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Posted by Thought2 (Member # 4256) on :
 
http://www.nomadsed.de/workshops/2004sicht.html

Friederike Jesse

Traceless migration? - The archaeological visibility of pastoral nomads in the southern Libyan Desert

Large scale survey and excavations in the southern Libyan Desert carried out since 1980 by multi-disciplinary research projects of the University of Cologne made it possible to register about 2300 sites in an hitherto nearly unknown area. The results allowed for the establishment of a 5000 year long cultural sequence beginning in the 6th millennium BC. Identification of pastoral nomadic activities was possible through the analysis of the excavated sites combined with the results of the large scale surveys. On the site level, structures like fireplaces or watering troughs for animals and of course the archaeological material (pottery, lithics and animal bones) give hints for spatial layout, camp organization and seasonality. On the regional scale, especially the mapping of different pottery design styles provides information about the extension of areas of transhumance. Combined with geoscientific evidence concerning the climatic evolution and the archaeozoological and archaeobotanical data, a rather clear picture of pastoral adaptations in the southern Libyan Desert can be traced. A pastoral way of life started at the end of the 5th millennium BC; cattle herding largely dominated. Increasing aridity then led to a diversification of the herds, small livestock, sheep and goat, were added. During the Handessi Horizon (ca. 2200-1100 BC) a very mobile way of life with large transhumance cycles can be supposed. The pottery indicates not only North-South relations but also contact with the Nubian Nile Valley. Following the symbiosis model, the groups thriving west of the Nile may have been part of the pastoral section of the state of Kerma.


http://african-archaeology.de/

F. Jesse, S. Kröpelin, M. Lange, N. Pöllath & H. Berke
On the Periphery of Kerma - The Handessi Horizon in Wadi Hariq, Northwestern Sudan


Abstract
Wadi Hariq is a complex valley system in the Northwest Sudan about 400 km west of the Nile. Stratigraphic investigations provide new data on the environmental and climatic history of the present-day hyperarid centre of the southeastern Sahara. Archaeological work there only started at the end of the 1990s, with a survey and excavations carried out as part of the multidisciplinary research project ACACIA of the University of Cologne. To date, 104 sites are known in the Wadi Hariq. Based on the pottery found at these sites, most can be attributed to the Handessi Horizon, the former Geometric Pottery Horizon, of the eastern Sahara. Geometric patterns, and also mat impressions, are characteristic of the Handessi Horizon (ca 2200 – 1100 BC). The subsistence of these prehistoric inhabitants was based on the herding of cattle and small livestock. Transhumance cycles included areas further north (Laqiya region) and south (Wadi Howar), and perhaps even the Nile Valley has to be considered. Similar decorative patterns have been found in all these areas. Evidence of an even earlier human presence in the Wadi Hariq during the Holocene is provided by several sherds decorated with Dotted Wavy Line and Laqiya-type patterns as well as some fragments of rippled-ware pottery.

[This message has been edited by Thought2 (edited 21 April 2005).]
 


Posted by alTakruri~ (Member # 7077) on :
 

What do you think about the Eastern Libyans (of the Egyptian records) and
the Maghrebi Imazighen being related by language but more loosely related
as far as geneaology?

Could the Tehenu be the Saharo-Sudanese that Briggs says brought neolithic
culture to the coastal Africans?

Something that puzzles me is that the later light complexioned Tamehu
first enter the record deep in Nehesu territory well before the
arrival of the northeast Mediteranean Sea Peoples who know doubt altered
the coastal stock and even filtered into the northern Sahara if we're
reading the rock art correctly? And there were myths about the "army of
Heracles" and other NW Meds settling the Maghreb.

How much does the genetic record patially confirm the myths? Do the mtDNA
haplotypes bear out a western expansion of the Sea People whom we know
brought their women with them? Does Herodotus actually describe a westward
venturing of "planted" Sea Peoples intermingled with their Lebou hosts?

 


Posted by Thought2 (Member # 4256) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri~:

What do you think about the Eastern Libyans (of the Egyptian records) and
the Maghrebi Imazighen being related by language but more loosely related
as far as geneaology?


Thought Writes:

That seems to be the case based upon the mtDNA evidence. They share a common paternal lineage, but the Maghrebi Imazighen share in a predominantly Western European maternal gene pool.

quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri~:

Could the Tehenu be the Saharo-Sudanese that Briggs says brought neolithic
culture to the coastal Africans?


Thought Writes:

Most definitely. Food production and specifically the herding of domestic Caprines spread from the central Sahara to the Maghreb.

quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri~:

Something that puzzles me is that the later light complexioned Tamehu
first enter the record deep in Nehesu territory well before the
arrival of the northeast Mediteranean Sea Peoples who know doubt altered
the coastal stock and even filtered into the northern Sahara if we're
reading the rock art correctly? And there were myths about the "army of
Heracles" and other NW Meds settling the Maghreb.


Thought Writes:

There may have been a prehistoric connection between NW Africa and SW Europe as BB claims. Yet the window for such a diffusion is between ~10 KY (TMRCA of H1 mtDNA lineage) and ~ 6 KY (earliest settled agricultural and megalithic culture in SW Europe). After ~6 KY the two regions have VERY different cultural characteristics.

[This message has been edited by Thought2 (edited 21 April 2005).]
 


Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
I've seen many Egyptian depictions of Tamahou ('white' Libyans) but non of the Tehenu. Does anyone know of any sites or books that have depictions of the Tehenu people?
 
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
 

Try a book called the Eastern Libyans by Oric Bates. I believe there are some more books written by Egyptologist on this subject.


alTakruri,check out the following link about the Labu. The archaeological record seems to indicate an intrusive element that displaced the earlier populations.


http://www.courses.psu.edu/cams/cams400w_aek11/www/labu.htm



[This message has been edited by ausar (edited 22 April 2005).]
 


Posted by alTakruri~ (Member # 7077) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ausar:

Try a book called the Eastern Libyans by Oric Bates. I believe there are some more books written by Egyptologist on this subject.


alTakruri,check out the following link about the Labu. The archaeological record seems to indicate an intrusive element that displaced the earlier populations.


http://www.courses.psu.edu/cams/cams400w_aek11/www/labu.htm


It's pretty much a given that the original coastal population was augumented
by seafarers from across the Mediterranean. The funny thing is that they
seemed to have lost their culture and adapted to that of the North
Africans.

You know, when I look at those paintings of the Tamahu in the Gate of
Teka Hra vignettes (and there are several from different tombs)I don't
see blue eyes or blonde hair. Is it just me or are there authenicated
wall paintings with unmistakeable blondes and blues?

No doubt though, some of those Tamahu hardly resemble other African peoples
in as far as their facial profiles. But their locks, head feathers,
cicatrices or henna tattooings, and leather clothing does match African
sensibilities some of which still found today.


 


Posted by alTakruri~ (Member # 7077) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
I've seen many Egyptian depictions of Tamahou ('white' Libyans) but non of the Tehenu. Does anyone know of any sites or books that have depictions of the Tehenu people?

THHNW show up as early as the Vth Dynasty on the reliefs of Neuserre and Sahure
who defeated them.

As Ausar wrote, there are line drawings of Tehenu in Bates. I don't have
a flatbed scanner and so cannot post them, sorry. Try interlibrary loan.



 


Posted by Wally (Member # 2936) on :
 
My own personal observation on this subject from Dec 2004...
quote:

According to the ancients, the portion of Africa to the west of Egypt was called Libya but according to the Moudu ro en Kemet, the region to the west of Kemet would be called Khasut Amenti ("foreign territories in the west"), and like "Nubia" to the south, it was only referred to vis-a-vis the tribes or peoples in that region. Here is the chronology of Kemetian names for what the ancients referred to as "Libya" :

1) predynastic;early dynastic period (2920-2575bc);also in the Book of the Dead, one of the oldest Kemetian texts.
Tehenu: ("The 'blue' people")
Note: their name was often written with the ideogram for "sparkle, shine, coruscate, lightning, blue-glazed faience. (EWB)

These people were portrayed by the Kemetian as being very similar to themselves, and probably were closely related.
Tehen: dazzling;sparkling; to dye something blue; faience or a glazed blue earthenware that was often used for amulets and some vessels.

In my opinion, these were the ancestors of the present day Taureg people, who even today some of them are referred to as the blue people because some wear fabrics dyed by a process which involves pounding indigo powder into the cloth with a stone. So, if you were to use the Kemetian language to describe these Taureg people you would call them Tehenu...

2) 12th Dynasty onwards...
While the Tehenu were still present and also used, we had an addition:
Tamhu: "The Red people"
This was an ethnic term based upon Kemetian ethnographic classifications (IE, *"the mural of the races") to indicate a white race of people. These were the blue-eyed 'Berbers' and were to become the favorites of modern Egyptology, as their presence allowed the creation of an erroneous association with the civilization of Kemet, even though their existence was only acknowledge during the 12th Kemetian dynasty...

3) 20th Dynasty
M'shawaasha: (?; "meshwesh") This was a Libyan people who appear to be self-named, as there doesn't appear to be a Kemetian correspondence (at least I couldn't find any). We do have the name of one of their kings; M'shaken.

4) Indeterminate
Rebu/Lebu:
I couldn't find any direct correspondence with "Reb" or "Leb" but we can perhaps find help from Diop on this one; Diop informs us that there are a people living in Senegal called the Lebou and whose name means "fishermen or people who live by the sea." So what do we have in Kemetian?
"r" or "l" is a preposition meaning for example - to;against;at
"bo" in Kemetian and in Coptic means "canal" or "stream"
"l_bo" means "at the stream"
"l_bou" means "those at the stream"
Thus it is accurate to state that Lebou in the Kemetian language would mean and be consistent with "people who live by the sea (water)."
Would the Lebu then be tribes living along the coast of northern Africa? I think so...




 


Posted by alTakruri~ (Member # 7077) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
My own personal observation on this subject from Dec 2004...

Good stuff! You got RN NTR meanings for any of these "Libyan" tribals?

Esbet

Beken

Kehek

Hes

Imukehek

Shai

Seped

Ekbet

Keykesh


 


Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
bump up
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
The inhabitants of Libya were called Tmhw (Temehus). The Temehus were organized into two groups the Thnw (Tehenu) in the North and the Nhsj (Nehesy) in the South(Diop 1986). A Tehenu personage is depicted on Amratian period pottery. Some Tehenu wore a pointed beard, phallic-sheath and feathers on their head. But , if you look at the second figure in the Table of Nations you will notice that his dress is Middle Eastern he represents an ancestor of the Arabs, no way he can be associated with the C-Group peoples ( which included Proto-Dravidians , Mande speakers Fulani and etc.).

The Temehus are called the C-Group people by archaeologists (Jelinek, 1985; Quellec, 1985). The central Fezzan was a center of C-Group settlement. Quellec (1985, p.373) discussed in detail the presence of C-Group culture traits in the Central Fezzan along with their cattle during the middle of the Third millennium BC.

The Temehus or C-Group people began to settle Kush around 2200 BC. The kings of Kush had their capital at Kerma, in Dongola and a sedentary center on Sai Island. The same pottery found at Kerma is also present in Libya (and even India) especially the Fezzan the ancient homeland of the Mande speaking people. The C-Group founded the Kerma dynasty of Kush. Diop (1986, p.72) noted that the "earliest substratum of the Libyan population was a black population from the south Sahara". Kerma was first inhabited in the 4th millennium BC (Bonnet 1986). By the 2nd millennium BC Kushites at Kerma were already worshippers of Amon/Amun and they used a distinctive black-and-red ware (Bonnet 1986). Amon, later became a major god of the Egyptians during the 18th Dynasty.

Bonnet,C. (1986). Kerma: Territoire et Metropole. Cairo: Instut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale du Caire.

Anta Diop.(1986). "Formation of the Berber Branch". In Libya Antiqua. (ed.) by Unesco,(Paris: UNESCO) pp.69-73.

Jelinek,J. (1985). "Tillizahren,the Key Site of the Fezzanese Rock Art". Anthropologie (Brno),23(3):223-275.

Quellec,J-L le. (1985). "Les Gravures Rupestres Du Fezzan (Libye)". L'Anthropologie, 89 (3):365-383.


.
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
The Tehenu in Anatolia

Some of the Tehenu or Kushites settled Anatolia. Some of the major Anatolian Kushite tribes were the Kaska and Hatti speakers who spoke non-IE languages called Khattili. The gods of the Hattic people were Kasku and
Kusuh (< Kush).

The Hattic people, may be related to the[b] Hatiu, one of the Delta Tehenu tribes. Many archaeologist believe that the Tehenu people were related to the C-Group people. The Hattic language is closely related to African and Dravidian languages for example:

The languages have similar syntax Hattic le fil 'his house'; Mande a falu 'his father's house'. This suggest that the first Anatolians were Kushites, a view supported by the Hattic name for themselves: Kashka.


.
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
The Tehenu and the Meshwesh

 -
Meshwesh

 -
Tehenu Second Personage from the Left


The use of different names to describe the Tehenu and Asian in the Ramses III Table of Nations is understood in relation to the political and ethnic conditions in Egypt and Western Asia during this period. The research appears to indicate that the physiognomy of the Libyans had changed by this time . This resulted , for the most part from the invasion of Egypt by Sea Peoples in association with the Libu (Libyans).

The figures on Ramses III Table of nations are associated with the nations Ramses was dealing with iduring his reign. The Libyans attacked Egypt during the 5th and 11th years of Ramses III's reign. Beginning around 1230 Sea People began to attack Egypt. In 1180 Ramses III had his decisive battle with the Libyans. Among the warriors fighting with the Libu were Sea People.

Ramses III made multiple versions of his campaigns against the Libyans. To understand the naming method for Ramses III Table of Nations you have to understand that the term Tehenu was a generic term applied to the Libyans, who by this time were mixed with Palestinian-Syrian people
(who were descendants of the Gutians), and People of the Sea (Indo-Europeans).

The attack against Egypt in 1188 was a coalition of tribal groups led by the Meshwesh, who are believed to be a Tamehu nationality. As a result, we find that the Meshwesh were referred to as Tehenu\Tamehu. This may not be correct because the Meshwesh are not mention in Egyptian text until the 14th Century BC.

The members of the coalition were led by Meshesher the wr 'ruler' of the coalition.Each group was led by a "great one" or a magnate. The Meshwesh were semi-nomads that lived both in villages and dmi'w 'towns'.The Tehenu lived in the Delta between the Temehu and the Egyptians. The Egyptians referred to all of the people in this area most often by the generic tern "Tehenu".

The TjemhuTemehu which included the Meshwesh controled an area from Cyrenaica to Syria. As a result, in textual material from the reign of Ramses II, there is mention of Temehu towns in Syria. David O'Connor makes it clear that Ramses III referred to these Temehu by the term Tehenu/Tjehnyu (p.64).

The Temehu were very hostile to the Tehenu/Tjehnya. In fact, the first mention of the Meshwesh in Ramses III inscriptions relating to 1188, was the attack of the Tehenu, by the Meshwqesh, Soped and Sea People . David O'Connor makes it clear that the the records of Ramses III make it clear that the Meshweshy "savagely" attacked the Tehenu and looted their cities during their advance to Egypt (p.35 & 105).


The coalition of the Meshweshy had each unit of the army organized into "family or tribal ' units under the leadership of a "great one". As result to understand why the fAsian and Tehenu figures on the Table of Nations are identified differently you have use both the pictorical and textual material from the reign of Ramses III to understand the representations. As a result, Palestianian -Syrian personage or figure D, is labled Tehenu because he was probably a member of one Meshwesh units, thus he was labled Tehenu. The personage that is second from the Egyptians which is labled an Asian, eventhough he is clearly a Tehenu, was probably a member of a Syrian Palestinian unit when he was captured by the Egyptians thusly he was labled Asian. You can find out more about this reality if you check out: David O'Connor, "The nature of Tjemhu (Libyan) society in later New Kingdom; in Libya and Egypt c1300-750 BC, (Ed.) by Athony Leahy (pp.29-113), SOAS Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies and the Society for Libyan Studies, 1990.

In the Table of Nation figure B we see the traditional depiction of a Tehenu, the sidelock, shoulder cape and clean face. The Temehu, called Meshwesh are different from the Tehenu and the original Tamehu recorded by the Egyptians prior to the New Kingdom. Below is a Meshwesh


The Meshwesh wore Tehenu traditional costumes but they are not believed to be real Tehenu. The Tehenu and the Temehu usually wore different costumes. In the New Kingdom depictions of the Temehu, the Meshwesh have "long chin beards", like the Syrian-Palestinians and Peoples of the Sea. They wear kilts, sheaths and capes open at the front tied at one shoulder. Like the earlier Tehenu they wore feathers as a sign of High Status.

David O'Connor makes it clear that there was "marked hetergeneity of the Tjemhu" (p.41). The first attack by Libyans on Egypt were led by the Libu during the 5th year of Ramses III's reign. Diop has provided convincing evidence that the Libu, later migrated into Senegal, where they presenly live near Cape Verde

The difference in dress among the Meshwesh and their hostility toward the Tehenu, have led many researchers to see the Temehu of the New Kingdom as a different group from the original Temehu of Egyptian traditions. O'Connor (p.74) in the work cited above makes it clear that the Temehu in Ramses III day--"[have] hairstyles, dress and apparently ethnic type [that] are markedly different from the Tjehnyu/tjemhu of the Old Kingdom (Osing, 1980,1018-19). Various explanations have been offered: Wainwright, for example, concluded that 'Meshwesh was a mixed tribe of Libu like tribesmen with their native chiefs who become subject to a family of Tjehnu origin'(1962,p.92), while Osing suggested that the New Kingdowm Tjemhu had displaced or absorbed the earlier Tjehnyu but had selectively taken over or retained some Tjehnyu traits, in the case of the rulers for Meshwesh (1980,1019-1020). Dr. O'Connor is of the opinion "that some rulers of the later New Kingdom Tjemhu deliberately adopted traits they discovered from the Egyptians to be charcteristic of ancient Tjehnyu/Tjemhu, so as to increase there prestige, or in some way had these traits imposed upon them by the Egyptians" (p.74).

It is my opinion that given the organiztion of the Libyans into mhwt "family or tribal groups', sometime prior to 1230 BC over an extended period of time Indo-European speaking people later to be known as Peoples of the Sea entered Western Asia and Libya and were adopted by Tehenu families. This adoption of the new immigrants by Tehenu/Tamehu probably led to the Meshwesh and Soped adopting Tehenu customs but maintaining their traditional beards,. The original Temehu, like the Libu probably saw the integration of Sea Peoples into Temehu society as a way to increase their number and possibily conquer Egypt. It is interesting to note that the Meshwesh were very sure they might be able to conquor the Egyptians because they brought their cattle and other animals with them when they invaded the country. Moreover whereas the Meshwesh, were semi-nomadic, the Sea Peoples: Akawashu, Lukki, Tursha., Sheklesh, and Sherden remained nomadic. and used the spear and round shield.

The Nehasyu were ancient members of the Tehenu/Temehu. This would explain the reason why the Meshwesh and Nehasyu were mainly bowman.

In conclusion, the names for the personages in the Table of Nations from Ramses III tomb were labled correctly. These personages were recorded in the the Tables based on the military and family units were attached too, not the country identifiable by their dress.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
The document is spiritual in nature and has nothing
at all to do with family units of military envoys.

All the depicted are dead in the Tuat/Dwat and have
just been resurrected and are about to have their
time in the next world allotted to them.

The artists had a standard guide book for their samples.
No models stood and posed before them.

The attire of the men labeled Tjemehu is the national
garb of Syria.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
The mdw ntr associated with the first cartoon image labels him Tjemehu not Meshwesh.
Nor does the word Tehenu appear anywhere in the second image. The word is, again, Tjemehu

quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
The Tehenu and the Meshwesh

 -
Meshwesh

 -
Tehenu Second Personage from the Left




 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
The mdw ntr associated with the first cartoon image labels him Tjemehu not Meshwesh.
Nor does the word Tehenu appear anywhere in the second image. The word is, again, Tjemehu

quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
The Tehenu and the Meshwesh

 -
Meshwesh

 -
Tehenu Second Personage from the Left




Agreed. The term is Tjemehu , which replaced the term for Tehenu as I discussed above. It is the braid which makes it clear this personage was a Tehenu. It is the feathers that identify the first personage as a Meshwesh.


