but has thick lips. Appollodorus called

Egypt the country of the black-footed ones. Aeschylus, a Greek poet, wrote that Egyptian

seamen had “black limbs.” Gaston Maspero states that “by the almost unanimous testimony of

ancient [Greek] historians, they [ancient Egyptians] belonged to the African race, which settled

in Ethiopia.”

# 7

DNA Tribes, a genomics company that specializes in tracing individuals’ ancestry to certain global populations subjected the published STRs profiles (DNA samples) of Pharaoh Tutankhamen and family to analysis in 2012. They report that the closest living relatives of the mummies are sub-Saharan Africans, especially those from Southern Africa and the Great Lakes region. The company also tested the STR profiles of Ramesses III and found that among present-day populations, Ramesses’ autosomal STR profile is most frequently found in the African Great Lakes region, where it is approximately 335.1 times as frequent as in the world as a whole.

# 8

A study, published on 30 May 2017 in Nature Communications, includes data from 90 mummies buried between 1380 BC, during Egypt’s New Kingdom, and AD 425, in the Roman era. The findings show that the mummies’ closest kin were ancient farmers from a region that includes present-day Israel and Jordan. Modern Egyptians, by contrast, have inherited more of their DNA from central Africans. Both types of genomic material showed that ancient Egyptians shared little DNA with modern sub-Saharan Africans. Instead, their closest relatives were people living during the Neolithic and Bronze ages in an area known as the Levant. Strikingly, the mummies were more closely related to ancient Europeans and Anatolians than to modern Egyptians.

# 9

A Defense of Dr. Diop’s work against the May 30th, 2017 Nature Communications study, published on the website lisapoyakama.org (African History) whose stated mission is to revive pride in the accomplishments of the African race within Africans worldwide.

How to determine which people are at the origin of a civilization? The choice of sites

Imagine today that the French civilization has disappeared and that in 2000 years we try to determine which people were at its origin. The first thing we should do is to consult the documents of the time period to find out what were the important places of this ancient territory. Then we would realize that the greatest people of France were buried in royal tombs in the Parisian Region and also at the Panthéon in Paris. After excavating the remains it would be easy to determine that the French civilization was the work of the white people. If, on the other hand, one were to go to Marseilles in the south, so many Berbers and Arabs would be found in the cemeteries, and one would falsely conclude that France was the work of the Berbers and the Arabs. It is the same with the American civilization today. You would have to go to the Arlington Cemetery in Virginia and not to any cemetery in Miami filled with Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans etc…

The choice of the Time Period

In the same way, the historical documents would show that there was an influx of Arabs and Berbers in the city of Marseilles during the middle of the 20th century. If we insist on knowing who were the founders of the city, the older remains, those of the lower antiquity in particular, would be indicative. Therefore, in order to determine the people at the origin of a civilization, everything we should begin with the historical documentation, in order to know which sites to search and what time period to take into account.

What do the Egyptian historical documents say?

They say this :4000 BC: birth, between Sudan and southern Egypt, of the very first dynasty; which will eventually conquer the whole north around 3300 BC. From 3300 BC to 1730 BC ruled only these dynasties originating from southern Egypt and Sudan. Between 1730 BC and 1540 BC, a dynasty of invaders, called Hyksos, probably white, conquered the north of Egypt. The indigenous kings withdrew to their original bastion, the south. Between 1540 BC and 1070 BC, the indigenous dynasties conquered the north and ruled over the whole kingdom again. Between 1070 BC and 663 BC, black Libyans associated with Whites ruled over the north, the indigenous authority retreating, once again, to the south. Then the Sudanese came and ruled over the whole territory. Between 663 BC and 332 BC, a chaotic succession of white Persian invaders and Egyptians ruled the country. From 332 BC to 641 AD, the Greeks and the Romans, who entered by the north, dominated. And from 641 AD to the present day we have an Arab domination, with Turkish and British intervals.

What does that mean? It means that if we want to accurately genetically determine who the ancient Egyptians were, we should take the remains of the Kings from the south, at the Valley of the Kings, in Luxor. And top priority should be given to the remains that dated between 4000 BC and 1730 BC and those dated between 1540 BC and 1070 BC. This has already been done in the DNATribes Study of 2012.

