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The Serer (West Africa) and Ancient Egyptians


Abramelin

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Yes, that drawing (double pyramid) is the thing to focus on because with wordfk we will come nowhere.

But i am wondering who made that drawing. Was it one of the Serer priests, or was it that French priest I have quoted from a couple of times? It could be nothing but his interpretation of the Serer Cosmology.

I meant Henry Gravrand.

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Edited by Abramelin
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Today I found an online book that explains a lot about linguistical relationships and migrations in (ancient) Africa.

Many African subsaharan and West African peoples claim, and some with good reason, to be descnedants of the ancient Egyptians:

General History of Africa: Methodology and African prehistory - Unesco. International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa

http://books.google.nl/books?id=adjqADObNvMC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=%22The+Serer%22+-server+-serre+%22vocabulary%22&source=bl&ots=MmK73yVEcb&sig=Z6DV1xGUsFiFX1gdIDnro0VPINg&hl=nl#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Serer%22%20-server%20-serre%20%22vocabulary%22&f=false

And then enter "Serer" in the search tool (down-left of the online book).

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Yes, that drawing (double pyramid) is the thing to focus on because with wordfk we will come nowhere.

But i am wondering who made that drawing. Was it one of the Serer priests, or was it that French priest I have quoted from a couple of times? It could be nothing but his interpretation of the Serer Cosmology.

I meant Henry Gravrand.

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Father Henry Gravrand (France, 1921 - Abbey of Latrun, Palestine, 11 July 2003[1]) was a French Catholic missionary to Africa and an anthropologist specializing in Serer culture and Serer religion. He was one of the leading pioneers of interfaith dialog.[1] However, despite the richness of his coverage of Serer culture, his approach lacked scientific rigor and included fundamental linguistic and historical errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gravrand

A LA DECOUVERTE DE LA CIVILISATION SEREER AVEC LE R.P. HENRY GRAVRAND

http://ethiopiques.refer.sn/spip.php?article1341

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LA CIVILISATION SEREER : PANGOOL DE HENRI GRAVRAND, DAKAR, NEAS, 1990

http://ethiopiques.r....php?article222

And those 2 articles by Gravrand, the online book of my former post, and the Wiki pages is all there is to find about the Serer.

The French or the Senegalese are not very eager to put much online.

But I am quite sure the double pyramid thing is by his hand.

+++++++

EDIT:

LOL, I think we will actually have to go to a library to find out more !!

.

Edited by Abramelin
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Or visit YouTube:

pulaar - africa fulani peul kemet oral history pt 1

[media=]

[/media]

A comment by the uploader (edited):

Yes, the great sage Amadou Hampate Ba does make reference to the Fulani originating near the Nile river on video part 3.

This idea has been developed by the great Senegal scholar Cheick Anta Diop, in Unesco's history of Africa vol 2, at the Cairo Symposium on the people of ancient Egypt, and in many other books too.

Peace to all.

1LoveHabesha

For the other parts of this documentary, visit 1LoveHabesha's profile on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/1LoveHabesha?feature=watch

...and click "Load ten more videos"

And the Fulani /Pulaar/ Peul are very closely related to the Serer.

Same language, same culture, same religion.

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Edited by Abramelin
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A webpage about who influenced whom in Africa:

Africa and Ancient Egypt

(....)

- sometimes, scholars have tried to use language as a source of clues to early mysteries. The Nilotic language group has been categorised by some linguists as a sub-group of the West African language group. This last has been recognised as being derived from a very old prehistoric language in the same way that most European languages were derived from an ancient Indo-European language. The West African language group itself shows great variation and large differences indicating long development and perhaps outside influences.

- this categorisation of the Nilotic languages as a sub-group of the West African group has been disputed by other linguists. What is clear is that the Nilotic languages are distinct form the Bantu languages that completely dominate to the south in most of east Africa and all of central and southern Africa. The uncertainty is probably an indication that the Nilotes are a mixture of peoples.

(...)

-o- J. Olumide Lucas—he argued that Yoruba religion unmistakably shows derivation from Egypt and that the only way to explain this would be a migration from Egypt to south western Nigeria. Other west African peoples also show similarities to Egyptian religion and these, he contended, must also be a result of this kind of migration.

-o- Eva Meyerowitz—she made much the same claim for the Akan of Ghana; she focused upon divine kingship and Akan stories about their earliest ancestors being ‘white people’ from the north. In her view, both Egyptians and the Akan were descendent of ‘Libyans’ who migrated across from Asia to populate Egypt, north Africa and down into west Africa; she also uses Akan religion to show similarities to Catheginian/ Phoenician and Egyptian gods.