The use of different names to describe the Tehenu and Asian in the Ramses III Table of Nations is understood in relation to the political and ethnic conditions in Egypt and Western Asia during this period. The research appears to indicate that the physiognomy of the Libyans had changed by this time . This resulted , for the most part from the invasion of Egypt by Sea Peoples in association with the Libu (Libyans).

The figures on Ramses III Table of nations are associated with the nations Ramses was dealing with iduring his reign. The Libyans attacked Egypt during the 5th and 11th years of Ramses III's reign. Beginning around 1230 Sea People began to attack Egypt. In 1180 Ramses III had his decisive battle with the Libyans. Among the warriors fighting with the Libu were Sea People.

Ramses III made multiple versions of his campaigns against the Libyans. To understand the naming method for Ramses III Table of Nations you have to understand that the term Tehenu was a generic term applied to the Libyans, who by this time were mixed with Palestinian-Syrian people (who were descendants of the Gutians), and People of the Sea (Indo-Europeans).

The attack against Egypt in 1188 was a coalition of tribal groups led by the Meshwesh, who are believed to be a Tamehu nationality. As a result, we find that the Meshwesh were referred to as Tehenu\Tamehu. This may not be correct because the Meshwesh are not mention in Egyptian text until the 14th Century BC.

The members of the coalition were led by Meshesher the wr 'ruler' of the coalition.Each group was led by a "great one" or a magnate. The Meshwesh were semi-nomads that lived both in villages and dmi'w 'towns'.The Tehenu lived in the Delta between the Temehu and the Egyptians. The Egyptians referred to all of the people in this area most often by the generic tern "Tehenu".

The TjemhuTemehu which included the Meshwesh controled an area from Cyrenaica to Syria. As a result, in textual material from the reign of Ramses II, there is mention of Temehu towns in Syria. David O'Connor makes it clear that Ramses III referred to these Temehu by the term Tehenu/Tjehnyu (p.64).

The Temehu were very hostile to the Tehenu/Tjehnya. In fact, the first mention of the Meshwesh in Ramses III inscriptions relating to 1188, was the attack of the Tehenu, by the Meshwqesh, Soped and Sea People . David O'Connor makes it clear that the the records of Ramses III make it claim that the Meshweshy "savagely" attacked the Tehenu and looted their cities during their advance to Egypt (p.35 & 105).


.


.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Given that by this time and for the purpose of the
vignette all the major ethnies could be represented
by any one of their subgroups.

Also it's true we know the war along the littoral
progressed west to east with each easternmost
group succumbing to the march of the Meshwesh.
However, the plume is not particularly "Meshweshy"
Tjemehu adjacent to Nehesi polities had it before
the wars.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^Indeed, the Tehenu and Kushites were two entirely different ethnicities and there is no evidence to suggest either settled Anatolia or link the Hatti languages with them as there is no accurate linguistics to suggest a relationship with any of these languages with "Mande" let alone the Hatti language.

More Winters psuedo nonsense.
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
It's important to note that unlike ours, AE usage of the word Tehenu was always toponymic, not ethnonymic TMK, while Tmhhw was the other way around. Tehenu's inhabitants were called Hh3tyw "princes". I'm curious about this appellation though... Why princes? Could this be attributed to a social stratification dating from a common life with Egyptians?

Also alTakruri, if you have already seen it more clearly before, could you describe the hairdress on the head of the first character from the left?

 -
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^Indeed, the Tehenu and Kushites were two entirely different ethnicities and there is no evidence to suggest either settled Anatolia or link the Hatti languages with them as there is no accurate linguistics to suggest a relationship with any of these languages with "Mande" let alone the Hatti language.

More Winters psuedo nonsense.

Happy to see you're here troll. Its good to have a personal flunky. Thanks for your assistance Troll.


.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
Assistance in what? Pointing out your obviously ridiculous assertions as usual? Sure, no problem [Smile]
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
Assistance in what? Pointing out your obviously ridiculous assertions as usual? Sure, no problem [Smile]

Being my personal fool of course. Thank you for making me laugh. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Damnit quit this kiddie hop and try to for once
keep a thread on some kind of quasi pseudo
scholarly academic level without all this ad
hominem shish.

Disagree? Sure. Just do it without mockery.

Disagreement happens all the time in all fields
but the professionals try to be a little
non-personal about it all.

Raise this forum, why can't we?
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Looks like a ureaus(sp?) of some sort.
There are others here much more familiar
with headgear than I am. Hopefully they'll
fill you in with more precise specifics.

quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:


Also alTakruri, if you have already seen it more clearly before, could you describe the hairdress on the head of the first character from the left?



 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
 - [/QB][/QUOTE]

^It seems a blow up or zoom in of the picture is in order for us to see the finer details.

From left to right, the first figure does look like he is wearing the uraeus, while the second and fifth figures wear fillet headbands.
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri~:
What do you think about the Eastern Libyans (of the Egyptian records) and
the Maghrebi Imazighen being related by language but more loosely related
as far as geneaology?

Is there actually substantial evidence supporting the claim of a linguistic relationship between the two? Are these conclusions only based on sound similarities of ethnonyms and anthroponyms? If yes do they share a meaning? Perhaps could they only be explained by phonological distribution and are not any more relevant than BAIYE(?)'s Yoruba & Japanese toponyms.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
Ghadames Libyan dancers:

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/ghadames_dancers.htm

 -

The Tuaregs and other tribal groups of Ghadames and elsewhere are an example of the descendants of the ancient pastoralist nomads of Southern Libya:

http://www.khadijateri.com/ghadames.html

And... best of all, you can GO THERE and experience it for yourself! These people would be HAPPY to share their history and culture with you!

http://www.timbesttravel.com/festival-calendar.asp

http://www.fesfestival.com/

As opposed to staring at a computer screen and crawling forums all day....

Another thing that is interesting to note is the dress. While many call it Middle Eastern or Muslim, a lot of it can also be found in Egypt. There are many fancier examples of clothing found in Egypt from art or actual textiles that are not often mentioned in modern history books. The thing to remember is that white was a ceremonial and sacred color for the dead, akin to the pure white of Christian and Muslim apocrypha. But everyday wear was much more varied than that. Also, note the shoes from the Maghreb, the precursors of todays modern leather sneaker and such....
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
Ghadames Libyan dancers:

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/ghadames_dancers.htm

 -

The Tuaregs and other tribal groups of Ghadames and elsewhere are an example of the descendants of the ancient pastoralist nomads of Southern Libya:

http://www.khadijateri.com/ghadames.html

Thanks.

.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
My god man, Yorubaland and Japan are separated by 1000's of miles.
Of course any similarities by that example is
just wishful thinking.

In North Africa we have this continuity in the
M-Z-GH root in writings extending from Herodotus
right up to now.

In North Africa we have obvious related peoples whereas
that far fetched comparison is between two peoples
not remotely related in the least.

quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri~:
What do you think about the Eastern Libyans (of the Egyptian records) and
the Maghrebi Imazighen being related by language but more loosely related
as far as geneaology?

Is there actually substantial evidence supporting the claim of a linguistic relationship between the two? Are these conclusions only based on sound similarities of ethnonyms and anthroponyms? If yes do they share a meaning? Perhaps could they only be explained by phonological distribution and are not any more relevant than BAIYE(?)'s Yoruba & Japanese toponyms.

 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
At least figs 1 & 4 are "Libyan" judging by their penistache and chest bands.
2 & 5 may be from T3 Mhhw (delta) rather than being Tjemehu (Libyan).
3 & 6, I don't know, do I see Levantine affiliations?

In general looks like a conquest of the delta showing
the three factions that inhabited it to me.

The image is just as grainy in Baines & Malek.
Zooming the jpeg or magnifying the book doesn't
help much (unless some photoshop wizard wants
to tighten up the zoom for us).

quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
 -
^It seems a blow up or zoom in of the picture is in order for us to see the finer details.

From left to right, the first figure does look like he is wearing the uraeus, while the second and fifth figures wear fillet headbands.


 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Good show DougM!

Was looking for the images of central and south
Libyans on Jazel's site but couldn't dig 'em up.

Those top garments are pretty typical of Malien ones..
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
Actually, that's not how I'm looking at things. If I want to find a genetic relationship between two languages, then I'll first start looking at linguistic facts only (vs extra-linguistic) and look for genetic features (vs typological features).

If I find genetic features between language and that this can be supported by other disciplines (as I did so far), then it's fine, but if it definitely cannot, I'll have to take a new look at genetic/typological features (hasn't happened to me yet). The only factor I considered here to claim that Japanese/Yoruba toponyms isn't proof of anything is linguistics.

Now, my question was about what you actually mentioned, namely the Eastern Libyans of Egyptian records, the Mshwsh, Lbw, Spd, Osorkon, Shoshenq, etc. Do these names have actually been shown to be related to modern Berber languages? I'm asking that because while I don't deny that those people are among the ancestors of modern North Africans, I wonder how "Africanized" were those people at the time, if they still had an Euro-like culture like Babacar SALL claimed relying only on archeology.

BTW, do you agree that the pics I posted from BATES in another thread were actually of "Tehenu"?

quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
My god man, Yorubaland and Japan are separated by 1000's of miles.
Of course any similarities by that example is
just wishful thinking.

In North Africa we have this continuity in the
M-Z-GH root in writings extending from Herodotus
right up to now.

In North Africa we have obvious related peoples whereas
that far fetched comparison is between two peoples
not remotely related in the least.

quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri~:
What do you think about the Eastern Libyans (of the Egyptian records) and
the Maghrebi Imazighen being related by language but more loosely related
as far as geneaology?

Is there actually substantial evidence supporting the claim of a linguistic relationship between the two? Are these conclusions only based on sound similarities of ethnonyms and anthroponyms? If yes do they share a meaning? Perhaps could they only be explained by phonological distribution and are not any more relevant than BAIYE(?)'s Yoruba & Japanese toponyms.


 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
You're talking about something completely different
than what I commented on. We have some idea of when
taMazight branched into its own from proto-Afrisan, or
whatever, and where on the continent it happened, and
the direction of its expansion, and the TMRCA population
genetics en route. Added to that is the old physical and
cultural genetics as well as the rock art. We know who
bought the neolithic to the Sahara and further northward.

The best of what we have in primary texts seems to show
the beginning of aMazigh identity with the coming of
the Meshwesh (from somewhere west of Syrtis where they
have already taken Euro wives from Sicily or whereever. This
supposed Euro connection would explain their facile
integration with the Sea Peoples). In taMazgha, year
one is the initial year of Shoshenq's reign.

But as far as Euro mommies and Euro alliances, the Libu
(situated between the Meshwesh and the THHNW) precede
the Meshwesh at that and at attacking T3Mry.

More to the point Bates includes a chapter on language
and writing complete with a chart of Egyptic/taMazight cognates
on pages 81-83 for whatever value it may be to you.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Midogbe

I don't need to co-sign on your selection of THHNW
images since Bates indeed identified them as such,
even if I may or may not have personal reasons that
vary from his learned opinion.

But I do have requests for more scans if you please.

Fig 89
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
I just wish someone would post color photos of Bates' paintings of Thnw.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Bates (1912) isn't in color. He only paints
a verbal picture of black and "brun" Tehhenu.
quote:

... it is only reasonable to suppose that the
xanthochroids of the Egyptian monuments and
classical notices were invaders in a country
primarily peopled with "autochthonous" blacks
and bruns. One may, as did de Quatrefages, say
truly that the origin of the African blonds is
as ye unknown, but it is, [] safe to say they
were immigrants.


 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
You're talking about something completely different
than what I commented on.

I think I was since I was explaining that Egyptian records'Eastern Libyans may have been as much linguistically "related" to modern Berbers as Yoruba are to Japanese, exclusively from a linguistic standpoint. Sorry for the misunderstanding, and back to the topic.


quote:
In taMazgha, year
one is the initial year of Shoshenq's reign.

I thought this commemoration was a modern creation by Berber activists. If you know it is, what relevance does this has to my question?


quote:
I don't need to co-sign on your selection of THHNW
images since Bates indeed identified them as such,
even if I may or may not have personal reasons that
vary from his learned opinion.

That's not the point, that's just as I was actually wondering if the plumes & locks were actually worn by Tehenu (because the ornaments of those I posted look very different from those of the Tehenu from Sahure's tomb) or if it was a NK Tmhhw/Lbw/Mshwsh (i.e. a pale skinned, and maybe Euro) innovation. Maybe it would show that those Egyptian paintings of NK Libyans weren't depicting the Ancient Times' Wiggers some people are making them out to be.

quote:
But I do have requests for more scans if you please.

Fig 89

I have go to the library next week, and I'll post here then.
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
^^
Hmm...Sorry if it is a stupid question, but as my library's book is a 1914, not a 1912 edition, could you please tell me what does your fig.89 depict?
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
I can but opine that time (and fashion) didn't
stop with Sahure. I can't see plumes & locks
as aEuro innovation because I don't which
Euros went around like that and immigrated
to Africa. Besides the evidence that the
Eurasians who moved to Africa acculturated
to "Libyan" norms. NHHSW in the vicinity of
the TMHHW wore plumes (clickable link)
and
the "Libyans" in that Aegean mural I posted
have their hair in matted locks.

It's your choice but I don't see the need for
using wigger in our discussion. For me the
Mediterranean littoral Africans en masse are
not white/European. They are indigenous dark
Africans who established links with the folk
across the sea and heavily "marrying" those
folks' women (thus lightening up or further
lightening their complexion).

North Mediterranean, the truly white peoples,
though noting occasional blonds amongst Libyans
constantly classify them with the other dark
peoples known to them. This assessment remains
true clear up to Islamic times when al~Jahiz
likewise classes Berbers as a black people.

I think even before the Sea Peoples some whites
trickled into North Africa and they explain any
mentions of minority people of pallour in the
Maghreb and the Sahara adjoining it.

At least this is what I gather from reviewing
remarks of contemporaneous Greco-Latin writers
(clickable link)
.

quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
...I was actually wondering if the plumes & locks were actually worn by Tehenu (because the ornaments of those I posted look very different from those of the Tehenu from Sahure's tomb) or if it was a NK Tmhhw/Lbw/Mshwsh (i.e. a pale skinned, and maybe Euro) innovation. Maybe it would show that those Egyptian paintings of NK Libyans weren't depicting the Ancient Times' Wiggers some people are making them out to be.



 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
quote:
89. Revamped Head (changed from Syrian to Libyan).
Beyt el-Waly. After a tracing of the original made by
G. Roeder

My description:
Very prognathous, wide-nosed, thick-lipped Libyan with
thin, non-curling side locks and 'tattooed mustache'(?)
exemplary of the indigenous type of North African black.


quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
^^
Hmm...Sorry if it is a stupid question, but as my library's book is a 1914, not a 1912 edition, could you please tell me what does your fig.89 depict?


 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Bates (1912) isn't in color. He only paints
a verbal picture of black and "brun" Tehhenu.


... it is only reasonable to suppose that the
xanthochroids of the Egyptian monuments and
classical notices were invaders in a country
primarily peopled with "autochthonous" blacks
and bruns. One may, as did de Quatrefages, say
truly that the origin of the African blonds is
as ye unknown, but it is, [] safe to say they
were immigrants.

What are "Bruns"?? I have heard of the term before and it sounds like a 'racial' classification by Coon.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Brun is an antiquated non-English language way of saying brown.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ That may be, but I seriously recall Coon making a racial category of a "Mediterranean caucasoid" population in North Africa by that same name!
 
Posted by rasol (Member # 4592) on :
 
^ Brunnete.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Coon made up a bunch of -oid suffixed races like
Congoid
Capoid
etc
which his successor, Baker, continued to use and
backward folk still loosely sling around, as I
believe, as a way to be pejorative without blatantly
appearing to be so.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
Anyway, forget the Coon racial-peusdo-science of the past. These archaeological finds in southern Libya prove to be very interesting. If these people do represent early Berber speakers, is there any evidence of connection to Egyptian speaking peoples of the Nile Valley?
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
I can but opine that time (and fashion) didn't
stop with Sahure. I can't see plumes & locks
as aEuro innovation because I don't which
Euros went around like that and immigrated
to Africa. Besides the evidence that the
Eurasians who moved to Africa acculturated
to "Libyan" norms. NHHSW in the vicinity of
the TMHHW wore plumes (clickable link)
and
the "Libyans" in that Aegean mural I posted
have their hair in matted locks.

Interesting because there is an attested Egyptian phrasal construction "T3y Mhhw" applied to Nhhsiw in HANNIG that means "who wear the feathers".

What is your opinion on the origin and the application of this ethnonym? Do you think it was a reference to only one people?

My original opinion about it was that of SALL, i.e. that the term had a cultural value and was used to describe different people (those close to Yam, those from the MK's and the others from NK's painting) having a nomad way of life and living in desertic regions.

Robert DREWS (2000) pointed out that there exist NK scenes depicting Asiatic warriors wearing helmet feathers as well and Babacar SALL reported that late Predynastic "Invaders from the East" were depicted with feathers, so I remain suspicious about the feathers of NK's EL being a cultural African trait.

Also:
 -

As you can see, the open robe is found among Hittites as well as NK Libyans. Maybe it is an Eurasian import?

quote:
It's your choice but I don't see the need for
using wigger in our discussion. For me the
Mediterranean littoral Africans en masse are
not white/European. They are indigenous dark
Africans who established links with the folk
across the sea and heavily "marrying" those
folks' women (thus lightening up or further
lightening their complexion).

North Mediterranean, the truly white peoples,
though noting occasional blonds amongst Libyans
constantly classify them with the other dark
peoples known to them. This assessment remains
true clear up to Islamic times when al~Jahiz
likewise classes Berbers as a black people.

I think even before the Sea Peoples some whites
trickled into North Africa and they explain any
mentions of minority people of pallour in the
Maghreb and the Sahara adjoining it.

At least this is what I gather from reviewing
remarks of contemporaneous Greco-Latin writers
(clickable link)
.

This may be an assessment due to the later than NK Berbers interbreeding of with some Eurasians", right?
WILSON's chart below seems to be consistent with the theory of Mshwsh being the first recorded Berbers and Libu being usually not mixed with Africans. Perhaps it could be supported by the absence of penis sheath (African trait)among the latter.
 -
 
Posted by rasol (Member # 4592) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Coon made up a bunch of -oid suffixed races like
Congoid
Capoid
etc
which his successor, Baker, continued to use and
backward folk still loosely sling around, as I
believe, as a way to be pejorative without blatantly
appearing to be so.

I often wonder if Coon wasn't motivated partly by some sort of overcompensation against his own name?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^LMFO I have often wondered about that also, Rasol. [Big Grin]
quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
I can but opine that time (and fashion) didn't
stop with Sahure. I can't see plumes & locks
as aEuro innovation because I don't which
Euros went around like that and immigrated
to Africa. Besides the evidence that the
Eurasians who moved to Africa acculturated
to "Libyan" norms. NHHSW in the vicinity of
the TMHHW wore plumes (clickable link)
and
the "Libyans" in that Aegean mural I posted
have their hair in matted locks.

Interesting because there is an attested Egyptian phrasal construction "T3y Mhhw" applied to Nhhsiw in HANNIG that means "who wear the feathers".

What is your opinion on the origin and the application of this ethnonym? Do you think it was a reference to only one people?

My original opinion about it was that of SALL, i.e. that the term had a cultural value and was used to describe different people (those close to Yam, those from the MK's and the others from NK's painting) having a nomad way of life and living in desertic regions.