The study by Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute in Germany pre-selected 91 mummies found in one (1) cemetery in northern Egypt. It is a single site. The City of Luxor, in the south of Egypt, is where the Pharaohs are buried. Even when the pharaoh died to the north, his body was taken to the south, just as today, people still prefer to be buried in their villages. The Egyptians knew perfectly well that they came from the south.

But that’s not all. Of these 91 mummies, how many are dated in the time periods we are interested in (4000-1730, 1540-1070)? Well! simple answer: 4. 4 mummies out of the 91 selected date from the great periods of ruling by native Egyptians. Only 4 mummies date from the time period before 1070 BC. All the others are recent. And how many of these 91 date from the domination of the Greek and Roman whites? 48! i.e most of them. This sample is then invalid and cannot determine the origin of the ancient Egyptians. Of the 91 mummies how many were actually genetically analyzed to determine who the ancient Egyptians were? Get this : 3. Johannes Krause begins by saying: “Here we present 90 mitochondrial genomes as well as genome-wide data sets from three individuals obtained from Egyptian mummies”. The study that makes so much noise all over the world today and which is supposed to have determined who the Egyptians were is based on only 3 mummies. Of these 3 mummies, how many date from the great ruling by the native Egyptians? Simple answer: 0. The mummy JK2134 dates from between 776 BC and 669 BC, the mummy JK2911 dates from 769-560 BC. The mummy JK2888 dates from 97-2 BC. All these mummies date from the time when Egypt in the north was dominated by white foreigners or had a large white immigrant population. These mummies cannot, in any way, be representative of the people or the kings of ancient Egypt.

In short the mummies supposed to say that the Egyptians were white:

Come from a single and irrelevant site.

Were taken in the north of Egypt which was repeatedly under the rule of white foreigners and partly populated by white immigrants.

Are only 3, which is ridiculously small.

Do not date, for any of them, from the ruling of the great indigenous Egyptians.

All of them date from the late period, that is a period of decline and occupation, where the whites had infiltrated from the north.

# 10

Herodotus- “Histories” On the Building of the Pyramids

Transporting the stones on the Nile

96. Their boats with which they carry cargoes are made of the thorny acacia, of which the form is very like that of the Kyrenian lotos, and that which exudes from it is gum. From this tree they cut pieces of wood about two cubits in length and arrange them like bricks, fastening the boat together by running a great number of long bolts through the two-cubit pieces; and when they have thus fastened the boat together, they lay cross-pieces[81] over the top, using no ribs for the sides; and within they caulk the seams with papyrus. They make one steering-oar for it, which is passed through the bottom of the boat; and they have a mast of acacia and sails of papyrus. These boats cannot sail up the river unless there be a very fresh wind blowing, but are towed from the shore: down-stream however they travel as follows: they have a door-shaped crate made of tamarisk wood and reed mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents weight bored with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the crate float on in front of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drag behind by another rope. The crate then, as the force of the stream presses upon it, goes on swiftly and draws on the "baris" (for so these boats are called), while the stone dragging after it behind and sunk deep in the water keeps its course straight. These boats they have in great numbers and some of them carry many thousands of talents' burden.

Building the pyramid

124. Down to the time when Rhampsinitos was king, they told me there was in Egypt nothing but orderly rule, and Egypt prospered greatly; but after him Cheops became king over them and brought them to every kind of evil: for he shut up all the temples, and having first kept them from sacrificing there, he then bade all the Egyptians work for him. So some were appointed to draw stones from the stone-quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he ordered to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those which are called the Libyan mountains; and they worked by a hundred thousand men at a time, for each three months continually. Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made by which they drew the stones, which causeway they built, and it is a work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid; for the length of it is five furlongs and the breadth ten fathoms and the height, where it is highest, eight fathoms, and it is made of stone smoothed and with figures carved upon it. For this, they said, the ten years were spent, and for the underground chambers on the hill upon which the pyramids stand, which he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile. For the making of the pyramid itself there passed a period of twenty years; and the pyramid is square, each side measuring eight hundred feet, and the height of it is the same. It is built of stone smoothed and fitted together in the most perfect manner, not one of the stones being less than thirty feet in length.

