| Cheikh Anta Diop |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT CHEIKH ANTA DIOP | |
| 1923 births | |
| 1986 deaths | |
| senegalese anthropologists | |
| senegalese historians | |
| pan-africanism | |
| africanists | |
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Cheikh Anta Diop was born in Diourbel , Senegal . At the age of 23, he went to Paris to study Physics , but soon became more interested in the study of History , the Social Sciences and Humanities from his native African Point Of View . In the 1940s , the study of African history was dominated by European s who considered Africans 'people without a past'. In 1951 , Diop submitted a PhD Thesis at the University Of Paris where he argued that Ancient Egypt had in fact been a black African culture. The thesis was rejected, but it was published in 1955 as a book titled ''Nations nègres et culture'' ('Negro nations and culture'), proving very successful and making him one of the most controversial historians of his time. He made three further attempts to gain his doctorate, finally succeeding in 1960 . After ), and Diop was made its head. He had said, '' 'In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin colour and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility.' '' Diop's first work translated into , revealing his views to a much greater audience. In this work, he claimed that Archaeological and Anthropological evidence supports his Afrocentric view of the Pharaoh s being of Negroid origin. The academic world as a whole does not accept Diop's theories, but they continue to raise important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research. The very last archaeological discoveries by the swiss Charles Bonnet on the site of Kerma shed some light on the theories of Diop. Even if the Afrocentric view may be as flawed as another "race-centric" view, even if there are many mistakes in the work of Diop, one has to acknowledge that the core of its oeuvre -that european archaeologists before the Decolonization understated the possibility of black civilizations, that they were particuliarly biased and that black historians have to take their responsibility and to study their history- is totally confirmed by the last decade of discoveries ( Kerma , Blombos Cave ). On 7 February 1986, Diop, who by now was regarded by many as 'the modern pharaoh of African studies', passed away in his sleep in Dakar . UNESCO 1974 At the Cairo Symposium in 1974, Diop came prepared to show the Egyptological community solid proof about the Black African aspect of Ancient Egypt. He did not have a PhD in Egyptology, but the "authorities" could not dispute his research. Actually, it wasn't until after his death that it became disputed...when he was no longer able to defend his research. The officials reasoning was that the other panelists didn't come as prepared as Diop and his protege Theophile Obenga did. BIBLIOGRAPHY English translations:
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