- most scholars have not accepted these theories. Similar religious practices do not necessarily indicate borrowing or contact as sun cults, pyramids and other religious institutions in Egypt have also been found in America and Polynesia among agricultural peoples. Scholars,such as Lucas and Meyerowitz, have been too eager to give their people a distinguished pedigree by linking them to the very prestigious Egyptian civilisation.

-o- Cheikh Anta Diop—he reversed the Hamite Myth by arguing that Egypt was an African negro civilisation; in fact, he claimed that European Egyptologists had carried out a vast expropriation and distortion of the record to conceal this fact and to claim instead that ‘whites’ had been responsible for Egyptian civilisation.

- Diop’s contentions have been and continue to be hotly and emotionally debated. It has not been regarded as ‘academic’ by a great many people.

- Egypt was a crossroads between Africa, Asia Minor and (by water) to Europe; trade and other interactions were endemic from the earliest times. Egypt was invaded and conquered more than once. This suggests that Egypt was probably a melting pot of peoples and this is supported by Egyptian records and statuary which do indicate distinctions of skin colour or other physical features. In fact, some scholars have argued that it was this mixing that gave such creativity and resilience to Egyptian civilisation over such long periods. In any case, it would seem to be unjustified for racists of any colour to claim some sort of racial purity or dominance in Egypt.

http://husky1.stmary...rica_Egypt.html

++++++++

Interesting discussion here:

Do West Africans Have Any Connections to Ancient Egypt?

http://www.forumbiod...o-Ancient-Egypt

From a post in that thread:

A team of British scientists may have rediscovered the centre of one of Africa's greatest kingdoms - and the possible burial place of the legendary Queen of Sheba.

Hidden in the Nigerian rainforest, the earthworks at Eredo are just a few hour's drive from Lagos.

The team from Bournemouth University, working with archaeologist Dr Patrick Darling, have completed a preliminary survey of the wall and ditch measuring 70ft high in places and around 100 miles long.

( "The most cogent argument against it at the moment is the dating." Lol)

http://news.bbc.co.u...rica/353462.stm

++++++++

Who are the Egyptians:

http://mathildasanth...-are-egyptians/

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Edited by Abramelin
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I was reading the first linguists book link till near 3 am, very interesting to learn more. The whole thing is very complex imo.

The Queen of Sheba made me think that maybe even Punt was in East Africa, although they do seem to place it in Ethiopia, it seems further away to me.

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The photos of the city they found, socalled the one Queen Sheba came from, are really impressive: those walls are monsters !!

====

Found something new, though not necessarily connected with the Serer, but certainly about West Africa,

The next are a few - very long - articles with some interesting theories and ideas, articles I was able to retrieve from the Internet Archives. And yes, part is about the notorious theory the Olmec were/could have been Africans, but still....

WEST AFRICA & THE ATLANTIC IN ANTIQUITY

THE SAHARA & THE ATLANTIC

http://web.archive.org/web/20110716032313/http://www.clarence-webpage.com/AfricanArts/bourne005.html

WEST AFRICA & THE SEA IN ANTIQUITY

SOME NON-AFRICANS IN WEST AFRICA

http://web.archive.o.../bourne001.html

ABUBAKRI II--- WHO HE?

http://web.archive.o.../bourne004.html

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The photos of the city they found, socalled where the one Queen Sheba came from, are really impressive: those walls are monsters !!

The largest historical monument in the world

Sungbo’s Eredo is a rampart or system of walls and ditches that surrounds the Yoruba town of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun state southwest Nigeria (6°49′N, 3°56′E). It is reputed to be the largest single pre-colonial monument in Africa.

As a construction project, it required more earth to be moved than the Great Pyramid of Giza. More than 100 miles (160 kilometers) in circumference with some sections having walls which reach 70 feet (20 meters) in height, it encloses an area 25 miles (40 km) north to south and 22 miles (35 km) east to west. The Eredo served a defensive purpose when it was built in 1000 C.E., a period of political confrontation and consolidation in the southern Nigerian rain forest. It was likely to have been inspired by the same process that led to the construction of similar walls and ditches throughout western Nigeria, including earthworks around Ile-Ife, Ilesa, and the Benin Iya, a 6,500 kilometer series of connected but separate earthworks in the neighboring Edo-speaking region.

http://molisa.wordpr...-sungbos-eredo/

Land of ramparts

Since at least the 8th century AD, enormous systems of walls and ditches have been built in the area of contemporary Benin and western Nigeria. These structures testify to the comparatively advanced state of cultures that developed in the African rainforest. The total length of these ancient fortifications exceeds 6000 kilometres and even their location is still being mapped by interested specialists and more in-depth research is a task for future. This could be the largest single archaeological monument in the world.