125. This pyramid was made after the manner of steps, which some call "rows" and others "bases": and when they had first made it thus, they raised the remaining stones with machines made of short pieces of timber, raising them first from the ground to the first stage of the steps, and when the stone got up to this it was placed upon another machine standing on the first stage, and so from this it was drawn to the second upon another machine; for as many as were the courses of the steps, so many machines there were also, or perhaps they transferred one and the same machine, made so as easily to be carried, to each stage successively, in order that they might take up the stones; for let it be told in both ways, according as it is reported. However that may be, the highest parts of it were finished first, and afterwards they proceeded to finish that which came next to them, and lastly they finished the parts of it near the ground and the lowest ranges. On the pyramid it is declared in Egyptian writing how much was spent on radishes and onions and leeks for the workmen, and if I rightly remember that which the interpreter said in reading to me this inscription, a sum of one thousand six hundred talents of silver was spent; and if this is so, how much besides is likely to have been expended upon the iron with which they worked, and upon bread and clothing for the workmen, seeing that they were building the works for the time which has been mentioned and were occupied for no small time besides, as I suppose, in the cutting and bringing of the stones and in working at the excavation under the ground?

126. Cheops moreover came, they said, to such a pitch of wickedness, that being in want of money he caused his own daughter to sit in the stews, and ordered her to obtain from those who came a certain amount of money (how much it was they did not tell me); but she not only obtained the sum appointed by her father, but also she formed a design for herself privately to leave behind her a memorial, and she requested each man who came in to her to give her one stone upon her building: and of these stones, they told me, the pyramid was built which stands in front of the great pyramid in the middle of the three, each side being one hundred and fifty feet in length.

127. This Cheops, the Egyptians said, reigned fifty years; and after he was dead his brother Chephren succeeded to the kingdom. This king followed the same manner as the other, both in all the rest and also in that he made a pyramid, not indeed attaining to the measurements of that which was built by the former (this I know, having myself also measured it), and moreover there are no underground chambers beneath nor does a channel come from the Nile flowing to this one as to the other, in which the water coming through a conduit built for it flows round an island within, where they say that Cheops himself is laid: but for a basement he built the first course of Ethiopian stone of divers colours; and this pyramid he made forty feet lower than the other as regards size, building it close to the great pyramid. These stand both upon the same hill, which is about a hundred feet high. And Chephren they said reigned fifty and six years.

128. Here then they reckon one hundred and six years, during which they say that there was nothing but evil for the Egyptians, and the temples were kept closed and not opened during all that time. These

kings the Egyptians by reason of their hatred of them are not very willing to name; nay, they even call the pyramids after the name of Philitis the shepherd, who at that time pastured flocks in those regions.

129. After him, they said, Mykerinos became king over Egypt, who was the son of Cheops; and to him his father's deeds were displeasing, and he both opened the temples and gave liberty to the people, who were ground down to the last extremity of evil, to return to their own business and to their sacrifices;: also he gave decisions of their causes juster than those of all the other kings besides. In regard to this then they commend this king more than all the other kings who had arisen in Egypt before him; for he not only gave good decisions, but also when a man complained of the decision, he gave him recompense from his own goods and thus satisfied his desire. But while Mykerinos was acting mercifully to his subjects and practising this conduct which has been said, calamities befell him, of which the first was this, namely that his daughter died, the only child whom he had in his house: and being above measure grieved by that which had befallen him, and desiring to bury his daughter in a manner more remarkable than others, he made a cow of wood, which he covered over with gold, and then within it he buried this daughter who, as I said, had died.