Robert DREWS (2000) pointed out that there exist NK scenes depicting Asiatic warriors wearing helmet feathers as well and Babacar SALL reported that late Predynastic "Invaders from the East" were depicted with feathers, so I remain suspicious about the feathers of NK's EL being a cultural African trait.

Adornment of feathers is by far not a custom associated with one culture or cultures of a certain geographic group or region. Of course the custom is practiced around the world with peoples in Asia and the Americas.

It is not so much the fact that the Tamahu wore feathers or anyone else, but exactly how they wore it or in what style. The actual style of plumage very much resembles those of African peoples, especially in Sub-Sahara. As for your reference on Asiatics note that they wore helmets with plumes on them. Similar could be said about the various peoples in the Aegean including the Greeks themselves who wore feathered helmets and even the Romans. I believe that the plumed helmets that Greco-Romans wore had a great connection to the early Sea Peoples who also wore such helmets including the Philistines.

quote:
Also:
 -

As you can see, the open robe is found among Hittites as well as NK Libyans. Maybe it is an Eurasian import?

It could be, or it could be just coincidence as such a simple style garment could be worn by about any people in Africa or Asia.

quote:
quote:
It's your choice but I don't see the need for
using wigger in our discussion. For me the
Mediterranean littoral Africans en masse are
not white/European. They are indigenous dark
Africans who established links with the folk
across the sea and heavily "marrying" those
folks' women (thus lightening up or further
lightening their complexion).

North Mediterranean, the truly white peoples,
though noting occasional blonds amongst Libyans
constantly classify them with the other dark
peoples known to them. This assessment remains
true clear up to Islamic times when al~Jahiz
likewise classes Berbers as a black people.

I think even before the Sea Peoples some whites
trickled into North Africa and they explain any
mentions of minority people of pallour in the
Maghreb and the Sahara adjoining it.

At least this is what I gather from reviewing
remarks of contemporaneous Greco-Latin writers
(clickable link)
.

This may be an assessment due to the later than NK Berbers interbreeding of with some Eurasians", right?
WILSON's chart below seems to be consistent with the theory of Mshwsh being the first recorded Berbers and Libu being usually not mixed with Africans. Perhaps it could be supported by the absence of penis sheath (African trait)among the latter.
 -

I am weary of such claims of 'blonde' Berbers being present that far back in history. The earliest depiction of light-colored haired Libyans dates to the late Middle Kingdom to New Kingdom periods.

Also the claims of white blondes intermarrying or having anything to do with Egyptians let alone the royal families of the Pyramid Age has been addressed before also, particular here: The so-called blonde Hetephephres and Meresankh III. So much for that theory!
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
At one time the far right figure was labeled "Libyan"
but is now, more often than not, labeled Hittite.
And true I've seen siege scenes where Hittites do
wear woven garments similar to the leather garments
of Libyans.

Yet, that rightmost figure is strikingly recollective
of Meshmesh (except missing beard).

Does anyone why the rightmost figure is definitively Hittite?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Good question. Perhaps because of the different designs of his garment, or better yet, the fact that he is missing tattoos and the type of hat he wears.
 
Posted by Nice Vidadavida *sigh* (Member # 13372) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
At one time the far right figure was labeled "Libyan"
but is now, more often than not, labeled Hittite.
And true I've seen siege scenes where Hittites do
wear woven garments similar to the leather garments
of Libyans.

Yet, that rightmost figure is strikingly recollective
of Meshmesh (except missing beard).

Does anyone why the rightmost figure is definitively Hittite?

I'm guessing maybe because Hittites had a "mongoloid"(excuse the term) affinity to them in those days. Even though I seriously don't understand why the Blond haired blue eyed guy is labeld a Bedouin Arab. When were Bedouin ever blond haired and blue eyed?...Kurds?!?!
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ When were Hittites ever 'mongoloid'??! What constitutes a 'mongoloid' affinity in the first place, and exactly how is this featured among Hittites??
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:

The nomenclature of Strabo is neither so extensive, nor does it contain more precise or correct information. He mentions the celebrated oasis of Ammonium and the nation of the Nasamones. Farther west, behind Carthage and the Numidians, he also notices the Getulians, and after them the Garamantes, a people who appear to have colonized both the oasis of Ghadames and the oases of Fezzan. Ptolemy makes the whole of the Mauritania, including Algeria and Morocco, to be bounded on the south by tribes, called Gaetuliae and Melanogaeluti, on the south the latter evidently having contracted alliance of blood with the negroes.

According to Sallust, who supports himself upon the authority of Heimpsal, the Carthaginian historian, “North Africa was first occupied by Libyans and Getulians, who were a barbarous people, a heterogeneous mass, or agglomeration of people of different races, without any form of religion or government, nourishing themselves on herbs, or devouring the raw flesh of animals killed in the chase; for first amongst these were found Blacks, probably some from the interior of Africa, and belonging to the great negro family; then whites, issue of the Semitic stock, who apparently constituted, even at that early period, the dominant race or caste. Later, but at an epoch absolutely unknown, a new horde of Asiatics,” says Sallust, “of Medes, Persians, and Armenians, invaded the countries of the Atlas, and, led on by Hercules, pushed their conquests as far as Spain.” 48

The Persians, mixing themselves with the former inhabitants of the coast, formed the tribes called Numides, or Numidians (which embrace the provinces of Tunis and Constantina), whilst the Medes and the Armenians, allying themselves with the Libyans, nearer to Spain, it is pretended, gave existence to a race of Moors, the term Medes being changed into that of Moors. 49

As to the Getulians confined in the valleys of the Atlas, they resisted all alliance with the new immigrants, and formed the principal nucleus of those tribes who have ever remained in North Africa, rebels to a foreign civilization, or rather determined champions of national freedom, and whom, imitating the Romans and Arabs, we are pleased to call Barbarians or Berbers (Barbari Br�ber 50), and whence is derived the name of the Barbary States. But the Romans likewise called the aboriginal tribes of North Africa, Moors, or Mauri, and some contend that Moors and Berbers are but two different names for the aboriginal tribes, the former being of Greek and the latter of African origin. The Romans might, however, confound the African term berber with barbari, which latter they applied, like the Greeks, to all strangers and foreigners. The revolutions of Africa cast a new tribe of emigrants upon the North African coast, who, if we are to believe the Byzantine historian, Procopius, of the sixth century, were no other than Canaanites, expelled from Palestine by the victorious arms of Joshua, when he established the Israelites in that country. Procopius affirms that, in his time, there was a column standing at Tigisis, on which was this inscription: — “We are those who fled from the robber Joshua, son of Nun.” 51 Now whether Tigisis was in Algeria, or was modern Tangier, as some suppose, it is certain there are several traditions among the Berber tribes of Morocco, which relate that their ancestors were driven out of Palestine. Also, the Berber historian, Ebn–Khal-Doun, who flourished in the fourteenth century, makes all the Berbers descend from one Bar, the son of Mayigh, son of Canaan. However, what may be the truths of these traditions of Sallust or Procopius, there is no difficulty in believing that North Africa was peopled by fugitive and roving tribes, and that the first settlers should be exposed to be plundered by succeeding hordes; for such has been the history of the migrations of all the tribes of the human race.

But the most ancient historical fact on which we can depend is, the invasion, or more properly, the successive invasions of North Africa by the Phoenicians. Their definite establishment on these shores took place towards the foundation of Carthage, about 820 years before our era. Yet we know little of their intercourse or relations with the aboriginal tribes. When the Romans, a century and a half before Christ, received, or wrested, the rule of Africa from the Phoenicians, or Carthaginians, they found before them an indigenous people, whom they indifferently called Moors, Berbers, or Barbarians. A part of these people were called also Nudides, which is perhaps considered the same term as nomades.

Some ages later, the Romans, too weak to resist a vigorous invasion of other conquerors, were subjugated by the Vandals, who, during a century, held possession of North Africa; but, after this time, the Romans again raised their heads, and completely expelled or extirpated the Vandals, so that, as before, there were found only two people or races in Africa: the Romans and the Moors, or aborigines.

Towards the middle of the seventh century after Christ, and a few years after the death of Mahomet, the Romans, in the decline of their power, had to meet the shock of the victorious arms of the Arabians, who poured in upon them triumphant from the East; but, too weak to resist this new tide of invasion, they opposed to them the aborigines, which latter were soon obliged to continue alone the struggle.

The Arabian historians, who recount these wars, speak of Roumi or Romans (of the Byzantine empire) and the Br�ber — evidently the aboriginal tribes — who promptly submitted to the Arabs to rid themselves of the yoke of the Romans; but, after the retreat of their ancient masters, they revolted and remained a long time in arms against their new conquerors — a rule of action which all subjugated nations have been wont to follow. Were we English now to attempt to expel the French from Algeria, we, undoubtedly, should be joined by the Arabs; but who would, most probably, soon also revolt against us, were we to attempt to consolidate our dominion over them.

In the first years of the eighth century, and at the end of the first century of the Hegira, the conquering Arabs passed over to Spain, and, inasmuch as they came from Mauritania, the people of Spain gave them the name of Moors (that of the aborigines of North Africa), although they had, perhaps, nothing in common with them, if we except their Asiatic origin. Another and most singular name was also given to these Arab warriors in France and other parts of Europe — that of Saracens — whose etymology is extremely obscure. 52 From this time the Spaniards have always given the names of Moors (los Moros), not only to the Arabs of Spain, but to all the Arabs; and, confounding farther these two denominations, they have bestowed the name of Moros upon the Arabs of Morocco and those in the environs of Senegal.

The Arabs who invaded Northern Africa about 650, were all natives of Asia, belonging to various provinces of Arabia, and were divided into Ismaelites, Amalekites, Koushites, &c. They were all warriors; and it is considered a title of nobility to have belonged to their first irruption of the enthusiastic sons of the Prophet.

A second invasion took place towards the end of the ninth century — an epoch full of wars — during which, the Caliph Ka�m transported the seat of his government from Kairwan to Cairo, ending in the complete submission of Morocco to the power of Yousef Ben Tashfin. One cannnot now distinguish which tribe of Arabs belong to the first or the second invasion, but all who can shew the slightest proof, claim to belong to the first, as ranking among a band of noble and triumphant warriors.

After eight centuries of rule, the Arabs being expelled from Spain, took refuge in Barbary, but instead of finding the hospitality and protection of their brethren, the greater part of them were pillaged or massacred. The remnant of these wretched fugitives settled along the coast; and it is to their industry and intelligence that we owe the increase, or the foundation of many of the maritime cities. Here, considered as strangers and enemies by the natives, whom they detested, the new colonists sought for, and formed relations with Turks and renegades of all nations, whilst they kept themselves separate from the Arabs and Berbers. This, then, is the bon�-fide origin of the people whom we now generally call Moors. History furnishes us with a striking example of how the expelled Arabs of Spain united with various adventurers against the Berber and North African Arabs. In the year 1500, a thousand Andalusian cavaliers, who had emigrated to Algiers, formed an alliance with the Barbarossas and their fleet of pirates; and, after expelling the native prince, built the modern city of Algiers. And such was the origin of the Algerine Corsairs.

The general result of these observations would, therefore, lead us to consider the Moors of the Romans, as the Berbers or aborigines of North Africa, and the Moors of the Spaniards, as pure Arabians; and if, indeed, these Arabian cavaliers marshalled with them Berbers, as auxiliaries, for the conquest of Spain, this fact does not militate against the broad assumption.

The so-called Moors of Senegal and the Sahara, as well as those of Morocco, are chiefly a mixture of Berbers, Arabs and Negroes; but the present Moors located in the northern coast of Africa, are rather the descendants from the various conquering nations, and especially from renegades and Christian slaves.

The term Moors is not known to the natives themselves. The people speak definitely enough of Arabs and of various Berber tribes. The population of the towns and cities are called generally after the names of these towns and cities, whilst Tuniseen and Tripoline is applied to all the inhabitants of the great towns of Tunis and Tripoli. Europeans resident in Barbary, as a general rule, call all the inhabitants of towns — Moors, and the peasants or people residents in tents — Arabs. But, in Tripoli, I found whole villages inhabited by Arabs, and these I thought might be distinguished as town Arabs. Then the mountains of Tripoli are covered with Arab villages, and some few considerable towns are inhabited by people who are bon�-fide Arabs. Finally, the capitals of North Africa are filled with every class of people found in the country.

From: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/richardson/james/morocco/chapter10.html
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:

But I do have requests for more scans if you please.

Fig 89

 -
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
^^Thanks Djehuti, I just figured out I didn't know what the word "helmet" meant.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ LOL No problem. By the way, where does that sketch come from anyway?
 
Posted by MyRedCow (Member # 10893) on :
 
From a German language site:

 -
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
Can you provide me a link to this site? Also, what actual Egyptian depictions are the sketches based on?
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Midogbe

Thanks for scanning and posting Bate's fig 89.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Almost every Meshwesh depicted in Bates wears a 'kippah'

What's most unusual, to me, is the lack of any kind
of beard. That may've been one consideration prompting
Bates to label the figure as a female Libyan (though
otherwise I see nothing particularly feminine about it).

===================
truth is prism refracted fact
i'm just another point of view
===================

quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ Good question. Perhaps because of the different designs of his garment, or better yet, the fact that he is missing tattoos and the type of hat he wears.


 
Posted by MyRedCow (Member # 10893) on :
 
Djehuti,

This is a site on Amazigh/AE martial arts. There are even more pics:

http://www.tamzalla.de/tamzalla_ryu.php

http://www.tamzalla.de/tamzalla_ryu_fr.php
French! that's readable.

and check out the map on the German page!

 -

The French page:
 -

 -


And this page:

http://www.tamzalla.de/tammazla.php

Check out the Black Moroccan archer.


Thanks Djehuti, I would have missed the French and would have been able to read the German.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
Red Cow, there ancient martial combat techniques of Saharan and Northern Africans among the current descendants of those populations in Africa is not is not strictly an "Amazigh" issue, as these traits can be seen from Sudan to Morocco going back 5,000 years or more. Archery as a means of protection, combat and hunting probably goes back prior to that in Africa and is PURELY African and also has a WIDE pattern of dispersal among many ancient African populations across Africa that are older than ancient Egypt. The rock art of the Sahara is an example of ancient archery in Africa. Trying to tie this to "Amazighs" as a unique trait of a LANGUAGE group is ridiculous. Such techniques of self defense, combat and hunting are as old as man himself and goes back many tens of thousands of years. This is why Hercules was often depicted as a black African, symbolizing the ancient stone age Super Hunter of the Savanna of Africa. Such skills were essential to the survival of human beings in the crowded environment of Africa since the development of the human species and has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with any language speakers that can be called "Amazigh".

quote:

Although many ancient African cultures, such as the Egyptians, Nubians, and Ethiopians, were prominent for their mastery of archery on the battlefield, projectile weapons such as spears and throwing knives tended to predominate as weapons of war in more recent periods. Still, the folklore and histories of many African peoples describe archery-related feats both in the hunt and in battle, and the development of archery skills remains an important aspect of a boy’s education in many African cultures. The bow and arrow are still commonly used in rural areas for hunting game and in some urban areas as an inexpensive but effective means of protection.

The most widespread traditional bow form in Africa is a simple wood stave that is round in cross section and tapers toward the tips. Bows of flattened or grooved staves also occur frequently. African bows tend to be of moderate length, typically ranging from 100 cm to 170 cm, and are distinguished by a number of characteristic string-attachment techniques, including knotted, eyeleted, and indirect forms. Bowstrings usually are of twisted sinew in eastern and southern Africa and of animal hide or plant material in the central and western regions. Bows are fairly plain; ornamentation usually is limited to animal-skin wrappings that provide decoration as well as support.

From: http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayson/africaarchery/africaarchery.shtml

Also note the following:

 -
is quite similar to
 -

The biggest similarity being the crossed bandolier being found all over Africa from Saharan rock art to tomb art of Egyptian archers to various tuareg groups. BTW, the image of the dark brown archer is from the tombs of the Dahkla oasis in Egypt. There are tombs in ALL of the oasis of Egypt from Dakhla, to Bhahariya and Kharga going back to the old kingdom. However, these tombs are very rarely showcased to the public and therefore the photos from them are not often found on the web.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
BTW, I forgot to post this, whenever we often come back to this issue of the ethnic identity of those western populations called Tehenu and Tejenu on this forum. But there are a great many tombs in the Western Oases of Egypt that CLEARLY show the populations of these areas being NOT much different than those of Egypt and Sudan. These tomb images, as I said earlier, are not as prominent or well known as those from Egypt, but there are a great many of them to say the least. From these images it becomes plainly clear that Africans were indeed always in these areas and puts to doubt any idea of FOREIGNERS being the sole ethnic group to the west of Egypt in ancient times. I have some photos that I found on a French site that I will try and find and post if I can....

Found the site and here is an example of an image from Dakhla oasis:

 -
http://alain.guilleux.free.fr/dakhla_balat_ain_asil/dakhla_balat_ain_asil_qila_el_dabba.html
(Across the top of the page you will see the links to other oasis sites.)

Old kingom example from Kharga (Khentka, governor of Kharga under Pepi):
 -

There were more that I remember, but this site has plenty of photos from all over, including those not seen on other sites.

Compare the above with those from an Egyptian administrator named Pennout from the South of Egypt under Ramses VI:

 -

 -

From: http://alain.guilleux.free.fr/pennout/lac_nasser_tombe_pennout.html

The point here being that the historical ethnic make up of the populations to the West of Egypt in ancient times was related to the populations along the Nile itself. They werent that much different, even after the arrival of the "sea peoples" and other invaders in the New Kingdom. It was only relatively recently (last 2000 years) that foreign types began to predominate in these areas.

Heres more from Bahariya (26th dynasty):
 -

 -

From: http://alain.guilleux.free.fr/bahariyah_bawiti/bahariyah_bawiti_qasr_selim_tombes_bannentiu_djedamuniufankh.html
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
Reproduction of MK foreigners painting from Beni Hasan:

 -

I wonder if those people are Libyans as BATES claimed. Maybe it's just me but I don't see any Libyan cultural feature among them. Thoughts?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
Great pics Doug. The only pictures I've seen from the an Oasis tomb was that on recent excavation of the golden mummies from Kharga Oasis by Hawass. In it were several pictures of dark-brown (black) natives. Other than that, I seen non whatsoever.

I wish more pictures were available to the public. I don't know why, considering such paintings are not much different from the usual dark-brown peoples painted on other Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley including the Valley of the Kings.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Since, in this case, Bates gives his source, we need
but examine it to see what the accompanying Rn Mdw
text says.

And thanks again for another scan from Bates.

You too RedBull for the map from Bates showing Rebu
(alternate spelling for Libu -- whence Libue and Libya)
at Cyrenaica, Libya.


quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
Reproduction of MK foreigners painting from Beni Hasan:

[image is above]

I wonder if those people are Libyans as BATES claimed. Maybe it's just me but I don't see any Libyan cultural feature among them. Thoughts?


 
Posted by sefardi3point2 (Member # 11090) on :
 
Anyone else think it strange that the 'fairer' Tamhou (whether they looked like 'blond-europeans' or simply 'olive-skinned Meds' or ancient 'Sicilians') were located further south than the more Egyptian and African looking Tehennu?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Were the Tamahou of the south close to the 'Nubians' really the same as the white Tamahou? And if they were, it wouldn't be quite so 'strange' if we knew more about their origins and their migration routes into the vicinity.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Well, the figures in the famous Seti I rendition of
BG4:5 s30 are creamy complexioned and labeled TMHHW.

It's always puzzled me that that was so, seeing that
the TMHHW indeed first appear in notice as adjacent
to NHHSW, and that that particular spot on the earth
is the first place Williamson proposes for the earliest
offshoot from proto-Tamazight.

Of course by BG era, TMHHW was more or less generic
in usage for various Amenti.x3st residents. We need
look to the clothes, plumes, tattoos/cicatrices, etc.,
in the depictions (especially those of Rameses at Medinat
Habu) to see what specific ethnic identifiers are used for
the folk most similarly accoutred.

