Queen Tiye of the Land of Kmt: Revisiting Ancient Egypt

The Nubian Queen of Egypt
(cir. 1398 B.C. to 1338 B.C.)

Sculpture bust created circa 1355 B.C. renders Queen Tiye (Taia, Tiy, and Tiyi) the matriarch of the Amarna Dynasty, also referred to as: Lady of The Two Lands; Hereditary Princess; Great of Praises; Sweet of Love; King’s Wife; Great King’s Wife; Great King's Spouse; King’s Wife, His Beloved; Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt; Mistress of the Two Lands). This head bust of Queen Tiye, full view below, was excavated from the Medinet el-Gurob region. The Hathor-Isis (double-plumed feather) crown below was said by one antiquities commentator to have been added later in antiquity.

Fragmentary bust of Queen Tiye, New Kingdom,

cir. 1355 BCE (Located at the Altes Museum, Berlin, German

[Ägyptisches Museum collection] )

Image: KMT, Ancient Egyptian, wall relief of Hathor and Isis blessing Nefertari.

Located inside the smaller Abu Simbel temple, 230 km southeast of Aswan,

near the border of Egypt with Sudan. Also the site of two temples

of Ramesses II (1279 - 1213 BCE).

Queen Tiye's  father was Yuya, the commander of the Chariotry, God's Father and High Priest of Min from Akhmin in Upper Kemet. Her mother was Thuya (Tuya, Tjuyu, Thuyu, Singer of Hathor), Chief of the Entertainers of Amun and Min. According to "The Complete Practical Encyclopedia of Archaeology," Thuya may have also been descendent of Ahmose-Nefertari of the 18th dynasty. Queen Tiye's parents were buried in the Valley of the Kings (tomb KV46). Her brother was Amen, Second Priest of Amun in Karnak.

Bust of Queen Tiye's father Yuya  

Bust of Queen Tiye's father Thuya

Green steatite statue of Queen Tiye in the Louvre (France) 

(N 2312, E 25493). Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts

The ancient Egyptian (Kemet) ruler Pharaoh Amenhotep III was so captivated by Queen Tiye's wisdom and beauty that he defied customs and made her his Great Royal Spouse during the second year of his reign. The commentators note that her counsel was relied upon greatly by Pharaoh Amenhotep III, in both national military and political matters. According to some Amarna letters, Queen Tiye was indeed an influential lady at court and acquired independent wealth owned separate from the wealth  of the royal house.

12-foot colossus (statue) of Queen Tiye discovered in 2008. Made of quartzite, this royal statuary was originally attached to a 50-foot statute that included a seated Pharaoh Amenhotep III.

Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) was one of the many children born to Queen Tiye and Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Others children were Sitamun, Henuttaneb, Nebetiah, Isis, and Thutmosis. After Pharaoh Akhenaten became ruler and married Nefertiti, his royal administration instituted some of the most significant religious reforms during the dynastic history of ancient Egypt, which includes the "One God" concept. Queen Mother Tiye, however, continued her role as royal advisor. Pharaoh Tutankhamun (King Tut) is the grandson of Queen Tiye and in Sedeinga, Nubia, a temple was dedicated to honor her works.

Map of ancient Upper, Middle, and Lower Egypt; Upper Nubia, Lower Nubia regions.

Map of Lower, Middle and Upper Egypt. Kmt Kemet Nubia. Em Hotep Ptah Memphis (Public Domain) .

Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa of West Africa's Ashanti Empire

Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa

of the Ejisu Clan of the Asante (b. 1863 - d. October 1923)

Yaa Asantewaa was named Queen Mother of the Ejisuhene (part of the Asante or Ashanti Confederacy) by her exiled brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Okpese. Prior to European colonization, the Ashanti people developed an influential West African empire. Asantewaa was the Gatekeeper of the "Golden Stool" (Sika 'dwa) during this powerful Ashanti Confederacy (Asanteman), an independent federation of Asanti tribal families that ruled from 1701 to 1896.

The Flag of The Republic of Ghana

containing image of the Golden Stool

The story of Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa is a story of the modern history of the nation of Ghana, Africa. In 1896, Asantehene (King) Prempeh I of the Asanteman federation was captured and exiled to the Seychelles islands by the British who had come to call the area the British "Gold Coast." Asantewaa's brother was said to be among the men exiled with Prempeh I, deported because of his opposition to British rule in West Africa.

In 1900, British colonial governor Frederick Hodgson called a meeting in the city of Kumasi of the Ashantehene local rulers. At the meeting, Hodgson stated that King Prempeh I would continue to suffer an exile from his native land and that the Ashanti people were to surrender to the British their historical, ancestral Golden Stool - a dynastic symbol of the Ashanti empire. In fact, power was transferred to each Asantahene by a ceremonial crowning that involved the sacred Golden Stool. The colonial governor demanded that it be surrendered to allow Hodgson to sit on the Sika 'dwa as a symbol of British power.