130. / 131. / 132. / 133. (about Mykerinos daughter)

134. This king also left behind him a pyramid, much smaller than that of his father, of a square shape and measuring on each side three hundred feet lacking twenty, built moreover of Ethiopian stone up to half the height. This pyramid some of the Hellenes say was built by the courtesan Rhodopis, not therein speaking rightly: and besides this it is evident to me that they who speak thus do not even know who Rhodopis was, for otherwise they would not have attributed to her the building of a pyramid like this, on which have been spent (so to speak) innumerable thousands of talents: moreover they do not know that Rhodopis flourished in the reign of Amasis, and not in this king's reign; for Rhodopis lived very many years later than the kings who left behind the pyramids. By descent she was of Thrace, and she was a slave of Iadmon the son of Hephaistopolis a Samian, and a fellow-slave of Esop the maker of fables; for he too was once the slave of Iadmon, as was proved especially in this fact, namely that when the people of Delphi repeatedly made proclamation in accordance with an oracle, to find some one who would take up [114] the blood- money for the death of Esop, no one else appeared, but at length the grandson of Iadmon, called Iadmon also, took it up; and thus it is shown that Esop too was the slave of Iadmon.

Herodotus- “Histories” Describing the Egyptian People

Therefore passing these by I will make mention of the king who came after these, whose name is Sesostris. He (the priests said) first of all set out with ships of war from the Arabian gulf and subdued those who dwelt by the shores of the Erythraian Sea, until as he sailed he came to a sea which could no further be navigated by reason of shoals: then secondly, after he had returned to Egypt, according to the report of the priests he took a great army and marched over the continent, subduing every nation which stood in his way: and those of them whom he found valiant and fighting desperately for their freedom, in their lands he set up pillars which told by inscriptions his own name and the name of his country, and how he had subdued them by his power; but as to those of whose cities he obtained possession without fighting or with ease, on their pillars he inscribed words after the same tenor as he did for the nations which had shown themselves courageous, and in addition he drew upon them the hidden parts of a woman, desiring to signify by this that the people were cowards and effeminate. Thus doing he traversed the continent, until at last he passed over to Europe from Asia and subdued the Scythians and also the Thracians. These, I am of opinion, were the furthest people to which the Egyptian army came, for in their country the pillars are found to have been set up, but in the land beyond this they are no longer found. From this point he turned and began to go back; and when he came to the river Phasis, what happened then I cannot say for certain, whether the king Sesostris himself divided off a certain portion of his army and left the men there as settlers in the land, or whether some of his soldiers were wearied by his distant marches and remained by the river Phasis. For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are their neighbors, say that they have learnt it lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise circumcision, and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians. Of the Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I am not able to say which learnt from the other, for undoubtedly it is a most ancient custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse with the Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely that those of the Phenicians who have intercourse with Hellas cease to follow the example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not circumcise their children. Now let me tell another thing about the Colchians to show how they resemble the Egyptians:—they alone work flax in the same fashion as the Egyptians, and the two nations are like one another in their whole manner of living and also in their language: now the linen of Colchis is called by the Hellenes Sardonic, whereas that from Egypt is called Egyptian. The pillars which Sesostris king of Egypt set up in the various countries are for the most part no longer to be seen extant; but in Syria Palestine I myself saw them existing with the inscription upon them which I have mentioned and the emblem. Moreover in Ionia there are two figures of this man carved upon rocks, one on the road by which one goes from the land of Ephesos to Phocaia, and the other on the road from Sardis to Smyrna. In each place there is a figure of a man cut in the rock, of four cubits and a span in height, holding in his right hand a spear and in his left a bow and arrows, and the other equipment which he has is similar to this, for it is both Egyptian and Ethiopian: and from the one shoulder to the other across the breast runs an inscription carved in sacred Egyptian characters, saying thus, "This land with my shoulders I won for myself." But who he is and from whence, he does not

declare in these places, though in other places he had declared this. Some of those who have seen these carvings conjecture that the figure is that of Memnon, but herein they are very far from the truth.