Indigenous whites of Africa, and that far south and away
from mountains, seems impossible. [Endemic albinism
among autochthone Africans who were thinner nosed and
straighter haired to start with? An exode of Aegean mommied
THHNW to the far south? Your guesses as good as mine.]

 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Midogbe

Again, and hate to put you through such paces, but
if you have the time and it doesn't impose on you,
please, could you scan and post the map relating to Berber in

Joseph O. Vogel
(ed)
Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa

London AltaMira 1997
the article by
Kay Williamson
Western African Languages in Historical Perspective


It should go in the TAMAZIGHT - a branch of the Afrisan family of African languages thread
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by sefardi3point2:
Anyone else think it strange that the 'fairer' Tamhou (whether they looked like 'blond-europeans' or simply 'olive-skinned Meds' or ancient 'Sicilians') were located further south than the more Egyptian and African looking Tehennu?

Where is it that you find that the Egyptians put the fairer Tamhou further south than the African looking Tehennu? In fact, the images and classifications above indicate the opposite, that the Tehenu were considered more coastal variants and the Tamhou were considered closer, physically and geographically to the Nile Valley itself. So I dont understand where you are getting this Southern blonde haired type next to Southern blacks from..

 -

Likewise I have shown tomb images from various dynasties in the Oasis corresponding to the areas labelled as Tamhou on the map above and none of them strike me as being anything but indigenous African.

Do you mind me asking for some references to these people being "southerners". I dont disagree with the blonde haired Libyan, but I do disagree with them being labelled as "southerners".
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
Some photos:

Algerian woman, from late 1800s:
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_4_gif/fig_195_50.gif

Other interesting photos from Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa:
Gustave Le Bon, La civilisation des Arabes (1884).

Like these:
(Egyptians)
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_4_gif/fig_167_50.gif

http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_4_gif/fig_180_50.gif

(Algerians)
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_4_gif/fig_196_50.gif
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_4_gif/fig_164_50.gif

http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_3_gif/fig_114_50.gif

(Berber?)
Woman making couscous:
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_3_gif/fig_115_50.gif

Moroccan:
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/le_bon_gustave/civilisation_des_arabes/gravures/gravures_livre_4_gif/fig_197_50.gif
 
Posted by sefardi3point2 (Member # 11090) on :
 
DougM, to be honest, I got that notion of 'southern' Tamehou from this discussion site - the egyptsearch forums. I've been reading these boards for about a year now, and that - the whole 'north/south' thing, specifically the Tamhou being further away from the sea than the Tehennu - was the impression that I got.

I apologize for presenting it as 'fact', but it was nonetheless an impression I got from reading these boards. I make no claim to have researched it otherwise.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by sefardi3point2:
DougM, to be honest, I got that notion of 'southern' Tamehou from this discussion site - the egyptsearch forums. I've been reading these boards for about a year now, and that - the whole 'north/south' thing, specifically the Tamhou being further away from the sea than the Tehennu - was the impression that I got.

I apologize for presenting it as 'fact', but it was nonetheless an impression I got from reading these boards. I make no claim to have researched it otherwise.

Its OK, I just was asking because I personally never got that impression before, but that doesnt mean it isnt there somewhere.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
And you are correct. The TMHHW enter written history,
afaik, in one of Harkuf's (sp?) letters where he notes
intervening in an expedition by one of the NHHSW ethnies
against TMHHW. We have no physical description of either
those particular NHHSW nor the TMHHW they intend to
smite to heaven.

If anyone has colour images of TMHHW that precede the ones
in Seti I's tomb please share them with us. By that time
at least it looks like creamy colored TMHHW were living
in proximity to Upper Egypt and Lower Sudan unless the
term TMHHW is only generic in this case. Again, analyzing
their accoutrements will tell us which set of Amenti.x3st
dwellers they are if not technically TMHHW in its narrowest
sense.


quote:
Originally posted by sefardi3point2:
DougM, to be honest, I got that notion of 'southern' Tamehou from this discussion site - the egyptsearch forums. I've been reading these boards for about a year now, and that - the whole 'north/south' thing, specifically the Tamhou being further away from the sea than the Tehennu - was the impression that I got.

I apologize for presenting it as 'fact', but it was nonetheless an impression I got from reading these boards. I make no claim to have researched it otherwise.


 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
^^I guess my question is what image you are referring to and how this image defines those TMHHW thus pictured as being geographically close to Upper Egypt and Lower Sudan. I can understand the physical description but I dont understand the geographical reference.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Just look at the vignette and
look at the map you reposted.
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
No problem I'll post the map tomorrow.


quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Midogbe

Again, and hate to put you through such paces, but
if you have the time and it doesn't impose on you,
please, could you scan and post the map relating to Berber in

Joseph O. Vogel
(ed)
Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa

London AltaMira 1997
the article by
Kay Williamson
Western African Languages in Historical Perspective


It should go in the TAMAZIGHT - a branch of the Afrisan family of African languages thread


 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Just look at the vignette and
look at the map you reposted.

To be honest, the map shows the Tehemu almost on top of the Nile valley and probably is not that accurate given that it was done in modern times. My point being that how do we get a geographic reference solely from ancient Egypt? Just because the modern map shows the tehemu in those places doesnt mean that the vignette from SetiI was referring to the same people in the same places. Note that the saite or libyan period Egyptian mummies and artwork are just as African as those of any other period, if not moreso. Not to mention the other stuff from the western desert I mentioned before. This does not reflect a large scale blonde presence, which is why I am picking so hard at this point. Either they came and briefly forayed south before being overwhelmed by indigenous Africans or we are misinterpereting Seti's tomb evidence.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Not only does the map show the TMHHW further south
than the THHNW, the arrow following the name points
even further south.

Have you noticed I suggested matching the accoutrements
of the depicted to what we know of the various Ament.x3st
folk to see whether labeling them TMHHW was generic or
specific.

As for blonds, I have yet to see an AE painting of
any blond Libyans whatsoever. Notices of blonds among
Libyans are written in Greco-Latin accounts and date
a thousand years later than the folk under discussion.
 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
^^
Don't know if WILSON was referring to the same haircut as that used to depict NK nHsiw, but from what I get the blonde hair reference comes from the same kind of hairstyle worn by nHsiw (wavy lines over a red base)as well as blue eyes (no pic of it sorry):

 -
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
NHHSW are often painted blond and red headed. I think
it was gold dust sprinkled in their hair or maybe the
effects of sun bleaching, not to rule out naturally
red headed folk.

Most here are of the opinion that the yellow&red is
from applying ochre as some Sudani ethnies still continue
doing to not just their hair but entire body eg. at
wrestling/mating festivals.


What's the citation for that page from the journal?

My comment remains that while I have READ much
about blond TMHHW to date I have yet to actually
SEE any such AE painting.

As Sergi noted a century ago, these so-called blonds
have nothing lighter than chestnut colored hair which
in Europe would class them as no more than brunette
at best.

quote:
Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
^^
Don't know if WILSON was referring to the same haircut as that used to depict NK nHsiw, but from what I get the blonde hair reference comes from the same kind of hairstyle worn by nHsiw (wavy lines over a red base)as well as blue eyes (no pic of it sorry):



 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
^^
The Libyans and the End of the Egyptian Empire
John A. Wilson
The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures > Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jan., 1935), pp. 73-82

Sorry I'm definitely not knowledgeable about color alteration so I don't know which color of this character's hair preceded the other, but here is a pic of NK Libyan with a part of his hair nowadays being red (scan not mine, no idea about the source):
 -
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Do any of you guys think the white Tamahou share ancestry with the Sea Peoples they were so closely aligned with?
 
Posted by Tyrannosaurus (Member # 3735) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ When were Hittites ever 'mongoloid'??! What constitutes a 'mongoloid' affinity in the first place, and exactly how is this featured among Hittites??

I think he means "East/Central Asian", like a Kazakh or Chinese. However, I doubt Hittites had that look. They could have been blond-haired and blue-eyed for all anyone knows (after all, Indo-Europeans are from Eastern Europe).
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Actually most Eastern Europeans aren't blonde but are brunette (brown to light brown hair) blonde hair is much more common in the northern areas of Eastern Europe as it is with the rest of Europe. But regardless, you are referring to original or proto-Indo-European speakers. Most speakers of daughter Indo-European languages are dark-haired, from Italians and Greeks to Iranians and Indians. The vast majority of Turks today are dark-haired and I don't see how that couldn't be any different from their ancient ancestors some of whom are related to Greeks and other peoples from Western Asia.

We have depictions of the Hittites and they look no different from most modern-day Turks or even other peoples in Western Asia. The Hittites and other peoples of ancient Anatolia had nothing to do with the Turks from farther east in Asia who later conquered the peninsula. So I think this is where the 'mongloid' confusion comes from.
 
Posted by Tyrannosaurus (Member # 3735) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ Actually most Eastern Europeans aren't blonde but are brunette (brown to light brown hair) blonde hair is much more common in the northern areas of Eastern Europe as it is with the rest of Europe. But regardless, you are referring to original or proto-Indo-European speakers. Most speakers of daughter Indo-European languages are dark-haired, from Italians and Greeks to Iranians and Indians.

Incidentally, what do you think the original Indo-Europeans looked like? And why did Indo-European languages come to be spoken by people as diverse as black Indians, Nordics, and tanned Mediterraneans/West Asians (Greeks, Turks, Italians, etc.)?

BTW, do you think there is a possibility that the Egyptians or nearby ancient civilizations ever encountered white or "Mongoloid" people?
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus:
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ Actually most Eastern Europeans aren't blonde but are brunette (brown to light brown hair) blonde hair is much more common in the northern areas of Eastern Europe as it is with the rest of Europe. But regardless, you are referring to original or proto-Indo-European speakers. Most speakers of daughter Indo-European languages are dark-haired, from Italians and Greeks to Iranians and Indians.

Incidentally, what do you think the original Indo-Europeans looked like? And why did Indo-European languages come to be spoken by people as diverse as black Indians, Nordics, and tanned Mediterraneans/West Asians (Greeks, Turks, Italians, etc.)?

BTW, do you think there is a possibility that the Egyptians or nearby ancient civilizations ever encountered white or "Mongoloid" people?

Indo-European languages are spoken among Indians and Europeans because of Alexander Great. You see, the connection between these languages is Greek and Sanskrit.

These languages are related because when Panini wrote a grammar of Sanskrit , which was a lingua franca, Greeks were living India and spoken in the region Panini lived. Panini even mentions Greeks. Because of the numerous Pakrits spoken in India at this time along with Persian and Greek elements and shared vocabulary were included in Panini's grammar that allow us to see a connection between Sanskrit and the other Indo-European languages.

.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Nice infos on non-African white folks and Indo-European
languages.

Is info on the subject header, "The Tehenu," exausted?
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Great find DougM! I hail your image search skills. And following
hard upon Rasol's comment, with their facial features and locks of
hair, these guys almost look like they could've walked right off the
wall of the TMHHW section of Seti I's tomb vignette 30 of BG 4:5.

 -  -

Makes me wonder more and more if the pale colouring may've been
symbolically expressive of their dwelling in Ament.x3st a.k.a. the
Duat (Twat) -- land of the dead, and death's symbolic color was ...
... well, er, um ... you know ... white. [Confused]

quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
Unfortunately, with the modern distribution of these languages along coastal North Africa, many assume that these are the people being referred to in ancient texts. That is not the case.

Along these lines I have noticed that many of the old photos of Africans in Mauretania look very much like the Fuzzy wuzzies of the Sudan and Egypt, the Bedja. Again, this shows the fact that many of these Berbers who were assumed to be Northern "coastal" groups were actually Saharan and Sahelian groups from across a WIDE SWATH of Africa.

Like these Mauretanians:

http://www.postcardman.net/158494.jpg

http://www.postcardman.net/158477.jpg

quote:
Originally posted by rasol:
^ Good post, those photos offer possibly a realistic appearance similarity with the original proto-Berber.


 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus:

Incidentally, what do you think the original Indo-Europeans looked like? And why did Indo-European languages come to be spoken by people as diverse as black Indians, Nordics, and tanned Mediterraneans/West Asians (Greeks, Turks, Italians, etc.)?

Well since linguistics suggests that the homeland of proto-Indo-European lies somewhere in the Russian steppes, then its speakers likely looked Eastern European or 'Russian'(?)

As for how Indo-European languages expanded and took over so large an expanse of Eurasia, well that is still a matter of debate to this day but when considering the spread of other widely spoken language families such as Afrasian or Niger-Congo (Bantu especially) one would say it had something to do with either food production, technology, or both.

quote:
BTW, do you think there is a possibility that the Egyptians or nearby ancient civilizations ever encountered white or "Mongoloid" people?
'White' people certainly, considering Europe's proximity, but I don't know about East Asians.
quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

Indo-European languages are spoken among Indians and Europeans because of Alexander Great. You see, the connection between these languages is Greek and Sanskrit.

These languages are related because when Panini wrote a grammar of Sanskrit , which was a lingua franca, Greeks were living India and spoken in the region Panini lived. Panini even mentions Greeks. Because of the numerous Pakrits spoken in India at this time along with Persian and Greek elements and shared vocabulary were included in Panini's grammar that allow us to see a connection between Sanskrit and the other Indo-European languages.

This is absolutely absurd. Indo-European languages spoken in India has nothing to do Alexander the Great no more than Afrasian languages spoken in southwest Asia had to do with Thutmose conquering the Levant!

The Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European was spoken in Central Asia for at least 5,000 years, and it's entry to Indian subcontinent was 2,000 to 3,000 years.
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
quote:
Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus:

Incidentally, what do you think the original Indo-Europeans looked like? And why did Indo-European languages come to be spoken by people as diverse as black Indians, Nordics, and tanned Mediterraneans/West Asians (Greeks, Turks, Italians, etc.)?

Well since linguistics suggests that the homeland of proto-Indo-European lies somewhere in the Russian steppes, then its speakers likely looked Eastern European or 'Russian'(?)

As for how Indo-European languages expanded and took over so large an expanse of Eurasia, well that is still a matter of debate to this day but when considering the spread of other widely spoken language families such as Afrasian or Niger-Congo (Bantu especially) one would say it had something to do with either food production, technology, or both.

quote:
BTW, do you think there is a possibility that the Egyptians or nearby ancient civilizations ever encountered white or "Mongoloid" people?
'White' people certainly, considering Europe's proximity, but I don't know about East Asians.
quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

Indo-European languages are spoken among Indians and Europeans because of Alexander Great. You see, the connection between these languages is Greek and Sanskrit.

These languages are related because when Panini wrote a grammar of Sanskrit , which was a lingua franca, Greeks were living India and spoken in the region Panini lived. Panini even mentions Greeks. Because of the numerous Pakrits spoken in India at this time along with Persian and Greek elements and shared vocabulary were included in Panini's grammar that allow us to see a connection between Sanskrit and the other Indo-European languages.

This is absolutely absurd. Indo-European languages spoken in India has nothing to do Alexander the Great no more than Afrasian languages spoken in southwest Asia had to do with Thutmose conquering the Levant!

The Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European was spoken in Central Asia for at least 5,000 years, and it's entry to Indian subcontinent was 2,000 to 3,000 years.

If you know so much answer these questions.

1a. Explain why Alexander the Greats introduction of the Greek language to India can not account for the relationship between Sanskrit and Greek.

1.Please explain to the people what Indian languages are related to the European languages ?

2. What is the relationship between the Iranian and Indo-European languages?

3.Are Iranian and Indo-European languages related? If so how are they related?

4. Are Iranian languages, Indo-European languages?

5. Where was this 5000 year old site where Indo-Iranian was spoken?

.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ For someone who claims to be a linguist, you ask such elementary questions, but considering your denial of Berber as an African language and your claim of Dravidian as one.. nevermind [Roll Eyes]

Moving back to the topic of this thread...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by alTakruri:
[QB]
Great find DougM! I hail your image search skills. And following
hard upon Rasol's comment, with their facial features and locks of
hair, these guys almost look like they could've walked right off the
wall of the TMHHW section of Seti I's tomb vignette 30 of BG 4:5.

 -  -

Makes me wonder more and more if the pale colouring may've been
symbolically expressive of their dwelling in Ament.x3st a.k.a. the
Duat (Twat) -- land of the dead, and death's symbolic color was ...
... well, er, um ... you know ... white. [Confused]

Interesting pictorial find. Although I seriously do not think the 'white' Tamahou portrayed on tomb paintings was symbolic. Considering that symbolic depictions usually have figures painted in stark or blank white, whereas the Tamhou are all portrayed as having a pale moreso European 'white' appearance, with brownish hair and blue eyes.

I seriously think the Tamhou were a peoples of European extraction who totally adopted the culture and styles of the indigenous black inhabitants.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
OK, I'll ask this yet again since no one to date
has presented it. Where, oh where, is a painting
of blue eyed blond TMHHW in the entire catalog of
AE art?

I hear alot of talk, first made by Champollion who
so desperately had to find primitive Europeans in
association anyway possible with earliest civilization,
but never see a single instance.

I repeat, outside of late Graeco-Latin writings, there
are no blond haired less lone blue eyed ancient Libyans.
(Yes, I'm aware you wrote 'brownish hair.')

Northern Mediterraneans are not and were not Nordic
such that by mating with their women the indigenee
North Africans could in under a millenium produce an
entire ethny of a phenotype unknown in Africa and
sparsely if at all represented in the Aegean, Ionian,
or Tyrrhenian seas populations.

Mind you, red eyes have also been reportedly found
in AE portraiture. There are no people on earth with
red eyes. Still, I'm highly interested in a compilation
of blue (nearly black blue steel or pastel-like sky blue,
which one?) eyes and which ethnies the associated texts
assigns any such alleged individuals.

But no doubt the Libyan population in general, and
apparently especially so way westward among proto-aMazigh
Meshwesh, accrued a steady trickle of Euro infusion that
considerably altered their complexions. Since it was
the mommies who were whites and near whites we don't
have European expatriates wholescale adapting a foreign
culture, but rather what we have is the offspring of
the Euro-mommies quite naturally practicing what they
saw going on around them as they grew up among their
African fathers, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
... whereas the Tamhou are all portrayed as having a pale moreso European 'white' appearance, with brownish hair and blue eyes.

I seriously think the Tamhou were a peoples of European extraction who totally adopted the culture and styles of the indigenous black inhabitants.


 
Posted by Please call me MIDOGBE (Member # 9216) on :
 
^^
alTakruri:

Interesting assertion, but on what material cultural features are you basing on to claim there is a continuity between OK Libyans and NK's?

Also are you aware of the megaliths and peculiar tombs found in modern Italy (notably Sicily and Sardinia) as well as in the Maghrib?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
So what about 'white' Berber types like the Rif and Kabyle who not only display brown hair, but even red and blonde hair and blue eyes??

You know many scholars take the tomb paintings of the white Tamahou to be the ancestors of these modern day white Berbers.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Midogbe:
One of the things I meant by "influences" in a post
to the "Anthropo-Genetic" thread are these very things.


Djehuti:
I don't know what Riffians and Kabyles could even
remotely have anything to do at all with TMHHW???
We know precisely when and where their "whiteness"
came from and continues to come from.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Takruri, I don't know how you could ask such a thing when TMHHW appear to have the same features as those modern day people and that both groups are associated with the western part of North Africa, not to mention that the modern day Rif and Kabyle speak African (Berber) languages.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ For someone who claims to be a linguist, you ask such elementary questions, but considering your denial of Berber as an African language and your claim of Dravidian as one.. nevermind [Roll Eyes]

Moving back to the topic of this thread...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by alTakruri:
[QB]
Great find DougM! I hail your image search skills. And following
hard upon Rasol's comment, with their facial features and locks of
hair, these guys almost look like they could've walked right off the
wall of the TMHHW section of Seti I's tomb vignette 30 of BG 4:5.