The Sika 'dwa or Golden Stool

At this time, Yaa Asantewaa was the Gatekeeper of the Golden Stool. After this meetings, the Ashantehenes of the federation gathered to discuss the British development. Upon hearing some of the Ashantehenes entertain surrender to the British demands, it is reported that the Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa rose and said the following:

"Now I have seen that some of you fear to go forward to fight for our King.

If it were in the brave days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anokye, and Opoku Ware, leaders would not sit down to see their King taken away without firing a shot.

No white man could have dared to speak to a leader of the Ashanti in the way the Governor spoke to you this morning.

Is it true that the bravery of the Ashanti is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be!

I must say this, if you the men of Ashanti will not go forward, then we will. We the women will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields."

-- Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewa 

Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa (picture of unknown date)

The Ashanti-British "War of the Golden Stool" was led by Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa with an army of 5,000. While Yaa Asantewaa was captured by the British and deported, her bravery stirred a kingdom-wide movement for the return of Prempeh I and for independence.

Early map of West Africa  (cir. 1625 map of pre-Asanti/Akan federated state)

Ashanti Empire (Asante Empire) during the 19th Century

Today, Ashanti is an administrative region in central Ghana where most of the inhabitants are Ashanti people who speak Twi, an Akan language group, similar to Fante. In 1935 the Golden Stool was used in the ceremony to crown Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II (ruled 1935-1970). Independence from the British colonialist was secured in 1957. On August 3, 2000, a museum was dedicated to Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa at Kwaso in the Ejisu-Juaben District of Ghana.

Africans in Brazil: Zumbi dos Palmares

Zumbi dos Palmares

(born: 1655 - died: 1694)

Zumbi dos Palmares was born free in the Palmares region of Brazil in the year 1655, the last of the military leaders of the Quilombo (Kimbundu word: "kilombo," of the North Mbundu Bantu language in Angola, meaning "warrior village or settlement") of Palmares. The Quilombo dos Palmares were a free society (free born, maroons, or refugee slave), an old South American republic, which included the present day Brazilian coastal state of Alagoas, Brazil. Today, Zumbi is known as one of the great historic leaders of Brazil.

 

Brazilian Coastal State of Alagoas

At approximately 6 years old, Zumbi was captured from the Palmares region by the Portuguese and given as a slave to a Portuguese priest, António Melo. Baptized Francisco, Zumbi was taught Latin, the Portuguese religion and language, and assigned to serve the Catholic mass. In 1670, at 15 years old, Zumbi escaped and returned to his birthplace where he soon became known as a Capoërae / Capoiera master in the roda (wheel or circle) of Palmares' practioners of this African martial art. By his early twenties, he became a respected military strategist.

Quilombo dos Palmares Republic

Quilombo dos Palmares was a self-sustaining republic of maroons located in "a region perhaps the size of Portugal in the hinterland of Bahia" (Braudel 1984). The Bahia - Alagoas region of Brazil is where this free African settlement was located. At its height in the early 1600s, Palmares had a population of over 30,000. By 1630, it was described by the commentators as "the Promised Land" for escaped African slaves. King Ganga Zumba of Palmares offered emancipation for slaves entering its territories.

In 1644, the Dutch invaded the northeastern region but, as the Portuguese had failed before, the European  insurrections failed to penetrate Palmares.

Quilombos of Palmares

By 1654, the Portuguese expelled the Dutch from the region, many of whom relocated to Suriname. The Palmares military were expert in the Capoeira self defense, often described as the art of escape. They were forced to defend against repeated attacks by Portuguese colonizers seeking free labor for growing sugar plantations. Many of the escaping Africans from the Portuguese colony originated from the Angolan region in south-central Africa, then under Portuguese colonization.

"Jogar Capoërae - Danse de la guerre (Playing Capoiera - Dance of war)"

was painted by German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas in 1835.

A 21st Century painting of Brazilian Capoeira

By 1678, Pedro Almeida, the weary governor of Pernambuco approached the Palmares leader King Ganga Zumba for negotiations. Almeida agreed to concede all runaway slaves residing in the Palmares regions if Palmares would submit to Portuguese rule. King Ganga Zumba favored the compromise but Zumbi did not because the Portuguese would not agree to free all the human slaves in the Portuguese colonial region.

Before King Ganga Zumba's death, Zumbi commanded the leadership of the independent Quilombos dos Palmares, becoming the commander-in-chief of its resistence. Fifteen years after Zumbi assumed military leadership of Palmares, Portuguese colonial military commanders from the São Paulo region -- Domingos Jorge Velho and Bernardo Vieira de Melo -- mounted a military assault against Palmares. By 1680, Zumbi of Palmares reigned against the Portuguese.