Sungbo's Eredo is a comparatively younger structure, finished circa 1000 AD after two centuries of construction. Although it is a real structure, it belongs in the realm of the legend and myth. It is named after the legendary noblewoman Bilikisu Sungbo, who locals are convinced was the same Queen of Sheba that was mentioned in the Bible and the Koran. Eredo means - "ditch".

Largest ancient fortification in Africa

Eredo represents a system of walls and ditches dug in laterite, a typical African soil consisting of clay and iron oxides. The total length of these fortifications is approximately 160 kilometres. The height difference between the bottom of the ditch and the upper rim of the bank on the inner side can reach 20 metres. The diameter of this enormous fortification in a north-south direction is approximately 40 km and in an east-west direction, 35 kilometres. The walls of the ditch are unusually smooth. The system of walls encircle the ancient Ijebu state. The contemporary city of Ijebu-Ode is located outside it, near the north-eastern rim of this system. The amount of relocated material from this structure exceeds the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

http://www.wondermon.../Ogun/Eredo.htm

http://csweb.bournem.../kano_walls.htm

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Edited by Abramelin
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The Dhar Tichitt region forms part of a long sandstone cliff formation that define the northern limit of the Hodh depression. The area was settled by late stone age agropastoral communities around 2000 BC. The settlements were generally situated on the cliffs and included stone building. The area was abandoned around 500 BC probably because of the onset of more arid conditions. Hundreds of rock art images have been discovered, depicting various animals and hunting scenes. Archaeologists such as P.J. Munson, Augustin F.C. Holl, and S. Amblard have provided some indication that millet was farmed seasonally as early as 2000 BC.

It is the oldest surviving archaeological settlements in West Africa and the oldest of all stone base settlements south of the Sahara. It is thought to have been built by the Soninke people (possibly by the Serers) and is thought to be the precursor of the Ghana empire, thought to have been built by Wolof people or Wolof-related ancestors.

It is a World Heritage Site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichit

=====

Dhar Tichitt

Post by altakruri on Aug 23, 2010, 4:26pm

This is one of the many sites in West Africa that was contemporary

with pre-dynastic, archaic, and Old Kingdom Egypt. Here's an extract

from an otherwise unavailable for free article by one of the subject's

main scholars covering Tichitt's last phases.

Coping with uncertainty: Neolithic life in the Dhar Tichitt-Walata, Mauritania, (ca. 4000–2300 BP)

Augustin F.C. Holl

Abstract

The sandstone escarpment of the Dhar Tichitt in South-Central Mauritania was inhabited by Neolithic agropastoral communities for approximately one and half millennium during the Late Holocene, from ca. 4000 to 2300 BP. The absence of prior evidence of human settlement points to the influx of mobile herders moving away from the “drying” Sahara towards more humid lower latitudes. These herders took advantage of the peculiarities of the local geology and environment and succeeded in domesticating bulrush millet – Pennisetum sp. The emerging agropastoral subsistence complex had conflicting and/or complementary requirements depending on circumstances. In the long run, the social adjustment to the new subsistence complex, shifting site location strategies, nested settlement patterns and the rise of more encompassing polities appear to have been used to cope with climatic hazards in this relatively circumscribed area. An intense arid spell in the middle of the first millennium BC triggered the collapse of the whole Neolithic agropastoral system and the abandonment of the areas. These regions, resettled by sparse oasis-dwellers populations and iron-using communities starting from the first half of the first millennium AD, became part of the famous Ghana “empire”, the earliest state in West African history.

More here:

http://egyptsearchre...rint&thread=509

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I post this video because of the images, not the political view expressed in it. That's for another forum.

[media=]

[/media]

I must say that I have never seen many of the structures shown in the video(s.. it's part of a series of 4).

And most of them are pretty amazing....

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Wasn't the Nile flowing out to the Atlantic at one time Abe? And they say the Sahara was a large inland lake/sea. The LIbyans or the Egyptians talked at one time of flooding the Quattara Depression but they scrapped the project. I still think they should do it. It would bring back evaporation to the area and perhaps wetter weather. They could then plant vegitation and try to bring back some of the lands for growing crops. There's a huge aquifer beneath the Sahara of fresh ancient water.