 -  -

Makes me wonder more and more if the pale colouring may've been
symbolically expressive of their dwelling in Ament.x3st a.k.a. the
Duat (Twat) -- land of the dead, and death's symbolic color was ...
... well, er, um ... you know ... white. [Confused]

Interesting pictorial find. Although I seriously do not think the 'white' Tamahou portrayed on tomb paintings was symbolic. Considering that symbolic depictions usually have figures painted in stark or blank white, whereas the Tamhou are all portrayed as having a pale moreso European 'white' appearance, with brownish hair and blue eyes.

I seriously think the Tamhou were a peoples of European extraction who totally adopted the culture and styles of the indigenous black inhabitants.

Do you mean tehenu or temehu? One is supposedly the aboriginal population of "Libyans", the other is supposedly a foreign derived group who came later.

These are Mauretanians. These mauretanians have features similar to those found amongst the Beja and other Sudanic, Nilotic and Ethiopic Africans. This seems to confirm what has been posted already, namely migrations from East Africa being the basis of the original populations speaking Berber languages. Mauretania was ORIGINALLY a Berber speaking region, before there was even a country called Mauretania. The people there were semi nomadic, with those of the South being more sedentary, with villages having been found in Tichitt going back to at least 2,000 BC.

Beja:
 -

 -

Whether these ancient Nilotic, Sudanic and Ethipic populations could be identified as the Temehu or Tehenu is a whole different question.
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
Doug M
quote:



These are Mauretanians. These mauretanians have features similar to those found amongst the Beja and other Sudanic, Nilotic and Ethiopic Africans. This seems to confirm what has been posted already, namely migrations from East Africa being the basis of the original populations speaking Berber languages. Mauretania was ORIGINALLY a Berber speaking region, before there was even a country called Mauretania. The people there were semi nomadic, with those of the South being more sedentary, with villages having been found in Tichitt going back to at least 2,000 BC.


These Mauretanians at Tichitt and other settlements are believed to have been Mande speakers, not Berber speakers.


.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
^^So?

How does that change the fact that a large part of the Mauretanian population used to speak Zenaga, a berber language as well? Those are the Berber speaking populations I am referring to. It is from them that the name Senegal derives, which is in the South of Mauretania and is derived from Zenaga which is another term for Sanhaja.
 
Posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian (Member # 10893) on :
 
Doug M,

I used to believe too that the original inhabitants of Mauretania and much of the Sahara were proto-Berber speakers. But, I do not now think that the Ancient Saharans were all proto-Berber.

The original inhabitants of Mauretania were the Bafur. Dr. Winters says they were Mande speakers. Others say the same as Dr. Winters, that they were proto-Soninke who were Mande speakers.

I just found out that there is Rock Art in Sierra Leone. I can imagine there is Rock art in the countires north of Sierra Leone to Mauretania where I know Rock Art exists.

There is a French language article about a recent Rock Art find in Southern Morocco that shows Black people dancing around just like in Tassili-n- Ajjer and Ennedi, etc. Those Blacks in the newest Moroccan Rock Art paintings were described as Bantu or Hottentot.

The West Atlantic Language Family is proto-Bantu and many of the names of the people groups along the western coast of Africa have names beginning with Ba like

Bassari
Balanta
Banta
Bak
Banyun
Baga
and more...

Beafada is in Senegal and sounds pretty close to
Bafur the original Mauretanians. Look closely at the Rock Art and try to determine are those people displayed really proto-Berber types.
 
Posted by rasol (Member # 4592) on :
 
quote:
I used to believe too that the original inhabitants of Mauretania and much of the Sahara were proto-Berber speakers. But, I do not now think that the Ancient Saharans were all proto-Berber.
Of course they were not. The progenitars of some of the Kemetians and Cushites, the Fulani, and others were all among the original North Africans.

Need to understand that in the Holocene, the desert that properly denotes sahara largely ceased to exist.

The sahara dried out in the pre-neolithic. Populatons of various language groups went North South and settled Nile Valley.
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
Doug M,

I used to believe too that the original inhabitants of Mauretania and much of the Sahara were proto-Berber speakers. But, I do not now think that the Ancient Saharans were all proto-Berber.

The original inhabitants of Mauretania were the Bafur. Dr. Winters says they were Mande speakers. Others say the same as Dr. Winters, that they were proto-Soninke who were Mande speakers.

I just found out that there is Rock Art in Sierra Leone. I can imagine there is Rock art in the countires north of Sierra Leone to Mauretania where I know Rock Art exists.

There is a French language article about a recent Rock Art find in Southern Morocco that shows Black people dancing around just like in Tassili-n- Ajjer and Ennedi, etc. Those Blacks in the newest Moroccan Rock Art paintings were described as Bantu or Hottentot.

The West Atlantic Language Family is proto-Bantu and many of the names of the people groups along the western coast of Africa have names beginning with Ba like

Bassari
Balanta
Banta
Bak
Banyun
Baga
and more...

Beafada is in Senegal and sounds pretty close to
Bafur the original Mauretanians. Look closely at the Rock Art and try to determine are those people displayed really proto-Berber types.

You have misinterpereted what I said. Nobody said that the first inhabitants of the Sahara were proto-Berbers. What I said was that Mauretania was eventually OCCUPIED by nomadic Berber speakers from the Sahara who would be descended fromt the proto-berber speaking populations from East Africa. THAT explains why many of these Mauretanians would have looks similar to Nilotic, Ethiopic and Sudanic peoples. The point being that the arrival of Berber speakers did not mean the arrival of NON BLACK populations into Mauretania. This is often implied by many scholars who write about the history of the Berbers which becomes synonymous with white African, which is absolutely not the case, especially not with the original proto berber populations who crossed the sahara from East Africa. So even if these proto-Berber populations interacted with people already present, it does not mean that they were in conflict because of ethnic or physical differences like later waves of arabized muslim Berbers or Arab tribes who arrived long after the original arrival of the original Sanhaja clans of Berber speakers from the Sahara who entered Mauretania. Keep in mind that the trans-saharan trade routes existed long before Muslims arrived in Mauretania and goes as far back as Egyptian caravan routes across the desert in the East. Therefore, these nomadic populations have always been there and facilitated the long distance trade of the more settled communities of the oases and sahelian regions, like Southern Mauretania, home of old Ghana.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Not where I sit.

The creamy TMHHW in Seti I's tomb have features
that resemble the Zenaga that DougM linked and
I posted.

The TMHHW are not associated with the Maghreb
al Aqsa but with the region from Cyrenaica to the
Western Egyptian Delta (i.e., eastern Libya, far
northwest Egypt) and from there south in vicinity
of oases west of Yam/Kerma.

The Riffians and Kabyles only have the creamy
colour. We must begin to look beyond only mere
colour for true resemblances.

quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ Takruri, I don't know how you could ask such a thing when TMHHW appear to have the same features as those modern day people and that both groups are associated with the western part of North Africa, not to mention that the modern day Rif and Kabyle speak African (Berber) languages.


 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
Doug M,

I used to believe too that the original inhabitants of Mauretania and much of the Sahara were proto-Berber speakers. But, I do not now think that the Ancient Saharans were all proto-Berber.

The original inhabitants of Mauretania were the Bafur. Dr. Winters says they were Mande speakers. Others say the same as Dr. Winters, that they were proto-Soninke who were Mande speakers.

I just found out that there is Rock Art in Sierra Leone. I can imagine there is Rock art in the countires north of Sierra Leone to Mauretania where I know Rock Art exists.

There is a French language article about a recent Rock Art find in Southern Morocco that shows Black people dancing around just like in Tassili-n- Ajjer and Ennedi, etc. Those Blacks in the newest Moroccan Rock Art paintings were described as Bantu or Hottentot.

The West Atlantic Language Family is proto-Bantu and many of the names of the people groups along the western coast of Africa have names beginning with Ba like

Bassari
Balanta
Banta
Bak
Banyun
Baga
and more...

Beafada is in Senegal and sounds pretty close to
Bafur the original Mauretanians. Look closely at the Rock Art and try to determine are those people displayed really proto-Berber types.

Can you scan the picture, or post the website address.


.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
I meant precisely what I wrote.

Please take the time to compare and contrast the
pictured Zenaga with the Seti I tomb TMHHW for:
* Facial profile - straight (orthognous)
* Chin - tufted goatee beard
* Hair - thick locks
* Nose - thin nostrils, well defined bridge
* Face - gaunt (narrow)
* Body - slim wiry build

There's a vast plethora of phenotypes between and
among "Sudanic, Nilotic and Ethiopic Africans."
Don't be overly simplistic in lumping so many
peoples into a category only a handfull actually
fit.


quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:

Great find DougM! I hail your image search skills. And following
hard upon Rasol's comment, with their facial features and locks of
hair, these guys almost look like they could've walked right off the
wall of the TMHHW section of Seti I's tomb vignette 30 of BG 4:5.

 -  -

Makes me wonder more and more if the pale colouring may've been
symbolically expressive of their dwelling in Ament.x3st a.k.a. the
Duat (Twat) -- land of the dead, and death's symbolic color was ...
... well, er, um ... you know ... white. [Confused]

Do you mean tehenu or temehu? One is supposedly the aboriginal population of "Libyans", the other is supposedly a foreign derived group who came later.

These are Mauretanians. These mauretanians have features similar to those found amongst the Beja and other Sudanic, Nilotic and Ethiopic Africans.

...



 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
It seems to me you times and palces and peoples
all mixed up.

Dr. Winters is absolutely correct. The stone building
civilization of the Hodh/Awkar/Tagant was Mande, more
precisely Soninke.

The Zenaga have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it.

If anything, they may have been among those whose raids
contributed to the decline of Tichitt-Walata.

However, they may have also been useful in caravaneering
once the Soninke decided to include dessert destinations
within their already extensive trade network.


quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
^^So?

How does that change the fact that a large part of the Mauretanian population used to speak Zenaga, a berber language as well? Those are the Berber speaking populations I am referring to. It is from them that the name Senegal derives, which is in the South of Mauretania and is derived from Zenaga which is another term for Sanhaja.


 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
^^What I was posting is the fact that Black African populations are the basis of Berber culture and language who spread across the Sahara from East Africa. These populations share traits with SOME Sudanic, Ethiopic and Nilotic populations, particularly those like the Beja. Whatever the Tehenu looked like, creamy, tan or polka dot, they are NOT the basis of the populations from the Eastern Africa who originally migrated across the Sahara and eventually entered Mauretania. Likewise, it is not necessarily true that this entrance into Mauretania was responsible for the destruction of Tichitt Walata because it probably occurred in a period long before the introduction of Islam and the eventual destruction of Walatta. It was after the Arabization/Islamization of Berber speaking groups that they began to be against animist African groups. To be clear, the entrance of Berber speakers into Mauretania was long before the introduction of Islam and therefore cannot be equated with the nature of the interactions between these groups AFTER the Islamization of these groups.

As for the facial features, profiles, hair styles and other attributes of the Tehenu, I would say that they are only a Northern Coastal branch of African populations and cultures that were already there. For example, some Peul also have traditions very similar to these ancient Tehenu. But the Peul are also descended from ancient Saharan populations that predate Berber expansions. The reason the Tehenu, creamy complexioned or otherwise, get more attention is because of the archeaological artifacts from Egypt. However, I would say that it is an overgeneralization to think that the full range of the culture and people from the Coast of "Libya" to Southern Egypt was exactly like that of the tomb of Seti I and it definitely does not represent a coastal population introduction traits and traditions INTO Africa, as opposed to traditions being shared among a wide variety of African populations, including those who happened to be near the coast. Many of these traits existed prior to the advent of Berber speakers, but became associated with them as they moved from East to West. You have various trends in culture, appearance, dress and other attributes that are not strictly associated with Berber speakers, even though the association has often been made between the two.
 
Posted by Quetzalcoatl (Member # 12742) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
[


These Mauretanians at Tichitt and other settlements are believed to have been Mande speakers, not Berber speakers.


. [/QB][/QUOTE]

Could you give me a quote for this with a reference? Augustin Holl . 1985. "Subsistence Patterns of the Dhar Tichitt Neolithic, Mauritania," [italics] The African Archaeological Review[/italics] 3:151-162 and --- 2002. "Time, Space, and Image Making:Rock Art from the Dhar Tichitt (Mauritania)," [italics]The African Archaeological Review[/italics] 19(2): 75-118. does not name any group as the settlers of Dhar Tichitt. He says that the Berbers came after these settlements were abandoned.
Thanks
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
[


These Mauretanians at Tichitt and other settlements are believed to have been Mande speakers, not Berber speakers.


. Could you give me a quote for this with a reference? Augustin Holl . 1985. "Subsistence Patterns of the Dhar Tichitt Neolithic, Mauritania," [italics] The African Archaeological Review[/italics] 3:151-162 and --- 2002. "Time, Space, and Image Making:Rock Art from the Dhar Tichitt (Mauritania)," [italics]The African Archaeological Review[/italics] 19(2): 75-118. does not name any group as the settlers of Dhar Tichitt. He says that the Berbers came after these settlements were abandoned.
Thanks

You can go and read some of the research of P.J. Munson, one of the original excavators at Tichitt. Munson (1980) based his conclusion that the Soninke founded Tichitt on the dwellings, storehouses and pottery he excavated at Tichitt which resembled Diawara or Soninke material (see: pp.462-463).

Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana Empire, by Patrick J. Munson
The Journal of African History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1980), pp. 457-466

You can obtain the article at JSTOR.

.
.
 
Posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian (Member # 10893) on :
 
Dr. Winters,

This article has been copied to several websites and I was going o translate it. But, changed my mind.

http://www.bladi.net/4787-des-vikings-dans-le-sud-marocain.html?var_recherche=zagora&debut_page=600

Robert Letan a Frenchman is claiming Ancient Europeans introduced megalithic technology to NW Africa and it passed to the Blacks hinting at the Senegambian megaliths.

What about Nabta Playa?


Des Vikings dans le Sud marocain ?
Accueil > Culture

Avant l’islamisation du Maroc, des hommes d’Europe du Nord seraient venus, par la mer, dans le sud du pays à la recherche du cuivre dont ils avaient besoin pour forger leurs armes. Une thèse que la découverte récente de mégalithes funéraires et de peintures rupestres semble accréditer


C’était en juillet 2001. Fatimatou Malika bent Benata avait planté sa khaïma, la tente décorée qu’affectionnent les nomades du Sahara, aux abords du puits d’Aouinet Azguer. Arrivée au plus étroit de la vallée, là où les gazelles laissent la trace de leurs pattes dans le sable, elle s’était mise à chercher un abri : le soleil cognait fort et elle craignait que son plus jeune fils ne prenne un coup de chaud. Elle avait fini par se glisser, avec l’enfant, sous l’une de ces tables rocheuses qui découpent la falaise comme autant de tranches de cake. Quelle ne fut pas alors sa surprise d’apercevoir, peints sur le plafond, des dessins dans un état de conservation parfait. Il y avait des hommes nus, armés d’un arc, dansant autour d’un bœuf - azguer, en berbère, signifie bœuf - et toutes sortes d’animaux sauvages : antilopes, bouquetins, chevreuils, félins, éléphants, autruches. Qui était l’artiste qui avait réalisé de si jolis dessins ocre rouge dans un endroit aussi peu propice à l’habitation et à quand tout cela pouvait-il bien remonter ? Fatimatou était perplexe. Son premier réflexe avait été d’effacer ces peintures avec de l’eau. Elle n’avait pas réussi à les diluer. Elle avait alors senti confusément que les scènes qui se succédaient au fur et à mesure qu’elle se glissait sous la roche renvoyaient à des rites remontant à la nuit des temps.

« Là où il y avait des gravures, on pouvait être sûr qu’il y avait une mine »

De retour au village de M’seied, elle s’empresse d’alerter le khalifa Babouzaid el-Mghafri, qui, à son tour, prévient le caïd, lequel informe le gouverneur de la province de Tan-Tan. Une fois les autorités de Rabat averties, les « photos » que la nomade Fatimatou a découvertes par hasard au plafond de son abri-sous-roche commencent à susciter des convoitises. Le khalifa de M’seied, un sympathique quinquagénaire qui devint plus tard « découvreur » d’art préhistorique, informe un journaliste auteur de plusieurs guides spécialisés sur les pistes du Maroc, Jacques Gandini, de l’existence des peintures rupestres. Ce dernier, qui est en train de boucler l’un de ses ouvrages sur cette région, décide de monter une expédition. Il invite à se joindre à lui un archéologue français installé depuis près de soixante ans au Maroc, Robert Letan. En plus des peintures, exceptionnelles pour la région - jusqu’à présent, ce sont essentiellement des gravures qui ont été trouvées dans cette partie occidentale du Sahara, contrairement au Tassili algérien ou au Tibesti tchadien - ils vont découvrir, dans la partie supérieure de l’oued de Chebeika, une quarantaine de constructions et de structures mégalithiques en forme de croissants de grande dimension. La présence de ces tumulus « géoglyphes » - assez semblables à ceux inventoriés par Théodore Monod en 1948, que l’on retrouve dans tout le Sahara marocain et mauritanien - est une autre trouvaille majeure. Ces découvertes relancent les craintes de pillages. Sauf à interdire l’accès des sites aux chercheurs, le Centre national du patrimoine rupestre, à Marrakech, qui dépend du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, n’a en effet pas les moyens de contrôler la zone. Jacques Gandini est critiqué pour avoir publié les coordonnées GPS des peintures d’Azguer et Robert Letan pour les avoir commentées dans le quotidien Aujourd’hui le Maroc... Ils se défendent, par presse interposée. « La promotion de la région, estime Jacques Gandini, prévaut sur des considérations archéologiques. » Il affirme avoir reçu l’aval du ministère du Tourisme et le soutien des gouverneurs de région pour dire tout le bien qu’il pense des quelque 350 sites préhistoriques recensés au Maroc.

A 82 ans, Robert Letan garde bon pied, bon oeil quand il s’agit de crapahuter sur des sites archéologiques. Le regard droit, la narine pincée et la casquette solidement rivée sur la tête dès qu’il sort de chez lui, ce soldat de l’artillerie coloniale, ancien combattant de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, a passé sa vie à fouiller les déserts caillouteux de l’Atlas et de l’Anti-Atlas. « A l’époque, nous n’avions ni le confort d’un 4 x 4 climatisé ni la sécurité du GPS », se souvient-t-il. Pour ce natif de Lorraine, qui appartient à une génération d’autodidactes contrainte de quitter les bancs de l’école « pour apprendre à tuer ! », l’Afrique, et plus particulièrement le Maroc, où il est arrivé en 1944, a réveillé une soif inextinguible : celle d’une quête des origines que son travail dans les mines a encore aiguisé. « Connaître l’histoire de l’humanité nous rassure, nous ouvre des voies, parce qu’elle relativise les paniques à venir, nous montre que la fin du monde n’est pas pour demain. En définitive, l’ingénieur gagne toujours sur le marchand ! » insistait-il, lors d’une conférence visant à expliquer à ses collègues l’art rupestre trop longtemps sous-estimé en Afrique, alors qu’il fait partie, selon lui, des prémices de l’écriture. Son but ? Aider les autorités marocaines à développer un tourisme « intelligent », qui permette de préserver les sites archéologiques tout en autorisant les populations à profiter des retombées de découvertes dont elles sont souvent spoliées ou bien les dernières à être informées. « Sans mes écrits, jamais on n’aurait attribué la trouvaille des peintures de Tan-Tan à une nomade ! » dit-il fièrement. Même s’il est le premier à dénoncer le vandalisme qui met en danger ces trésors de l’humanité et qui a obligé, par exemple, les découvreurs de la grotte de Lascaut à créer une grotte artificielle pour satisfaire le public : toucher les peintures avec ses doigts ; essayer de renforcer leur couleur en les mouillant ; marquer leur pourtour avec un crayon feutre ou même à papier ; sans parler des vols, notamment dans les tombes. « Autant d’hérésies qui me font frémir quand on sait combien le Sahara et particulièrement le Maroc ont été peu explorés jusqu’à présent ! » s’indigne-t-il.