As regards the Oracles both that among the Hellenes and that in Libya, the Egyptians tell the following tale. The priests of the Theban Zeus told me that two women in the service of the temple had been carried away from Thebes by Phenicians, and that they had heard that one of them had been sold to go into Libya and the other to the Hellenes; and these women, they said, were they who first founded the prophetic seats among the nations which have been named: and when I inquired whence they knew so perfectly of this tale which they told, they said in reply that a great search had been made by the priests after these women, and that they had not been able to find them, but they had heard afterwards this tale about them which they were telling. This I heard from the priests at Thebes, and what follows is said by the prophetesses of Dodona. They say that two black doves flew from Thebes in Egypt, and came one of them to Libya and the other to their land. And this latter settled upon an oak-tree and spoke with human voice, saying that it was necessary that a prophetic seat of Zeus should be established in that place; and they supposed that that was of the gods which was announced to them, and made one accordingly: and the dove which went away to the Libyans, they say, bade the Libyans make an Oracle of Ammon; and this also is of Zeus. The priestesses of Dodona told me these things, of whom the eldest was named Promeneia, the next after her Timarete, and the youngest Nicandra; and the other people of Dodona who were engaged about the temple gave accounts agreeing with theirs. I however have an opinion about the matter as follows:—If the Phenicians did in truth carry away the consecrated women and sold one of them into Libya and the other into Hellas, I suppose that in the country now called Hellas, which was formerly called Pelasgia, this woman was sold into the land of the Thesprotians; and then being a slave there she set up a sanctuary of Zeus under a real oak-tree; as indeed it was natural that being an attendant of the sanctuary of Zeus at Thebes, she should there, in the place to which she had come, have a memory of him; and after this, when she got understanding of the Hellenic tongue, she established an Oracle, and she reported, I suppose, that her sister had been sold in Libya by the same Phenicians by whom she herself had been sold. Moreover, I think that the women were called doves by the people of Dodona for the reason that they were barbarians and because it seemed to them that they uttered voice like birds; but after a time (they say) the dove spoke with human voice, that is when the woman began to speak so that they could understand; but so long as she spoke a Barbarian tongue she seemed to them to be uttering voice like a bird: for if it had been really a dove, how could it speak with human voice? And in saying that the dove was black, they indicate that the woman was Egyptian. The ways of delivering oracles too at Thebes in Egypt and at Dodona closely resemble each other, as it happens, and also the method of divination by victims has come from Egypt.

Sources:

1. Mark Lehner, an associate of Harvard's Semitic Museum, Egyptologist quoting findings from 2003 study of Egyptian Giza plateau

2. Petrie 1883. W.M. Flinders Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. London 3. Bauval, Robert 1994 The Orion Mystery Robert Bauval is a construction engineer, born and

raised in Alexandria, Egypt, and trained at the Fransiscan College of Buckinghamshire, England. He has spent most of his engineering career in Egypt and North Africa.

4. Undocumented photographs of inside the Temple of Seti I in Abydos and the Hathor Temple in the Denedra Temple Complex in Egypt (these are verified photographs of the inscriptions, however, attested to by numerous comparable photographs)

5. Donnelly, Ignatius Atlantis, the Antediluvian World 1882. Ignatius Donnelly was a lawyer and Minnesota state politician, and Vice Presidential candidate with the People’s Party in the late 19th century. He wrote this book out of his curiosity and strong beliefs in the areas discussed.

6. (1974) Diop, Cheikh Anta The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (translation of sections of Antériorité des civilisations négres and Nations nègres et culture). Translated from the French by Mercer Cook. New York: L. Hill. Cheikh Diop was a Sengalese (African) scholar, historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. He attended university in Paris where he studied history, and Egyptology and received degrees in Chemistry and Philosophy

7. DNA Tribes Digest, February 1st, 2013. DNA Tribes is a for profit company that specializes in DNA analysis of individuals to aid in genetic genealogical research.

8. Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "The first genome data from ancient Egyptian mummies: Ancient Egyptians were most closely related to ancient populations from the Near East." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530115141.htm (accessed July 14, 2017).

9. http://www.lisapoyakama.org/en/the-egyptian-dna-case-truth-and-lies/ African History Web Site. Operated by Lisapoyakama, an organization of Africans dedicated to empowering the African people throughout the world by advancing African history and civilization research.

10. Herodotus, Translated by: Aubrey De Se̕lincourt. The Histories: Herodotus. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1981. Print.