The first Ethiopians
Subtitle: the image of Africa and Africans in the early Mediterranean world
By: Malvern van Wyk Smith
Publisher: Wits University Press; Witwatersrand University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Johannesburg
Language: eng
Number of pages: 528
ISBN-13: 9781868144990
Description: The First Ethiopians explores the images of Africa and Africans that evolved in ancient Egypt, in classical Greece and imperial Rome, in the early Mediterranean world, and in the early domains of Christianity. Malvern van Wyk Smith was inspired by his curiosity regarding the origins of racism in southern Africa and consulted a wide range of sources for this book. From rock art to classical travel writing; from the pre-dynastic African beginnings of Egyptian and Nubian civilizations to Greek and Roman perceptions of Africa; from Khoisan cultural expressions to early Christian conceptions of Africa and its people as demonic; from Aristotelian climatology to medieval cartography; and from the geo-linguistic history of Africa to the most recent revelations regarding the genome profile of the continent's peoples. The research led to a startling proposition: western racism has its roots in Africa itself, notably in late New-Kingdom Egypt as its ruling elites sought to distance Egyptian civilization from its African origins. -- Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Ethiopia, Egypt and the matter of Africa; title: Who were the Egyptians?; title: The Egypt of Africa : African resonances in predynastic Egypt; title: The Egypt of the rock artists; title: Africa in Egypt : proto- and early-dynastic manifestations; title: Africa in Egypt : dynastic responses; title: Africa in Egypt : later dynastic encounters; title: The first Ethiopians; title: Ethiopians in the Greek and Ptolemaic world; title: Ethiopians in the Roman world; title: The "Ethiopia" of the early Christian world; title: The "real" Ethiopians.