Préserver les sites archéologiques

Pour conjurer une histoire personnelle tourmentée dont cet ancien communiste qui participa aux combats syndicaux de 1936 s’est « libéré » dans ses deux premiers romans (Le Pied-Noir et Sofia, l’insoumise, édités à compte d’auteur et en vente à Casablanca), tout en menant de front des recherches historiques de longue haleine sur son pays d’adoption, « Monsieur Robert » a consacré un ouvrage entier à la protohistoire du Sud marocain. Actuellement en cours de réédition afin d’y inclure les découvertes de Tan-Tan, il réitère la thèse d’une influence scandinave sur la métallurgie du cuivre dans les montagnes de l’Anti-Atlas à l’âge du bronze. Car, en plus d’être écrivain, historien et archéologue, Robert Letan est aussi métallurgiste. Sa principale découverte, il la doit à une affectation à Irhem, dans les monts de l’Anti-Atlas, qui regorgent de mines de cuivre dans lesquelles il a mis au jour une grande profusion de peintures rupestres. « A tel point que, là où il y avait des gravures, on pouvait être sûr qu’il y avait une mine. » Pour lui, le commerce du cuivre s’est produit avant et pendant l’âge du bronze. Les « hommes rouges venus du cœur de la mer », dont parlent les anciens manuscrits hébreux du haut Draa, étaient probablement les ancêtres des Vikings, les Dan’s, qui sont venus chercher jusque dans le Sud marocain la matière première dont ils avaient besoin pour forger leurs armes. L’usage du cuivre s’est développé vers 3000 avant Jésus-Christ autour du bassin méditerranéen, contribuant ainsi à l’idée qu’une extension de la civilisation s’est effectuée depuis le Moyen-Orient vers l’ouest. Mais, avec l’épuisement des gisements, les peuples scandinaves sont venus se ravitailler toujours plus au sud, d’abord sur le site d’Almeria, en Espagne, avant de remonter le fleuve Draa (entre 500 avant Jésus-Christ et 500 après), jusqu’à Zagora, où convergeaient les lingots de cuivre et l’ambre. « L’incursion des Vikings dans la vallée du Draa ne s’est faite qu’après leur conversion au christianisme, probablement en même temps que leurs raids sur le sud de l’Espagne et le nord du Maroc. Ce qui permet aussi de dater cette mystérieuse Seita, reine chrétienne, dont parlent les manuscrits hébreux, qui pourrait être l’ancêtre des Touaregs. »

Peuple mystérieux aux yeux des conquérants arabes et des explorateurs occidentaux, les Touaregs puisent leurs origines dans la civilisation berbère saharienne. Le mythe d’Amamellen, concepteur d’une écriture propre, ancêtre du tifinagh, renvoie à une écriture cunéiforme non sans similitude avec celle qui est exposée au Musée national, à Copenhague. Quant au mythe fondateur des femmes, il dit que la reine Ti-n-Hinan (« Celle des tentes ») et sa servante Takama, venues du Tafilalet (Maroc) sur leur méhari blanc, auraient trouvé à leur arrivée dans l’Ahaggar un peuple primitif, les Isebaten, avec lequel elles auraient eu des filles. Ainsi, les tribus nobles du Hoggar descendraient des trois filles de Ti-n-Hinan, alors que celles de Takama seraient les mères des tribus vassales. Selon cette légende, Ti-n-Hinan aurait été enterrée au Ve siècle, bien avant l’arrivée de l’islam dans le Sahara. D’elle, les Touaregs auraient hérité leur langue en plus d’une société matriarcale organisée selon un mode tribal. La recherche de la berbérité, Lahoucine Faouzi, 32 ans, en a fait la clef de son succès. Pour cet explorateur originaire d’Agadir, grand amoureux du désert et de la vie nomade, le jackpot est arrivé avec la diffusion en 2001 à la télévision marocaine, pour la première fois en langue amazigh, d’un long-métrage que sa maison de production, Faouzi Vision, a produit et réalisé. « Quand j’ai proposé une série de 24 documentaires dans le cadre d’une nouvelle émission consacrée au voyage, Amouddou, la RTM (Radio-Télévision marocaine) a signé tout de suite », raconte-t-il. Le premier épisode, Mémoire de Tagmoute, qui raconte l’histoire d’un village préhistorique, véritable légende vivante à cause de la présence de pierres rupestres, de greniers anciens et du tombeau du prophète Daniel, a reçu le prix du meilleur réalisateur au Festival du Caire en juillet 2002. Grand amateur de spéléologie, Lahoucine Faouzi a fondé en 1996 avec quelques amis une association regroupant une trentaine de membres, ce qui lui a permis d’explorer un grand nombre de grottes. « Il était normal que nous nous intéressions aux peintures rupestres », explique Aziz Iguiss, président de l’association et fonctionnaire au ministère des Finances. Passionné de préhistoire, il a poussé pour qu’une émission d’Amouddou soit consacrée aux peintures d’Azguer, qu’il considère comme un « patrimoine unique pour l’archéologie marocaine ». Avec la complicité de Robert Letan, Faouzi Vision a monté une nouvelle expédition à Tan-Tan, en novembre 2003. « L’initiative de ces jeunes gens est la bienvenue parce qu’elle va susciter des vocations. On manque de volontaires au Maroc pour entreprendre des fouilles », commente l’intéressé.

Des liens étroits entre la berbérité et la négritude

L’expédition s’est mise en route avec la bénédiction du khalifa de M’seied, très fier de montrer une inscription en tifinagh évoquant des temps récents où les éléphants vivaient encore à Tazzout Ouarkziz. Une fois sur place, elle s’est glissée sous les abris en plein désert, rampant du mieux qu’elle le pouvait. La diffusion de la lumière, l’exiguïté du passage, la raréfaction de l’air, tout cela formait comme un halo magique autour des fragiles pictogrammes millénaires. Robert Letan semblait avoir retrouvé la dextérité de ses 20 ans. Il était intarissable. Sous le charme, on franchissait allègrement les siècles. On s’étonnait des formes stéatopyges - le développement d’une masse graisseuse dans la région du sacrum et des fesses - des personnages représentés, la plupart nus, avec un étui pénien, dansant autour d’animaux. S’agissait-il de Bochimans en provenance d’Afrique méridionale, voire de Hottentots ou de Bantous ? L’existence de barrières naturelles difficilement franchissables rendait cette hypothèse peu probable. Même si les danseurs d’Azguer confirment que, à l’instar de ceux dont on a découvert les traces dans des gisements néolithiques du Sud tunisien, algérien ou marocain, des pasteurs négroïdes auraient pu s’établir dans la vallée du Draa, restée très fertile après l’assèchement intervenu au IIIe millénaire avant Jésus-Christ.

Plus important pour Robert Letan, la présence de chars peints, qui, contrairement à ceux qui ont été retrouvés dans le Sahara central, ne sont pas attelés. Ce type de char « à traction humaine » renforce selon lui l’hypothèse selon laquelle les peintures d’Azguer seraient plus récentes qu’il n’y paraît - « une date proche du bronze final européen ». Si ces chars sont essentiellement destinés au transport du cuivre, comme il l’affirme, il est alors possible de penser que ces populations (noires) ont été en contact avec des constructeurs de mégalithes de surface (les Vikings) venus du nord de l’Europe. Dans son ouvrage consacré aux Premiers Berbères. Entre Méditerranée, Tassili et Nil, l’Algérienne Malika Hachid, directrice du Parc national du Tassili des Ajjer, affirme qu’il existe « des liens bien plus étroits qu’on ne l’aurait pensé entre la berbérité et la négritude ». Selon elle, les Libyens et les Ethiopiens d’hier seraient les Touaregs et les Izzegaren-Harratine d’aujourd’hui. Les peintures d’Azguer viennent rajouter à la mosaïque humaine complexe du Sahara les juifs yéménites et les populations nordiques christianisées qui, à l’époque des métallurgistes ayant précédé l’islamisation, auraient pu contribuer au chaînon manquant de la berbérité.

Post-scriptum
Pour mieux défendre les gravures rupestres contre les pilleurs, l’Institut national des sciences de l’archéologie et du patrimoine, à Rabat, a créé un parc naturel. De son côté, l’Unesco étudie un projet destiné à développer un tourisme durable au Sahara occidental.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Again you have your places times and peoples all jumbled up.

And isn't it obvious that African populations are
are the basis of particular linqual-ethnies of Africa?

Neither is any one sole ethny "the basis of the populations from the Eastern Africa who originally migrated across the Sahara and eventually entered Mauretania."

So what's your point?

My point is those Zenaga images match the TMHHW
images by the characteristics I outlined. None
of the other pics you posted of eastern Africans
does so nowhere nearly identically as the Zenaga do.

quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
^^What I was posting is the fact that Black African populations are the basis of Berber culture and language who spread across the Sahara from East Africa. These populations share traits with SOME Sudanic, Ethiopic and Nilotic populations, particularly those like the Beja. Whatever the Tehenu looked like, creamy, tan or polka dot, they are NOT the basis of the populations from the Eastern Africa who originally migrated across the Sahara and eventually entered Mauretania.


 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
I'm talking about TMHHW. Why do you keep referring
to THHNW? Anyway you need to understand the Tehenu
were not creamy but similarly complexioned to the AEs.

quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
... Whatever the Tehenu looked like, creamy, tan or polka dot, ... the Tehenu, creamy complexioned or otherwise ... As for the facial features, profiles, hair styles and other attributes of the Tehenu,


 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Listen. No iMazighen ever destroyed Tichitt-Walata,
Wagadu, or Songhai. Get that big fat myth out your
mind.

And really you need to sit down and compile a timeline
of peoples and their cultures region by region because
you've got it all so very mixed up that all you're doing
is spreading confusion about the history of the region
between Mema and the Atlantic and the Adrar to


quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
... it is not necessarily true that this entrance into Mauretania was responsible for the destruction of Tichitt Walata because it probably occurred in a period long before the introduction of Islam and the eventual destruction of Walatta. It was after the Arabization/Islamization of Berber speaking groups that they began to be against animist African groups. To be clear, the entrance of Berber speakers into Mauretania was long before the introduction of Islam and therefore cannot be equated with the nature of the interactions between these groups AFTER the Islamization of these groups.



 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:

I meant precisely what I wrote.

Please take the time to compare and contrast the
pictured Zenaga with the Seti I tomb TMHHW for:
* Facial profile - straight (orthognous)
* Chin - tufted goatee beard
* Hair - thick locks
* Nose - thin nostrils, well defined bridge
* Face - gaunt (narrow)
* Body - slim wiry build

There's a vast plethora of phenotypes between and
among "Sudanic, Nilotic and Ethiopic Africans."
Don't be overly simplistic in lumping so many
peoples into a category only a handfull actually
fit.

I understand the similarities between the TMHW and the Zenaga, although such features held in common was what was called 'caucasoid' by Western scholars (still is by some). But of course the main difference was skin color. I notice you use the term "cream colored" to denote teh TMHW. I'm going to be real and just call it like it is-- they were depicted as white! Of course NO African population truly and wholly indigenous to the continent is of that color. But since we have modern day white Berber speakers like the Kabyle and Riff, do you not think it possible a connection? Sure modern day Kabyle and Riff don't wear such style of hair or clothes today, but what of a couple of millennia ago??
 
Posted by Sundiata (Member # 13096) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
Dr. Winters,

This article has been copied to several websites and I was going to translate it. But, changed my mind.


Well here's the translated version:


Vikings in the Moroccan South?


Before the Islamization of Morocco, men of Northern Europe would have come, by the sea, in the south of the country to the research of the copper which they needed to forge their weapons. A thesis that the recent discovery of funerary megaliths and cave paintings seems to accredit


It was in July 2001. Fatimatou Malika bent Benata had planted its khaïma, the decorated tent which the nomads of the Sahara affectionnent, with the accesses of the well of Aouinet Azguer. Arrived at narrowest of the valley, where the gazelles leave the trace of their legs in sand, it had started to seek a shelter: the sun knocked extremely and it feared that its young person sons does not take a blow of heat. It had ended up slipping, with the child, under one of these rock tables which cut out cliff like as many sections of cake. Which was not then its surprise to see, painted on the ceiling, of the drawings in a perfect state of conservation. There were naked men, armed with an arc, dancing around an ox - azguer, into Berber, means ox - and all kinds of savage animals: antelopes, ibexes, roe-deers, cat-like, elephants, ostriches. Who was the artist who had realized of so pretty drawings red blood stone in a place also not very favourable with the dwelling and with when all that could it go up well? Fatimatou was perplexed. Its first reflex had been to erase these paintings with water. It had not succeeded in diluting them. It had then smelled confusedly that the scenes which followed one another as it slipped under the rock returned to rites going up to the night of times.

“Where there were engravings, one could be sure that there was a mine”

Of return to the village of Me seied, it hastens to alert the khalifa Babouzaid el-Mghafri, which, in its turn, prevents the caïd, which informs the governor of the province of Tan-Tan. Once the informed authorities of Reduction, the “photographs” that the Fatimatou nomad discovered by chance with the ceiling of his rock shelter start to cause covetousnesses. The khalifa of Me seied, a sympathetic nerve quinquagénaire which became later “discoverer” of prehistoric art, informs a journalist author of several guides specialized on the tracks of Morocco, Jacques Gandini, of the existence of the cave paintings. This last, which is buckling one of its works on this area, decides to assemble a forwarding. It invites to join him a French archaeologist installed since nearly sixty years in Morocco, Robert Letan. In addition to paintings, exceptional for the area - until now, in fact primarily engravings were found in this Western part of the Sahara, contrary to Algerian Tassili or Chadian Tibesti - they will discover, in the higher part of the wadi of Chebeika, forty constructions and megalithic structures in form of crescents of great dimension. The presence of these tumulus “géoglyphes” - rather similar to those inventoried by Theodore Monod in 1948, whom one finds in all Moroccan Sahara and Mauritanian - is another major lucky find. These discoveries start again fears of plunderings. Except prohibiting the access of the sites to the researchers, the national Center of the rupestral inheritance, in Marrakech, which depends on the ministry for the Culture and the Communication, does not have indeed the means of controlling the zone. Jacques Gandini is criticized to have published co-ordinates GPS of paintings of Azguer and Robert Letan to have commented on them in the Aujourd'hui daily newspaper Morocco… They are defended, by interposed press. “The promotion of the area, estimates Jacques Gandini, prevails on archaeological considerations.” It affirms to have received the downstream of the ministry for Tourism and the support of the governors of area to say all it although it thinks of the some 350 prehistoric sites listed of Morocco.

At 82 years, Robert Letan keeps good foot, good eye when it is about crapahuter on archeological sites. The right manhole, the nostril pinch and the cap firmly rivetted on the head as soon as it leaves at his place, this soldier of colonial artillery, ex-serviceman of the Second World war, passed his life to excavate the stony deserts of the Atlas and the Anti-Atlas. “At the time, we had neither the comfort of one 4 X 4 air-conditioned nor the safety of the GPS”, remembers it. For this native of Lorraine, which belongs to a generation of autodidacts forced to leave the benches of the school “to learn how to kill! ”, Africa, and more particularly Morocco, where it arrived in 1944, awoke an inextinguishable thirst: that of a search of the origins that its work in the mines still sharpened. “To know the history of humanity reassures us, opens ways to us, because it relativizes panics to come, shows us that the end of the world is not for tomorrow. Ultimately, the engineer always gains on the merchant!” it insisted, at the time of a conference aiming at explaining to his/her colleagues the rupestral art underestimated too a long time in Africa, whereas it forms part, according to him, of the first steps of the writing. Its goal? To help the Moroccan authorities to develop “intelligent” tourism, which makes it possible to preserve the archeological sites while authorizing the populations to benefit from the repercussions from discovered of which they are often despoiled or the last with being informed. “Without my writings, never one would not have allotted the lucky find of paintings of Tan-Tan to a nomad!” he says proudly. Even if it is the first to denounce the vandalism which endangers these treasures of the humanity and which obliged, for example, discoverers of the cave of Lascaut to create an artificial cave to satisfy the public: to touch paintings with its fingers; to try to reinforce their color by wetting them; to mark their circumference with a felt-tip pen or even with paper; without speaking about the flights, in particular in the tombs. “As many heresies which make me quiver when one knows how much the Sahara and particularly Morocco were explored little until now!” be indignant it.

To preserve the archeological sites

To entreat a tormented personal history whose this former Communist who took part in the trade-union combat of 1936 “is released” in his the first two novels (the Pied-noir one and Sofia, the unsubdued one, published on account of author and on sale in Casablanca), while carrying out face of long-term historical research on his country of adoption, “Mr Robert” devoted a whole work to the protohistoire Moroccan South. Currently in the course of republication in order to include the discoveries of Tan-Tan there, it reiterates the thesis of a Scandinavian influence on the metallurgy of copper in the mountains of the Anti-Atlas at the age of bronze. Because, in addition to being a writer, historian and archaeologist, Robert Letan is a also metallurgist. Its principal discovery, it owes it with an assignment with Irhem, in the mounts of the Anti-Atlas, which abounds in copper mines in which it put at the day a great profusion of cave paintings. “So much so that, where there were engravings, one could be sure that there was a mine.” For him, the trade of copper occurred before and during the age of bronze. The “red men come from the heart of the sea”, whose the old Hebrew manuscripts speak about high Draa, were probably ancestors of the Vikings, the daN' S, which came to seek until in the Moroccan South the raw material which they needed to forge their weapons. The use of copper developed towards 3000 before Jesus-Christ around the Mediterranean basin, thus contributing to the idea that an extension of civilization was carried out from the Middle East towards the west. But, with the exhaustion of the layers, the Scandinavian people came to supply themselves always more in the south, initially on the site of Almeria, in Spain, before going up the Draa river (between 500 before Jesus-Christ and 500 afterwards), until Zagora, where the copper ingots and amber converged. “The incursion of the Vikings into the valley of Draa was done only after their conversion with Christianity, probably at the same time as their raids to the south of Spain and the north of Morocco. What also makes it possible to date this mysterious Seita, Christian queen, about which speak the Hebrew manuscripts, which could be the ancestor of the Tuaregs.”

Mysterious people with the eyes of the Arab conquerors and the Western explorers, the Tuaregs draw their origins in Saharan Berber civilization. The myth of Amamellen, originator of a clean writing, ancestor of the tifinagh, returns to a wedge-shaped writing not without similarity with that which is exposed to the national Museum, to Copenhagen. As for the myth founder of the women, he says that the queen Ti-N-Hinan (“That of the tents”) and its Takama maidservant, come from Tafilalet (Morocco) on their méhari white, would have found on their arrival in Ahaggar primitive people, Isebaten, with which they would have had girls. Thus, the noble tribes of Hoggar would go down from the three Ti-N-Hinan girls, whereas those of Takama would be the mothers of the vassal tribes. According to this legend, Ti-N-Hinan would have been buried in Ve century, well before the arrival of Islam in the Sahara. It, the Tuaregs would have inherited their language in addition to one company matriarcale organized according to a tribal mode. The research of the berberity, Lahoucine Faouzi, 32 years, made the key of its success of it. For this explorer originating in Agadir, large in love with the desert and wandering life, the jackpot arrived with the diffusion in 2001 on television Moroccan, for the first time in language amazigh, of a feature film that its house of production, Faouzi Vision, produced and realized. “When I proposed a series of 24 documentary within the framework of a new emission devoted to the voyage, Amouddou, the RTM (Moroccan Radio-television) signed immediately”, tells it. The first episode, Memory of Tagmoute, which tells the history of a prehistoric village, true alive legend because of the presence of rupestral stones, old attics and the tomb of the Daniel prophet, received the price of the best realizer to the Festival of Cairo in July 2002. Large amateur of speleology, Lahoucine Faouzi founded in 1996 with some friends an association gathering about thirty members, which enabled him to explore a great number of caves. “It was normal that we are interested in the cave paintings”, explains Aziz Iguiss, president of association and civil servant to the ministry for Finances. Impassioned prehistory, it pushed so that an emission of Amouddou is devoted to paintings of Azguer, that it regards as a “single inheritance for Moroccan archaeology”. With the complicity of Robert Letan, Faouzi Vision assembled a new forwarding to Tan-Tan, in November 2003. “The initiative of these young people is the welcome because it will cause vocations. One misses volunteers in Morocco to undertake excavations”, comments on the interested party.