Quilombo de San Gonçalo 1769 (National Library of Brazil).

The Quilombo settlements were designed within a circle, as was

the dance/martial-art of Capoiera.

The Capoiera circle is called the Roda.

Zumbi Leads the Quilombo Resistance

Zumbi eluded the Portuguese and continued the Quilombo resistance. Commentators have written that he was betrayed by a captured Quilombo who led the Portugese of São Paulo (Paulistas) to Zumbi's hideout. In any case, led by Domingos Jorge Velho and Vieira de Mello, on February 6, 1694, after 67 years military conflict with Palmares, the Portuguese eventually destroyed the Palmares compound Cerca do Macaco ("monkey enclosure"). While the Quilombo remained in the Palmares region, Zumbi was captured and killed on November 20, 1695. His head is said to have been shipped to Recife, Brazil where it was displayed in the central praça as proof that Zumbi was not immortal and as a warning to other African resistance fighters.

November 20 has been celebrated in Brazil as Black Awareness Day (or Black Conscious Day, portuegese: Dia Nacional da Consciência Negra) since the 1960s. The day has special meaning in honor of Zumbi -- a black hero and freedom fighter. Additionally, May 13 is the national holiday in Brazil in honor of the Abolition of Slavery in Brazil in 1850. 

Zumbi dos Palmares International Airport in Maceió, Alagoas, Brasil

Zumbi dos Palmares International Airport (IATA: MCZ, ICAO: SBMO)

is an international airport serving Maceió in Brazil. This modern airport

connects Maceió with various Brazilian cities and also operates international flights.

Beaches of Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil

Further research: A 1984 film directed by Carlos Diegues tells the story of Quilombo dos Palmares. Its star actors are Antonio Pomeu, Zezé Motta, Tony Tornado, and Vera Fischer.

Ramón Mongo Santamaria

Ramón "Mongo" Santamaria

Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría was born April 7, 1917 in Havana, Cuba. Best known as Mongo Santamaria, the Havana-born musician earned a reputation as one of the great Afro-Cuban Latin jazz drummers. He spread the collaborative spirit of the Jazz Era in 1950 when he moved to New York and began playing with Tinto Puente, Cal Tjader, and others. The stage name of Japanese actor Yūsuke Santamaria was inspired by Mongo Santamaria.

His "Afro Blue" became a jazz standard and was popularized as a remake by John Coltrane. Mongo's Jazz Funk remake of Herbie Hancock's 1963 "Watermelon Man" led to his induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988. He died February 1, 2003.

Mama Africa: Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba in concert with Dizzy Gillespie in 1991

Mariam "Mama Afrika" Makeba

Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born on March 4, 1932 in Johannesburg, South Africa to a Xhosa father and Swazi mother. The death of this famous South African singer and human rights activist was mourned the world over on November 10, 2008.

"I lived briefly at her house in Guinea back in the struggle days, she was a goddess; gave with all her heart - never really belonged to our country, she was just too big for that; she belonged to the world. No wonder they called her, Mama Afrika," said Tswagare Namane to Rashidi Runoko in describing Miriam Makeba.

Miriam Makeba - Qongqothwane or "The Click Song"

(A 1979 South African Apartheid Era Performance)

She was raised under traditional African customs as her mother was a sangoma practitioner of herbal medicines and counseling within the Nguni tradition. The Grammy Award winning artist started her studies in Pretoria, South Africa at the Kilmerton Training Institute. In the 1950s she joined the Manhattan Brothers before starting The Skylarks group. Her music development became a blend of African jazz and traditional music.

Showtime Magazine (Cleveland Press) March 1, 1968

The opportunity to travel outside of South Africa arrived when she appeared in Lionel Rogosin's independent documentary "Come Back, Africa" in 1959. She traveled to London where she met Harry Belafonte who assisted her with entering into the United States, which is where many of her famous songs like "The Click Song" (Qongqothwane in Xhosa) and "Pata Pata" were originally recorded. Mariam Makeba had brief marriages to the musical legend Hugh Masekela and human rights activist Stokely Carmichael.

In 1974, Mama Africa performed in Zaire at the famous Muhammad Ali and George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" match. In 1990, after living in the U.S., West Africa, Nelson Mandela convinced her to return to South Africa to end her three-decade-long exile imposed by the apartheid-era South African government. Her spread of the beautiful music of southern Africa, her synthesis of the music of the African diaspora with her native music, as well as her resilence on the question of human treatment within socities, made her a Queen within the African struggle. She died at age 76 after a concert performance in Italy.

The Queen of Sheba: Ethiopia's Queen Makeda

The Queen of Sheba from Ethiopian fresco (c.1100s-1200s), Lalibela, Ethiopia. Zagwe dynasty.