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That the Nile once emptied in the Atlantic was Edgar Cayce's fantasy, but the Sahara was indeed once much more greener and fertile than it is now.

That the Sahara was once an inland sea was a Theosophian (Blavatsky) fantasy, but it is known it had several large lakes and many riversystems.

=

On of the reasons the Lybians decided against flooding the Quattara depression is because of the mosquitoes.

=

About the aquifer: the Garamantes built a civilization based on their ability to get to that water; when it dried up, their civilization was history too.

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Well there's this to consider; that Cayce may have been seeing things correctly. At least some things..

Tantalizing tidbits of evidence that what Cayce said while in trance might actually be true have come out in recent decades. Each new revelation raises interest in Cayce or Egypt again, and then the issue drops off the radar.

An article published in Science (August 1986), reported that the Shuttle Imaging Radar from the space shuttle had discovered previously unknown river valleys beneath the driest part of the Sahara. Through satellite imaging and something called on-site arch aeological investigations, it appears the present day Nile has radically changed course. Whereas it previously flowed WEST across the (now desert) Sahara, and emptied into the Atlantic Ocean, it now flows almost due north to empty into the Mediterranean.

The satellite imaging done by the shuttle is discussed in a TIME magazine article from December 1982. It says that a team of scientists announced definitive evidence that long ago a region of vast desert in southern Egypt and northern Sudan was a lacy network of major water ways. Astronauts aboard the Columbia, to quote TIME.

Do mosquitos lay eggs in salt water? And, couldn't predatory fish eat the larvae? Just the other day I marvelled at a horsewoman's ingenuity. She had goldfish in her trough. No mosquitos there.. The mosquitos in the Qattara Depression would be no worse than around the Nile Valley I'd imagine. Besides, the benefits of the localized climate change from evaporation [it's not like the rising oceans can't spare the water to get it done] would outdo the threat of malaria hugely. Imagine opening vast areas in the Sahara which is larger than the US, to agriculture? Africa could finally feed itself again. And there's oil aplenty in the region where shifting sands now make the prospect of recovery of that resource a nightmare at best.

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I didn't make it up myself about those mosquitos. Apparently they expected more problems than you assume.

And the Nile never emptied into the Atlantic as far as I know, despite the fact that - as I already said here (and it was discussed in an other thread) there were once many lakes and river systems present in the ancient Sahara, discovered by satelite imaging.

What is that source you quoted from?

+++

EDIT:

I see:

http://minnieapolis....ent-discoveries

As you can see, the quotes from the scientific discovery do not include a Nile emptying in the Atlantic

.............

Click this thimbnail:

post-18246-0-06731900-1347384835_thumb.g

.

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Of course I should also have added the link to my source (or Puzzler's actually, in the "Atlantis" thread):

http://www.livescien...ica-theory.html

And this is what Cormac uploaded in that same thread (in black&white, but enlarged and more detailed):

post-18246-0-22878000-1347388666_thumb.j

And this is a somewhat wishful depiction of the same area (also posted by Puzzler):

Libya_peninsula_1.jpg

Edited by Abramelin
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After watching the 4 videos ("African Historical Ruins - you never see on tv...") I think the Africans deserve a lot more attention from archeologists and historians than they get at present. Nowadays everybody is being amazed about the latest discoveries of Aztec or Mayan temples.

The only African country that gets all the attention is Ancient Egypt, but those who are willing to watch the videos will know the other African countries deserve as much attention as Ancient Egypt gets.

Here an image of an African city as old as any Aztec one:

Tanzania_complex_1400AD.gif

And how about this: a graphiti of a boat, as ancient (or very probably a lot more ancient) than the Egyptian boats:

(why the hell does the pic not show up?? If it doesn't show up, use this link: http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/Abramelinn/Miscellaneous/Mali_boat.gif )

Mali_boat.gif

Why did they need these large boats?

Did they sail the Atlantic or the Med, long before anyone else did?

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Edited by Abramelin
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Are there no Africans posting on UM?

A bit of decent (= not deluded) 'national pride' from an African point of view wouldn't hurt anyone, and they would be in their right if they showed off like that.

I am as white as a lilly, nevertheless I am impressed by what I learned while researching for this thread.

Come on, the "Clyde Winters" of this site, show up please.