Close links between the berberity and the négritude

Forwarding got under way with the blessing of the khalifa of Me seied, very proud to show an inscription in tifinagh evoking recent times when the elephants still lived in Tazzout Ouarkziz. Once on the spot, it slipped under the shelters in full desert, crawling of best than it could it. The diffusion of the light, the exiguity of the passage, the rarefaction of the air, all that formed like a magic halation around the fragile thousand-year-old pictograms. Robert Letan seemed to have found the dexterity of his 20 years. He was inexhaustible. Under the charm, one crossed the centuries briskly. One was astonished by the forms stéatopyges - the development of a lubricating mass in the area of the sacrum and the buttocks - characters represented, the majority naked, with a case pénien, dancing around animals. Was it about Bochimans coming from southernmost Africa, even of Hottentots or Bantous? The existence of not easily passable natural barriers made this assumption not very probable. Even if the dancers of Azguer like confirm that, those which one discovered the traces in Neolithic layers of the Tunisian South, Algerian or Moroccan, pastors négroïdes could have been established in the valley of Draa, remained very fertile after the draining occurred in thousand-year-old IIIe before Jesus-Christ.

More important for Robert Letan, the presence of painted tanks, which, contrary to those which were found in the central Sahara, are not harnessed. This type of tank “with human traction” reinforces according to him the assumption according to which paintings of Azguer would be more recent than it does not appear to with it - “a date close to European final bronze”. If these tanks are primarily intended for the transport of copper, as it affirms it, it is then possible to think that these populations (black) were in liaison with manufacturers of megaliths of surface (Vikings) come from the north of Europe. In its work devoted to the First Berber ones. Between the Mediterranean, Tassili and the Nile, Algerian Malika Hachid, director of the National park of Tassili of Ajjer, affirm that there are “links much closer than one would have thought it between the berberity and the négritude”. According to it, the Libyans and the Ethiopian ones of yesterday would be the Tuaregs and Izzegaren-Harratine of today. Paintings of Azguer come to add with the human mosaic complexes of the Sahara the Yemeni Jews and the christianized Scandinavian populations which, at the time of the metallurgists having preceded Islamization, could have contributed to the missing link of the berberity.

Postscript
For better defending rupestral engravings against the plunderers, the national Institute of sciences of archaeology and the inheritance, in Rabat, created a natural reserve. On its side, UNESCO studies a project intended to develop durable tourism in the Western Sahara.
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 

 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
No I don't.
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:

since we have modern day white Berber speakers like the Kabyle and Riff, do you not think it possible a connection?

And why are you proliferating the inaccurate outmoded
caucasoid concept? Do we have to dig up Manansala's
Anthropology Primer again for those who still cling
onto the fallacy?

Let the record hereby show that YOU, not I, call these
features caucasoid even though the two populations I'm
comparing are both African not from the Caucasus or
anywhere near there, Acacus notwithstanding.

quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:

* Facial profile - straight (orthognous)
* Chin - tufted goatee beard
* Hair - thick locks
* Nose - thin nostrils, well defined bridge
* Face - gaunt (narrow)
* Body - slim wiry build

... such features held in common was what was called 'caucasoid' ...
A population is indigenous or not indigenous. There's
no sliding scale of degrees 0% to 100%. Herodotus,
a full 700 years after the creamy coloured TMHHW of
the Seti I tomb painting, recognized two indigenous
Libyan (African) populations; Libyan (Mediterranean
littoral Africans) and Aithiopian (inner Africans).
By then the Libyans had totally absorbed all the Sea
Peoples or Trojan War refugees who settled west of
ancient Egypt. He even noted such descent among certain
Libyan ethnies yet he doesn't qualify them as partially
indigenous and neither do I.
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
... they were depicted as white! Of course NO African population truly and wholly indigenous to the continent is of that color.

It's not so much the style as the inherent quality.

quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
... Kabyle and Riff don't wear such style of hair ...

Sorry, I won't indulge this kind of "what if" speculation
because it isn't based on anything.
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:

but what of a couple of millennia ago??

--------------------------------------
truth is prism refracted fact
i'm just another point of view
--------------------------------------
 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
Again you have your places times and peoples all jumbled up.

And isn't it obvious that African populations are
are the basis of particular linqual-ethnies of Africa?

Neither is any one sole ethny "the basis of the populations from the Eastern Africa who originally migrated across the Sahara and eventually entered Mauretania."

So what's your point?

My point is those Zenaga images match the TMHHW
images by the characteristics I outlined. None
of the other pics you posted of eastern Africans
does so nowhere nearly identically as the Zenaga do.

quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
^^What I was posting is the fact that Black African populations are the basis of Berber culture and language who spread across the Sahara from East Africa. These populations share traits with SOME Sudanic, Ethiopic and Nilotic populations, particularly those like the Beja. Whatever the Tehenu looked like, creamy, tan or polka dot, they are NOT the basis of the populations from the Eastern Africa who originally migrated across the Sahara and eventually entered Mauretania.


I understand your point.

What I am saying is that the tehemu are PART of an African cultural pattern, but NOT the start of it. To understand the origins, spread and distributions of the specific patterns you mentioned in terms of hairstyle,dress and other characteristics, one must go to a time prior to the beginnings of the Temehu. The point being that by the time of the tamehu in all their colors, there was already a pattern of culture and existence that had long been established in Africa. Therefore, just because we have pictures of the Tamehu in Egyptian art, does not mean that this signals the beginnings of the cultural traits and practices that we see in those images, in terms of dress, hairstyle or other cultural characteristics. Yes, the Tamehu are part of this tradition, but when you get to Mauretania and the basis of such traditions there, you would be missing the point to immediately jump at the Tamehu to explain such common traits, as opposed to an older African complex from which BOTH groups are derived. That is what I am getting at. The tamehu were the northermost expression of this cultural tradition, but the populations that entered Mauretania more likely came from the Sahara and Eastern Africa than the extreme north of the continent.

And Al Takruri, I think you are absolutely on point in noticing the similarities between the Mauretanian Zenaga and the Tamehu from Egyptian portraits.

And in all honesty I think you are talking about the ancient stone age family of the lush Sahara, which was responsible for the development of many cultures and civilizations across Africa.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:

No I don't.

Why not? The Kabyle and Riff are 'white' peoples of North Africa who speak and/or practice African culture. The Tmhw appear to be the same way.

quote:
And why are you proliferating the inaccurate outmoded caucasoid concept? Do we have to dig up Manansala's Anthropology Primer again for those who still cling onto the fallacy?
[Eek!] [Confused] What makes you think I am somehow "promoting" that absurd Eurocentric racial (racist) concept?? Notice that I put quotations around the term. And for that reason, NO we don't have to bring up any anthropological assessment on the term or about the diversity of human cranio-facial features, let alone those displayed among indigenous Africans!

[Embarrassed] Why bring up Manansala as a recommendation to me? Because I share an common ethnic background as a Filipino?? I would prefer to go straight to the source that is Keita even though he is a black African.

quote:
Let the record hereby show that YOU, not I, call these features caucasoid even though the two populations I'm comparing are both African not from the Caucasus or anywhere near there, Acacus notwithstanding.
And let the record, or more precisely MY record on this forum show that I have never ascribed to the Eurocentric racist notion of K-zoid! And may I again point out the very record of my post, which clearly has the word in quotes and which also states (Djehuti states): "was called 'caucasoid' by Western scholars (still is by some)..." which I noticed you conveniently left out in your strange accusation of me!

quote:
A population is indigenous or not indigenous. There's no sliding scale of degrees 0% to 100%. Herodotus, a full 700 years after the creamy coloured TMHHW of the Seti I tomb painting, recognized two indigenous Libyan (African) populations; Libyan (Mediterranean littoral Africans) and Aithiopian (inner Africans). By then the Libyans had totally absorbed all the Sea Peoples or Trojan War refugees who settled west of ancient Egypt. He even noted such descent among certain Libyan ethnies yet he doesn't qualify them as partially indigenous and neither do I.
Of course, what I meant was aboriginal. That a white population aboriginal to the African continent exists, or ever had. This fact not including any foreign entry or admixture.

quote:
It's not so much the style as the inherent quality.
Well a couple of thousand years can make a big difference in the quality of a people's appearance.

quote:
Sorry, I won't indulge this kind of "what if" speculation because it isn't based on anything.
It's based on simple observation, as all conjectures or hypotheses are. That is all that I am making.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Djehuti

There was no need to mention that the set of features
I listed were caucasoid. By unwarrantedly bringing up
the word you keep it in memory and in that sense you promote it.

This is a lesson in dialectic. That's all. Not painting
you to be retentive.

Why Manansala? Because he wrote PMK's Anthropology
Primer (or whatever it's called) wherein he gives
the perfect foil debunking the caucasoid myth.

I could care less that you're Filipino as far as
this forum goes. However I don't believe a non
African like Paul should be 'lord' over an African
list.

And I meant the quality of the hair. The Zenaga,
from as much as I can tell from the photo, seem
to have the exact same hair quality as Seti I
TMHHW. Varying and at once wavy thick and nappy.

Sorry to git you barkin' but you know you my dawg. [Cool]
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Whoa. Hold it right there. Don't put words in my mouth.

Did I do something I'm unaware of?

Where did I explain one by way of the other?
What did I actually write about the two groups?


quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
but when you get to Mauretania and the basis of such traditions there, you would be missing the point to immediately jump at the Tamehu to explain such common traits,


 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Have I ever wrote otherwise?


quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
... the populations that entered Mauretania more likely came from the Sahara and Eastern Africa than the extreme north of the continent.



 
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
^^Its all gravy baby. Afro grooves got longevity and all kinds of fun flavas.
 
Posted by Quetzalcoatl (Member # 12742) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
quote:
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
[


These Mauretanians at Tichitt and other settlements are believed to have been Mande speakers, not Berber speakers.


. Could you give me a quote for this with a reference? Augustin Holl . 1985. "Subsistence Patterns of the Dhar Tichitt Neolithic, Mauritania," [italics] The African Archaeological Review[/italics] 3:151-162 and --- 2002. "Time, Space, and Image Making:Rock Art from the Dhar Tichitt (Mauritania)," [italics]The African Archaeological Review[/italics] 19(2): 75-118. does not name any group as the settlers of Dhar Tichitt. He says that the Berbers came after these settlements were abandoned.
Thanks

You can go and read some of the research of P.J. Munson, one of the original excavators at Tichitt. Munson (1980) based his conclusion that the Soninke founded Tichitt on the dwellings, storehouses and pottery he excavated at Tichitt which resembled Diawara or Soninke material (see: pp.462-463).

Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana Empire, by Patrick J. Munson
The Journal of African History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1980), pp. 457-466

You can obtain the article at JSTOR.

.
.

Thanks for the reference. I did get it from JSTOR and read it. I e-mailed Augustin Holl to see if Munson was still accepted since Holl did not cite him. I got a reply today. he is in the field and apologized for not being able to provide a fuller answer but he wrote that:
"I wish I could give you a simple and straighforward answer to your query but there is none; P. Munson assessment is based on the 'accepted" wisdom that make the Dhar Tichitt the craddle of the Soninke but there are really no serious evidence to back that suggestion." and "The claim of proto-Soninke homeland is not too farfetched but the reasoning is literally circular. I am very very sorry for the shallowness of what I can say about that important question but it is better to be cautious in this case."
 
Posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT (Member # 14023) on :
 
I don't remember where exactly were posted pictures of Tehenu before, but here is another from Malika Hachid's book "Les Premiers Berbères" (2000):

 -
Closer look, see:
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/328/tehenuhachid1ia6.jpg

I remember someone pointing out the resemblance of the symbol on the tHnw headdress with the Egyptian uraeus. Well, it seems that it was worn by tHnw noblewomen as well, but not by children.

 -
Hachid claims the same crossed symbol found among modern Berbers (mostly among warriors) as a symbol of manhood and Ancient "Libyans" is a continuation of it, also pointing out that it was also worn until recently by some Tuareg & "Moroccan" women.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Can you give us a close up of those Tehenu?

And why is it that all the images you give us as well as other tomb scenes are all outlined illustrations? Where are the actual tomb paintings??
 
Posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT (Member # 14023) on :
 
 -
 -
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Thanks Cotonou, but from what tomb is that scene from? And are there any actual photos of that tomb or other tombs depicting Tehenu? In all my years spent in this forum I still haven't seen any actual color renditions or even actual photos of tomb paintings depicting Tehenu. [Frown]
 
Posted by Mystery Solver (Member # 9033) on :
 
Another repro, supposedly of that found in the temple of King Sahure:

 -

Attire is consistent with that just posted above by Cotonou.
 
Posted by Neith-Athena (Member # 10040) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:


According to Sallust, who supports himself upon the authority of Heimpsal, the Carthaginian historian, “North Africa was first occupied by Libyans and Getulians, who were a barbarous people, a heterogeneous mass, or agglomeration of people of different races, without any form of religion or government, nourishing themselves on herbs, or devouring the raw flesh of animals killed in the chase; for first amongst these were found Blacks, probably some from the interior of Africa, and belonging to the great negro family; then whites, issue of the Semitic stock, who apparently constituted, even at that early period, the dominant race or caste. Later, but at an epoch absolutely unknown, a new horde of Asiatics,” says Sallust, “of Medes, Persians, and Armenians, invaded the countries of the Atlas, and, led on by Hercules, pushed their conquests as far as Spain.” 48


From: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/richardson/james/morocco/chapter10.html
Do you know where in Sallust this quote is from? I doubt that he used such terminology as "Negro" or "Semite," and that these terms have probably been added by biased modern translators.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ LOL Neith-Athena, do you have to ask? [Wink]

By the way, Cotonou can you answer my questions?
 
Posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT (Member # 14023) on :
 
Djehuti:
The repros are from Sahure's tomb.

Never came across any painted pics of Tehenu, but here a actual pic of a Tehenu depiction:
 -


Also, does anyone know how widespread is the use of crossed bandouliers in Africa? I'm still a bit skeptical about Hachid's claims of continuity between Tehenu and Tuareg regarding such similarities.
 
Posted by Mystery Solver (Member # 9033) on :
 
^Got a better closeup of the photo on that book?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Is there any continuity at all between any Berber group and the Tehenu??
 
Posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT (Member # 14023) on :
 
Mystery Solver:
Huh...Actually Sall 1999 cites this picture as depicting "Tekhenou (Egyptian Western neighbours)" after Zyghlarz 1958 but I'm wondering if this wasn't depicting the Tekenu character which was ritually sacrificed by AE.
Anyway the quality of the picture in that book wasn't good at all.

I remember a pic from Sahure's tomb from Bates 1914, but it was not in color.

Does anyone actually have seen exact references of colored pics of Tehenu or scholarly descriptions of Tehenu being depicted in colors?

Thanks in advance.

Djehuti:
One of the most striking similarity Hachid claim as a proof of cultural continuity between Berbers and THnw is the crossed bandouliers war symbol mostly worn by Tuareg. What do you think about it?
 
Posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT (Member # 14023) on :
 
^^Don't seem that specific to me as show most precolonial Fon (modern Benin) wall hangings depicting war scenes:

 -

 -

 -
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT:

Mystery Solver:
Huh...Actually Sall 1999 cites this picture as depicting "Tekhenou (Egyptian Western neighbours)" after Zyghlarz 1958 but I'm wondering if this wasn't depicting the Tekenu character which was ritually sacrificed by AE.
Anyway the quality of the picture in that book wasn't good at all.

You mean the Tehenu were sarcrificed by Egyptians?! Could you please explain?

quote:
I remember a pic from Sahure's tomb from Bates 1914, but it was not in color.

Does anyone actually have seen exact references of colored pics of Tehenu or scholarly descriptions of Tehenu being depicted in colors?

Thanks in advance.

My questions and sentiments exactly!! I have been asking for colored pictures of Tehenu for a long time now!

quote:
Djehuti:
One of the most striking similarity Hachid claim as a proof of cultural continuity between Berbers and THnw is the crossed bandouliers war symbol mostly worn by Tuareg. What do you think about it?

Do be honest I don't know. It could be evidence of shared if not direct ancestry from Tehenu. I just don't know much about Berber culture to make any conclusions.

Here are pictutres of a Mauritanian man (I assume to be Berber) that Doug found which bears a striking reslemblance not only to Tehenu but even 'white' Tamahou in hairstyle.

 -  -
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
By the way, can anyone tell me who the prisoners below are identified as, if they were not all Libyans?

 -
 
Posted by Whatbox (Member # 10819) on :
 
What about the Siwa Berbers?

dazzling, sparkling, to dye something blue .. wouldn't have possibly referred to their ancestors?
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ I don't know. The It's only pure speculation that the reference is to 'Tuareg' or proto-tuareg people.
 
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
 
"WoW" that's uncanny looks like a scene out of the nile valley,The quilt/patchwork Fon battle scene.
 
Posted by The Gaul (Member # 16198) on :
 
UP.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT:

 -
 -

^ The crossbandaliers worn by the Tehenu remind me of descriptions by early Greeks of the Gorgon Amazons of Libya who were said to be the first Amazons. They were described as black women who wore short leather skirts and bands of large snake skin that criss-crossed their breasts.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Doesn't the inscription above the center figure read PWn.y:nwt(+w+t)?
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Oops, my bad. That's WN(+n).y.
 
Posted by The Explorer (Member # 14778) on :
 
^I don't see a glyph for "P" in the script in question. From what I can see, it reads something along the lines of WsA(a)wn(n)i.n(wt)+tfs [the "( )" bracket enclosures here denote signs which were seemingly put in place as complementary phonograms to assist in determining the phonological nature or pronounciation of the "fore-word" or else determinative].

Btw, "nwt" is a determinative represented by the circle-looking sign, which would have otherwise faded beyond immediate recognition, had it not been for the supporting roles of the glyphs that follow it. The hieroglyphic signs for "wt" seem to be filling in the role of providing the reader with a clue about the phonological character of that circle-looking determinative that it succeeds.
 
Posted by Red, White, and Blue + Christian (Member # 10893) on :
 
http://www.temehu.com/Temehu.htm

The Temehu Tribes of Ancient Libya


Scene from the tomb of Seti I, Dynasty XIX.

Author: Nesmenser
Publisher: http://www.temehu.com

The following notes, prepared by www.temehu.com, may serve as a short introduction to the Libyan Berber Temehu tribes. For further information about the ancient Libyan Temehu (Temeh'w) and Tehenu people the reader can refer to the rare work of Oric Bates (The Eastern Libyans, London, 1914). The Ancient Egyptians called the land and the people west of the Nile Valley the Tehenu, whom appear to have been a numerous group, as attested by Egyptian references, such as "the countries of the Tehenu" and "the chiefs of the Tehenu". But since the Temehu were also referred to as "the Westerners", those who inhabited the area immediately west of the Nile, it becomes difficult to separate between the two Berber groups. Hence, according to Oric Bates, the ancient Egyptians often did not always discriminate between the Temehu (Tmh') and the Tehenu (Th'n).

