Talawa Adodo (Temple University)
Chiekh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga produced critical scholarship on the Afrikan context of Kemet (e.k.a Ancient Egypt). Diop focused on the historical and cultural connections between Kemet and other Afrikan cultures, while Obenga’s scholarship addresses the systematic connections between the Kemetic language and philosophy with its West and West-Central Afrikan counterparts. They showcased their research at the 1974 UNESCO conference on the racial identity of the Ancient Egyptians. However, despite of their strong showing in 1974, their work has been subject to hasty dismissal within Egyptology. Diop and Obenga discussed the influence Kemetiu had on Greek philosophy before Martin Bernal’s Black Athena. Their ideas would resurface in the Black Athena debates when it came to the racial identity of Kemet and its influence on Greece. However, as with the Egyptologists, scholars in Greco-Roman Studies (e.k.a Classics) were dismissive. As a result of this dismissal, critical aspects of their scholarship on Kemetic influence on Greece have been overlooked in Egyptology and Greco-Roman Studies.
This paper addresses critical aspects of Diop-Obenga scholarship on Kemetiu relations with Greece from an Afrocentric perspective. First, Diop’s commentary on Greek observations on the racial make-up of the Kemetic people is compared with the interpretations of Frank M. Snowden and Martin Bernal. It is demonstrated that Diop’s observation was fundamentally correct and, moreover, the criticism of his interpretation of Greek commentary was based on Eurocentric and racist biases. Secondly, Diop’s “two cradle theory” is examined from an Afrocentric perspective. Diop’s two cradle concept specifies critical differences between Afrikan and European culture through a cross cultural comparison between Kemet and Greece. Thirdly, Obenga’s commentary on Kemetic influence on Greek philosophy is examined from an Afrocentric perspective. As with Diop, Obenga’s analysis addresses critical aspects within Kemetic thought and its influence on Greek Philosophy. Overall, the Diop-Obenga school represent a conceptual shift in the way Kemet was understood in Afrikan-oriented scholarship by locating it in its Afrikan cultural context. This conceptual shift allows for a nuanced perspective on Kemetic influence on ancient Greece. Ultimately, this paper examines the implications of the Diop-Obenga cultural differentiation between Kemet and Greece from an Afrocentric perspective.