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The creation myth of the Serer people is intricately linked to the first trees created on Planet Earth by Roog. Earth's formation began with a swamp. The Earth was not formed until long after the creation of the first three worlds : the waters of the underworld; the air which included the higher world (i.e. the sun, the moon and the stars) and earth. Roog is the creator and fashioner of the Universe and everything in it. The creation is based on a mythical cosmic egg and the principles of chaos.

---

There are slightly different and competing versions of the myth. However, there are more similarities than differences, and the differences complement each other in the greater understanding of Serer creation mythology. They all posits that, the Universe and everything in it were created by Roog (or Koox among the Cangin), and the creation of Planet Earth was a result of a swamp which the first tree grew within. The first three worlds created through a mythical egg and under the principles of chaos were : the waters of the underworld, the air including the higher world and earth. These three were the first primordial worlds created by the supreme being through thought, speech and action. Planet Earth was not created until long after the creation of these worlds.

http://en.wikipedia....r_creation_myth

Now compare that with this map of a green Sahara I posted earlier:

A map of what the Sahara was like 8,000 to 11,000 years ago, revealing rivers, lakes, swamps and fan-shaped deposits where rivers emptied out. The dots indicate where various kinds of pottery were found.

sahara-map-fish-101228-02.gif

http://www.msnbc.msn...-africa-theory/

http://www.livescien...-populated.html

You see? A concentration of swamps in/near the Tassili area, the area where they are supposed to have come from, and where I think the Ancient Egyptians came from too.

kaart.jpg

.

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Maybe not the best site to quote from (although he nailed Robert Temple and his Dogons and their Sirius, http://www.philipcoppens.com/dogonshame.html but this guy appears to have the same Idea as I have:

tassili_05.jpg

The Tassili n’Ajjer: birthplace of ancient Egypt?

http://www.philipcop...om/tassili.html

.

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tassili_05.jpg

.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.............................

The Lhote Hoax

Lhote published in his book two paintings which had an unmistakable ancient egyptian influence, yet were strangely different. This caused quite a stir in scholarly circles, as it seemed like unrefutable proof of contact between the Tassili and Ancient Egypt. Eventually it emerged, that the paintings were done by one of the playful artists of the Lhote team, who was familiar with the ancient egyptian style. The hoax misled Lhote himself, who argued very authentically about this cultural link in his book, and probably only became aware that he was set up much later (The pictures were reproduced up to the early seventies editions of his book). By now the paintings have been discretely erased from Jabbaren and Aurenghet, and the Touareg guides shake their head if the photos are shown, having never seen them.

http://www.fjexpeditions.com/tassili/frameset/rockart.html

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Hmmmmmmmmmm.............................

The Lhote Hoax

Lhote published in his book two paintings which had an unmistakable ancient egyptian influence, yet were strangely different. This caused quite a stir in scholarly circles, as it seemed like unrefutable proof of contact between the Tassili and Ancient Egypt. Eventually it emerged, that the paintings were done by one of the playful artists of the Lhote team, who was familiar with the ancient egyptian style. The hoax misled Lhote himself, who argued very authentically about this cultural link in his book, and probably only became aware that he was set up much later (The pictures were reproduced up to the early seventies editions of his book). By now the paintings have been discretely erased from Jabbaren and Aurenghet, and the Touareg guides shake their head if the photos are shown, having never seen them.

http://www.fjexpedit...et/rockart.html

Really? I know this picture and the other one, with exposed breast dress picture, that's interesting if so.

Just going through some of your informative posts, have little time to reply though.

Edited by The Puzzler
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Really? I know this picture and the other one, with exposed breast dress picture, that's interesting if so.

Just going through some of your informative posts, have little time to reply though.

I found some other sites telling the same thing about Lhote, a guy whose own hands weren't that clean either:

Lhote himself identified an Egyptian dimension, though he was at pains to draw a clear outline how Egypt would slot into the Tassili rock paintings.

He published in his book two paintings which had an unmistakable ancient Egyptian character. Furthermore, they were “out of place art” and did not fit in with the other paintings that he had found. His discovery caused commotion in scholarly circles, as it seemed irrefutable proof of contact between the Tassili and Ancient Egypt. The question was how. Eventually, it emerged that the paintings were done by one member of Lhote’s team, who played a successful prank on Lhote. The pictures were reproduced up to the early 1970s in editions of his book, before being removed from successive reprints. Today, the paintings have been discretely erased from Jabbaren and Aurenghet, and the Touareg guides shake their head if the photos are shown, having never seen them. Of course, some will argue that this is part of an archaeological cover-up, whereby one member of his team was forced to lie, whereby the establishment later removed the paintings from the cliffs to remove this “Egyptian connection”.