Those writers who claimed that the Temehu tribes were comprised of two groups: the Tehenu in the north and the Nehesu in the south, were often confused and definitely misinformed, since according to the Egyptians themselves the Nehesu are a distinctive group, and in all probability what they meant to say was that the Libyans comprised two groups: the Tehenu in the north and the Temehu tribes in the south, and thus the Tehenu were rightly identified with Lower Egypt, and the Temehu with Middle-Nubia. This makes sound sense when one refers to the ancient Egyptian's classification of humankind:

The Egyptians divided the human race into four classes, namely the Egyptians, the A’mu (Semites), the Neh’esu (Nubians) and the Temeh’u (Temehu) in the country Tmh’ (Libyans). The Neh'esu refers to all Africans bordering Egypt from the south, like the Ethiopians; the Temehu covers all Africans bordering Egypt from the west; and the A'mu are obviously the Semites bordering Egypt from the east (of the Middle East), like the Akkadians and the Phoenicians, whom originally were also Saharan groups, split from the Afro-Asiatic family around the 5th millennium BC. Of course, modern genetic, anthropological and linguistic evidence conclusively relates both the Egyptians and the Libyans (and all the ancient Mediterranean peoples) to the Sahara and therefore this kind of genealogy is politically motivated and serves no purpose to our present enquiry, except in that it clearly shows the Nehesu as a separate group from the Temehu, and that the Temehu designates the whole of the Libyan peoples west of the Nile - that is all the Berbers or Imazighen including the Tehenu, the Ribu, the Nasamons, the Garamantes, etc, all of whom the Egyptians were aware of as Berber groups and collectively mentioned as Temehu. This is also apparent from the extent of the Temehu's territories, which, according to Bates, appears to have been comprised of various communities and tribes, occupying much of the Sudan and possibly all the way to Fezzan; and hence several scholars, starting from Oric Bates, have openly discussed the possibility of the Temehu being the distant ancestors of the present day Tuareg tribes of the great Sahara Desert (The Speakers of Tamaheqt), which now became Temezeght via *Temehaght > Temejeght > Temesheght > Temezeght > Tamazight (the language of the entire Berber population of North Africa currently spanning across 10 countries, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Chad).

Few years after the publication of Bates' unique book, The Times (20 March 1928) published a study drawing similarities between the Temehu and the images of prehistoric drawings found in the Air Mountain in the southern Sahara desert. This begs a simple question no one dared to ask, let alone answer: if the Temehu were recent sea-people invaders of Egypt (or of Libya, as it was known then), then how come the ancient Egyptians considered them the natives of both Egypt and Libya and why did they include them in their genealogy of humankind long before the arrival of the sea-people?

Surely the Egyptians knew enough about their neighbours not to confuse natives with foreign pirates as to include the latter in their classification of the human race! Like I have said, the Egyptian classification of the human race, and in that respect its later Biblical copy, serves no scientific purpose other than show the Temehu as a massive group inhabiting the whole of Libya (that is the whole of Africa west of Egypt), and thus this by itself is more than enough to put all other theories concerning the Temehu tribes out of their miseries. In speaking of the Biblical genealogy, the Biblical HAM (the African divinely-cursed son of Noah - see Genesis for more on this), appears to be no more than a metatheses of the older TMH. The point I am trying to illustrate here is that both the Egyptians and their later students must have based their written traditions on earlier and much older oral lore and as such the original classification myth must have been much older than the written version of the later pharaohs. This also means that " Internet chat experts " , who confuse the recent sea-people with the Libyan Tehenu and Temehu and subsequently made the Temehu a foreign blond group, are not only inaccurate crackpots but also committing a grave mistake, simply because we have plenty of evidence, most of which is prehistoric, to the fact that these Berber groups were natives to the area since pre-dynastic times. And to ignore this monumental evidence, or, like others had pointed out, to make it intentionally obscure, serves no purpose other than illustrate Amen-like motives!




The land of the Temehu tribe in ancient Libya extends all the way to the Nile. According to Herodotus Libya began west of the Nile.




The Delta was called Tameh'et, one interpretation of which is 'the lotus land', just as pictured by its hieroglyph of three lotus flowers rising from a circle (the sign for 'city'). In connection with Meh', a mention must be made of the Seven Wise Ones of the goddess Meh'-urt , who came from water at the feet of Nu or Nun, and who, in very early times, resided over the “weighing of words” in the Hall of Meh'-urt and thus rightly identified with Libyan Maat and Neith. This simple fact was known to many scholars and Egyptologists, like Sir Alan Gardiner who has noted that the name of the Libyan tribe Temeh'w means “Lower Egypt” as well as the “Delta”, whence mh's “the crown of Lower Egypt”. The ancient Egyptian Timhy (Tymhy) Stone of Wawat, found in one of the Egyptian lists of royal gifts, may indicate that the stones were of a particular type purveyed to the Egyptian by the Temehu. G. W. Murray (The Road to Chephren's Quarries) relates that the Temehu Libyans were employed in the labour gangs at the quarries; while other sources affirmed that the Temehu were famous for being skilled stone workers and that the monuments built of polygonal masonry in Cyrenaica were the work of the Temehu people whom often referred to as “the Westerners” ('those who dwell west of the Nile'). The name was also mentioned as Henet-Temehu , the princess daughter of Thenet-Hep , the wife of Ahmose I, which further illustrates the Libyan element in the Egyptian dynasties.

The Libyan struggle to free the taken land of Neith is pre-dynastic in nature, and their recent pact with the maritime bandits, who came to plunder Egypt as others had done before and after, was no more than another tactic in their long war against the armies of the conquering pharaohs. There was never such a thing as Libyan Invasion (or invasions); they only appear so if they were mentioned in isolation, by the enemy, of course. To be fairer to the truth, from the extant preserved material one can safely ascertain the pharaohs to have been the invaders of the region, who, as told by their own history, forcibly unified Libyan Lower Egypt and Nubian Upper Egypt into what is known as Egypt: the House of Libyan Ptah. This was the subject of several studies including the one presented at The Symposium On "Libya Antiqua" , held in Paris between the 16th and the 18th of January 1984, and titled: "The Tehenu In The Egyptian Records" . The paper, written by A.H.S. El-Mosallamy and prepared at the request of the Unesco, told us nothing we do not already know, but nonetheless it was a recent summary of the basic facts put forward in the last century by Petrie, Breasted, Bates, Galassi, Maspero, Borchardt and many others whom history had practically forgotten, and was largely drawn from the ancient records preserved by Eratosthenes, Manetho, Plutarch, Plato, Herodotus, Diodorus and the ancient Egyptian records, as those of the pyramid papyri of Berber Unas (or Unis: the god who swallowed all the gods).

The pre-dynastic existence of the Temehu and the Tehenu is ascertained from several facts, the most important of which is the Palermo Stone, the oldest document in the world, which preserves a long list of pre-Dynastic Libyan kings & queens of Lower Egypt before its invasion by the pharaohs. The Delta city of Sais was the centre of the worship of the Libyan Goddess Neith and most scholars generally agree that the inhabitants of Sais were mostly of Libyan Berber origin. Other Libyan Delta cults included those of the Libyan Cat-Goddess Bast at Bubastis, and Osiris & Isis at Buziris, who went on to dominate the Egyptian and Roman pantheons, and even survive to the present day in Europe as the secret cults of Isis & Osiris. It is therefore generally concluded that the Berber Tehenu tribes were the natives of the Egyptian Delta long before the menace of Menes, who forcibly unified Egypt and invaded the Tehenu territories in the north and the Temehu's and Nubian's in the south about 3100 BC (or 3400 BC according to other sources).





Then we have the Egyptian pre-dynastic records such as the inscriptions found in Neith's temples, showing the usual Libyan signs and Neith's tattoos as well as the names of queens and princesses, which usually contained the element Net or Nit; Narmer's ivory cylinder commemorating his so called victory over the Libyans; the pre-dynastic Kerki knife bearing similar representations of pre-dynastic Libyans as those of the later Egyptians; and, of course, the name " Tehenu " itself, found on King Scorpion's statue (ca. 3300 BC), from which respected Egyptologists convincingly deduced that the struggle between the ancient Libyans and the Egyptians goes back to pre-dynastic times, as pointed out by both Breasted (1906) and Bates (1914), and also to the beginning of the Northern Kingdom of the Delta when the invading pharaohs were forcibly trying to unify the two kingdoms: the northern Libyan Lower Egypt and the southern Nubian Upper Egypt. This means that if the wars of the Tehenu-Temehu and the Egyptians were pre-dynastic, then the existence of the Tehenu and the Temehu people in Egypt surely goes even farther back in time.

This conclusion is also supported, in addition to the above Egyptian genealogy which classifies all Libyans as Temehu or Temehw (e.g., modern Temaheq or Tuareg), by the fact that several scholars generally agree that the Egyptians always referred to the Tehenu and the Temehu with titles indicating their nativity to the region and not as foreigners; and by the fact that the Egyptians were indeed very careful not adopt any foreign gods and as such their adoption of the Libyan Neith, Amon, Bast, Sekhmet, Set and many others is a strong indicator that they did not consider the Libyans as " foreigners " . The established Libyan royal line of kings and queens in the Delta during and after the invasions of Menes, and the disputed royal lines of the Palermo Stone, are also a good example of this. Of course, there is one thing almost everyone fails to mention, and that is there is hardly any serious studies exploring Libyan history and as such Libyan history remains to be written. If the amount of work and volumes produced in relation to Egypt or Greece were also produced in relation to Libya, a totally new world would emerge from the bottom of the Libyan desert.

Hence Neith's Temple in the Delta (at Sais) bore the name of "House of the king of Lower Egypt", and the Egyptian "uraeus" serpent was deduced, from a scene of four Libyans in Sahure's temple at Abusir, to have been descended from an early Libyan king of the Delta. In addition to the Delta, the Tehenu of Lower Egypt were also the inhabitant of the Fayyum and the other oases of the region. In fact, these Berber oases were not invaded by the pharoahs until the time of the New Empire, and were not totally colonised by the pharaohs until the time of Ramses III, aginst whom the Libyans became known for their attacks on Egypt. Breasted asserts that these oases dwellers, from which the Egyptians of Hatshepsut extracted much tribute, were none other than the Libyan Tehenu of the Delta. The Temehu's territories, however, began immediately south of the Tehenu's and extended all the way down to Middle Nubia - an area where Oric Bates, during his short life, conducted an extensive study of its cemeteries and came to conclude that the Nubians and the Libyans were more related than previously thought, and thus the Temehu Berbers were also known to archaeologists as " the C-Group of Nubia " . Even today, the Arabs of modern Egypt call the Nubians " Barabera " .





From the first dynasty onwards the Libyans continued their attempts to reclaim Lower Egypt. During the start of the dynastic period the name Tehenu was found inscribed on the Narmar (or Narmer) Plate and also reappeared during the second and the third dynasties (2778- 2723 BC), when, according to Manetho, the Libyans continued the struggle against the invading pharaohs and particularly against the pharaoh Nefer-Ka-Re. Then during the fourth dynasty the pharaoh Snefru reportedly took 11,000 Libyans as prisoners of war. All these facts are not a figment of the imagination but an important part of human's early history, which has been largely ignored and even suppressed. In fact the wars were so rife during this early period that they were brought to a temporary lull during the Old Kingdom by king Khufu (Greek Cheops), the second king of the 4th Dynasty (ca. 2613-2494 BC) and the builder of the great pyramid of Giza. Apparently king Khufu married a Libyan princess in order to bring peace to the region so that he could concentrate on his monumental work.

"Bringing peace to the region", "during the building of the great pyramid of Giza", "so that he can concentrate on his work" is not a sign of 'menace', but a powerful indicator of the long conflict between the Libyans and Egyptians right from the start, and long before the recent Shishenq and Tefnakht returned to continue the work of the ancestors!

Khufu's attempts, however, were not fully successful, as we are told that both the kings Sahu-Ra and Ni-User-Ra (of the fifth dynasty) continued to brag about defeating the Libyan armies and about the bounty they brought as offerings to their divine fathers. This means that the wars were almost continuous from pre-dynastic times right down to the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2200-1700 BC), during which the Egyptian pharaohs managed to regain the upper hand and extracted tribute from the Libyans; and as a result a large number of Berbers served in the army of the pharaohs, and some even rose to high positions in the palace; probably, eventually leading the Libyans to regain control over Egypt about (ca. 945 BC), when the Libyan Berber king Shishenq succeeded in establishing the 22nd Dynasty and thereby starting what narrow-minded Egyptologists know as "The Libyan Period" . The ancient Temehu tribes were among the allied tribes of the powerful Berber Meshwash (Meshwesh), the subjects of Shishenq, who ransacked Jerusalem during his reign as king of Egypt. The fact that the allied tribes included several Berber groups, like the Ribu and the Tehenu of eastern Libya, illustrates a common cause to liberate rather than invade one's land. A few dynasties later, Berber Tefnakht , the chieftain of Neith's Sais and the king and founder of the 24th dynasty (722 - 715 BC), attempted to gain control over the whole of Egypt; but after acquiring Memphis and proceeding southward to Heracleopolis, he was met by the Cushite Piankhi and eventually lost in 713–712 BC to Shabaka, the founder of the Nubian 25th dynasty.

And then, there is another interesting point rarely mentioned but by a few respected scholars: the pharaohs were in the habit of chiseling out most of the references they did not wish to survive and thus censorship is not that new. They were also in the habit of inscribing only their victories and rarely had the courage to catalogue their defeats and therefore all the references to the Libyans were closely tied to the word: "defeat". Expectedly, there was no mention of Libyan victory (or victories). For instance we have evidence showing the blunt removal of the name of the Libyan God Amen from several stone engravings after the Akhnaten revolution, during which Amen was replaced by Aten. To refer to this rich period of Berber history as "the Libyan invasion" does not necessarily represent the truth, and it is strongly advised that students of Libya should always refrain from depending on established sources alone. [A good example of this is the Palermo Stone saga!]





As one is often forced by historians to talk of 'colour' and 'race' when the whole of humankind is found to be of one type, genetically sharing 99.8% of its DNA material with chimpanzees and 58% with bananas, one can only say that (some of) the Temehu people were said to be 'fair skinned' and 'blue eyed'. They wore single hair locks on each side of the head and pointed beards, and had a headdress of two ostrich plumes as those of the Libyan Goddess Ament . One feather symbolises 'chieftain status', while two feathers are generally worn by everyone else. The Temehu, like the Tehenu, adored the Goddess Neith in tattoos. The Temehu name, as mentioned above, can also serve as a generic name describing several African groups and tribes and according to some sources is even tantamount to 'Tamazight' as in the form Tamaheqt (the Berber Tuareg word for Tamazight); making the various theories put forward attributing their origin to northern Europe and Asia look like those " Aryan " theories relating the ancient Egyptians to Sumeria or Mars! The long robe, fastened at the shoulders with golden clasps, and bordered with coloured lines, was a mark of dignity and rank, and therefore was more common than the kilt (skirt, kirtle). Over this garment the Temehu occasionally wore a cloak, under which they wore either a tunic, girded at the waist and stretched almost to the knee, or nothing except a belt. The cut of these robes, which sometimes were fringed, was derived from the skin-cloaks worn in classical times. They were regularly open from top to bottom, and sometimes ornamented with coloured designs and decorated with pieces sewn in the corners or at the waist. In late times, the tunic became more popular among the more civilized Libyans.






One of the most important temples illustrating the description of the Tehenu people is the temple of the King Sahu-Ra (of the fifth dynasty). The Tehenu were portrayed as tall people, dark skinned (or bronze-skinned), with long black hair, short pointed beards, slender faces and thick lips; features which closely relates them to their relatives from East Africa, such as the Ethiopians, whose languages both were of the same group and both were of East African origin: the Hamito-Semitic family which is now known as Afro-Asiatic. Unlike the Temehu and other Libyan groups, the Tehenu wore no feathers on their hair. Their dress consisted mainly of two leather strips worn across the chest and held with a belt along the waist, which terminated in a penistache. They also wore animal tails as a sign of royalty. In historic times, only Berber children wore side-locks; with grown-up men, it indicated either royalty, or the exercise of high priestly functions, rightly identified with the rites of the Libyan Goddess Neith. The long, lock-like beard, is very similar to the beard of Osiris, which the pharaohs also adopted as a sign of royalty. The Libyan pointed-beard and the side-lock may shed more light on the origin of the present-day Jewish side-lock, which they could have picked up in Egypt among Other things!

The Temehu kept small live stock, were skilled workers, and highly religious (or mythical) people. The main principal deities of the Temehu people were the Great Goddess Neith, and the Libyan God Amon or Amen. These two deities were later adopted by other cultures, like the Greek’s Zeus (Amon) and Athena (Neith) (see Plutarch, Pluto, Diodorus, Herodotus, etc.) The cemeteries discovered between the First and Second Cataracts (and dated to the Sixth Dynasty) were identified with the Libyan Temehu. The cemeteries show a distinctive Libyan culture, comprising tombs with circular stone walls, burials in contracted positions, and body tattooing, most of which, according to Egyptian inscriptions, is identified with the par excellent Libyan Triple Goddess Neith . www.temehu.com. Author: Nesmenser © 2008. Updated on 15 January 2009 by temehu.com.

Brief History of The Temehu Tribes of Ancient Libya is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License . (Note: please do not remove this licence if you intend to redistribute this article. Doing so violates the terms of this agreement.)
 
Posted by Red, White, and Blue + Christian (Member # 10893) on :
 
http://www.temehu.com/wan-muhuggiag.htm

Wan Muhuggiag

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The Wan Muhuggiag Mummy, on display at the Assaraya.





Discovery:
The Tashwinat Mummy is a small mummy of a child, discovered in a small cave in Wan Muhuggiag, in the Acacus massif (Tadrart Acacus), Fezzan, Libya, by Professor Fabrizio Mori in 1958. The mummy is currently on display at the Assaraya Alhamra Museum in Tripoli. The name Muhuggiag appears in various forms, including Wan Mughjaj, Uan Mugjaj (probably a typing error of: Muhjaj), and Uan Muhuggiag. The local pronunciation of the name gives: Muhjaij: /mouhjeej/.





The Mummy:
The cave showed signs of being occupied at different periods, and its walls were painted with images of people, animals, cattle, and scratched with graffiti. This was an opportunity probably the kind professor Mori was searching for. As the cave's floor was sandy and soft to dig, the professor could not resist the rare opportunity to be the first to excavate the cave. Not long and not far from the surface he found what appeared to be a strange bundle of some sort. Upon careful investigation it turned out to be of a mummy of a child carefully wrapped in a goatskin, with its entrails replaced by wild herbs, probably to aid preservation.

The child is thought to have been 3 years old at the time of death. Using radiocarbon 14 method, the mummy was thought to be at least 5400 years old, which makes it much older than any of the mummies found in (neighbouring) ancient Egypt. It was believed that the makers of the mummy were cattle herders, and occupied much of North Africa, at a time when the Sahara was a savannah.








The mummy in a display box at the museum.


This is the info displayed beneath the mummy in the museum (see the above photo),
stating the age of the child, the location of the discovery (Wadi Tashwinat),
the age of the mummy, and that it was wrapped in plants.







Wan Muhuggiag Periods:
The archaeological finds at the site indicate that it was occupied by humans at different times. The most recent layer contained stone tools, such as querns, and a horned cattle skull, probably as an emblem of the sun; while the oldest layer contained stone slabs, typically used during that period for proper burial (see Germa Museum for details on this).

5400 years ago
7850 years ago
7600 years ago
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
The child is thought to have been 3 years old at the time of death. Using radiocarbon 14 method, the mummy was thought to be at least 5400 years old, which makes it much older than any of the mummies found in (neighbouring) ancient Egypt. It was believed that the makers of the mummy were cattle herders, and occupied much of North Africa, at a time when the Sahara was a savannah...

And yet didn't much of the ancient Egyptians' ancestry come from these people??! I find it strange why they called Uan's mummy 'black' but not other Egyptian mummies.
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:

NHHSW are often painted blond and red headed. I think it was gold dust sprinkled in their hair or maybe the effects of sun bleaching, not to rule out naturally red headed folk...

Perhaps the blonde appearance is due to the use of cow urine which modern Nilotic tribes use today to bleach their hair into a blonde color.

(P.S. I know this is a very late response to an old quote, but I feel it deserved an answer especially in regards to current threads about Nhsw)
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Quite well possible. And, oh, it's never too late
for intelligent value add. We all want to learn,
be it new or supplemental.
 


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