“If at one stage Egyptian (and maybe also Mycenaean) influence can be observed, the most archaic of the Tassili pictures belong to a school unknown up to now and one that apparently was of local origin”, Lhote concluded.

http://www.philipcoppens.com/tassili.html

Since certified frauds were confessed by guilty

members of Lhote's team I've become leary of

meticulously executed "Saharan rock art" that's

unverified by photo.

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=004397

An example of how the fakes influenced historical anthropology.

x369c.jpg

Jabbaren: 'Antinea': Post-Bovidian Period with Egyptian Influence

Other than touch ups to the breast, thigh, and buttocks

the above reworking is the same as in Lhote's book.

Lhote's commentary:

This magnificent female figure was found in the so-called

'Aard-Vark' shelter at Jabbaren where it is situated in the least

accessible part of the grotto and screened from outside by a

huge rock. The shelter had been occupied (previously to the

execution of the paintings) by Bovidians, who left here remains

of their repasts and a number of artifacts. The great picture

covers, to the extreme right, a little round-headed figure, while

a Bovidian personage in red ochre seems to have been em-

bodied in the head-dress of 'Antinea'. The profile is typically

'European' -- Greek one might almost say. It is in marked

contrast with the coarse faces of the 'magistrates' (No. 30)

and of the women of the Upper Jabbaren (List of Styles No. 1)

which, nevertheless, belong to the same art-phase and are all

executed in similar colors. The head-dress seems to indicate

an important personage. Here, once more, we see the head-

band or high cap which is characteristic of this school of

painting, but the upper part of the head-dress is different and

appears to contain an attribute whose form is not unlike that

of the Egyptian pshent. The hand seems to be covered by a frill

or finge.

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=004397

Moreover, Lhote not only washed and publicly encouraged the washing of the paintings, thus accelerating their destruction, but also reportedly looted surface and other artefacts in huge quantities from an unknown number of sites. It has been said by people who worked with him that what he did not take for the Musée de l’Homme in Paris and the Bardo Museum in Algiers went into his private collection, and that his private collection surpassed those of both museums.11 Indeed, Lhote undertook perhaps as many as a hundred excavations from which he is said to have removed (looted) artefacts without making any public record of them. Lhote also used his influence to stop other academics and scientists visiting the region, thus preventing further research (and, of course, the discovery of his misdeeds). In short, Lhote was the major contributor to the near sterilisation of the archaeological record of one of the world’s most important archaeological sites and the main cause of much of the subsequent damage to the remaining art through actions such as washing.

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=004397

Well, read that whole webpage.

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Henri Lhote (1903–1991) was a French author, explorer, ethnographer, and "expert on prehistoric cave art" who described and is credited for the discovery of "important cave paintings" in an "assembly of 800 or more magnificent works of primitive art...in a virtually inaccessible region on the edge of the Sahara desert" Lhote was an early ancient astronaut theorist and considered the prehistoric art as evidence of paleocontact.

-

The popular press gave much attention to Lhote's hypothesis of a prehistoric close encounter and it was later incorporated into the '"sensationalist claims" made by Erich von Däniken that ancient extraterrestrial astronauts visited prehistoric Earth.

-

The value of Lhote's scholarship was also challenged by The Journal of North African Studies, an academic journal affiliated with the University of East Anglia:

Following a highly publicised expedition in the 1950s, the Tassili-n-Ajjer mountains of the Central Sahara (Algeria) were presented to the world as 'the greatest museum of prehistoric art in the whole world'. Many of the claims of the expedition's leader, Henri Lhote, were misleading, a number of the paintings were faked, and the copying process was fraught with errors. The 'discovery' can only be understood within the political and cultural context of the time, namely the Algerian Revolution, France's attempt to partition Algeria, and the prevailing views of the Abbé Breuil, the arch-advocate of foreign influence in African rock art. The expedition's methods caused extensive damage to the rock art while the accompanying looting of cultural objects effectively sterilized the archaeological landscape. Any restitution process must necessarily include a full recognition of what was done and the inappropriateness of the values.

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Henri_Lhote

So, it appears advisable to stick to photos of Saharan rock art, and not use drawn copies because many sites will have copied the drawings made by this Lhote.

.

Edited by Abramelin
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