The Queen of Sheba 

(also known as Makeda, Makebah-Tamar, Malikat Saba;

Ge'ez: Nigist Saba; Hebrew: מלכת שבא‎;

Malkat Shva; Arabic: ملكة سبأ‎)

According to the Kebra Negast (Kebra Nagast, Ge'ez: kəbrä nägäst, "the Glory of Kings"), a nearly 700 year old text from Ethiopic antiquity, the imperial family of the Nile region are offsprings of The Queen of Sheba, named Makeda (mākidā) in the Ethiopian account, which translates literally to "pillow."

Batisterio san giovanni Florence (Italy), Salomon meets the Queen of Saba,

on the Paradise Door of the Florence Baptistry

Menelik I (Menyelek I) (also known as Ebna la-Hakim, Ibn Al-Hakim, "Son of the Wise") was the only offspring of The Queen of Sheba of the ancient Kingdom of Sheba / Axumite Kingdom. King Solomon of ancient Israel was his father.  The Queen of Sheba and King Solomon are both referenced within the Christian, Hebrew, and Qur'anic (Koran) Biblical accounts (See Table of Nations (Genesis 10:7)).

Map shows Nile region communities, including

Kingdom of Axum (Aksum) cir. 565 A.D.

This East African kingdom at historical points may at least have included parts of areas of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Yemen. This early kingdom of antiquity, under the historical throne of Sheba, may have reached as far south as Zanzibar (“San-Sheba” or see Persian: "Zangi-bar" with "Zangi" meaning "Black" and "Bar" meaning "the") in Tanzania. See also Kemet [keh-MET translates "Black Land").

Kebra Negast, available in book form today

The Kebra Nagast is an account originally written in the Ge'ez language (Semetic/Ethiopic/Nilotic) and recounts the origins of the paternal Solomonic line of the Emperors of Ethiopia. The Kebra Nagast is considered by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Rastafarian communities in the Africas as an inspired and accurate historical account of how The Queen of Sheba met King Solomon and about how the Ark of the Covenant came to the Axum (Aksum, Aksûmite, Tigray-Tigrinya Province) region of current day Ethiopia and Eritrea, upon The Queen's return from ancient Israel with the male child, Menelik I.

According to the Kebra Nagast, Menelik I became the first Imperial ruler of Ethiopia, the first of a line of Aksûmite Kings. The translation of the ancient text records of the Kebra Nagast also contain accounts of the early creation stories of the people of this region, which today's science definitively concludes is the birthplace of humankind and human civilizations.  

It is said that Menelik's father, King Solomon, gave the Ark of the Covenant to The Queen of Sheba  to be delivered as his prayer that "the New Jerusalem" would have its throne at Axum. In 1967, Edward Ullendorff stated in his famous lectures that "[t]he Kebra Nagast is not merely a literary work, but -- as the Old Testament to the Hebrews or the Qur'an to the Arabs -- it is the repository of Ethiopian national and religious feelings."

Photo of an Ethiopian antiquity art

 The Queen of Sheba made the northern city of Axum home after returning from her trade journey to Israel. According to Ethiopian tradition, Menelik I and the Ark of the Covenant was brought with Makeda. Many believe Haile Selassie I, born Tafari Makonnen, to be of direct blood lineage from Menelik I, who began the East African Kings' long rule in the region, starting around 950 BCE. Haile Selassie I's royal lineage has been a fact of debate among African scholars. It is known, however, that royal imperial families continue on the African continent despite the more recent historical development of African national governments. The African Continents Kingdom Federation's (ACKF) current leader is Imperial Matriarch Empress Shebah `Ra - Queen Shebah III of the royal family line of African Continent Nubian Nations Sheba Imperial Empire Kingdoms (0/1 Dynasty – 2nd Millennium – 7 Dynasty), a matriarchal throne. 

Nights Over Egypt by Incognito (original by The Jones Girls)



As it was in antiquity, priests gather at Lalibela, Ethiopia

Axum Girl

And the dialogue continues...

From Malcolm Little to Malcolm X to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

Malcolm X in 1964.

The great Black leader, debater and speaker, commonly known as Malcolm X (English: ˈmælkəm ˈɛks) was born May 19, 1925 as Malcolm Little and died February 21, 1965 as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Arabic: الحاجّ مالك الشباز‎).  His mother was Louise Little (maiden name Louise Langdon Norton), born in the Caribbean isle of Grenada, British West Indies, at the Grenadines' southern tip. His father was born in Reynolds, Georgia (Taylor County) and became a Baptist minister and Garveyism organizer under the leadership of the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey.

"Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?" a May 5, 1962 speech

by Malcolm X in Los Angeles, California

Herman Hennink Monkau: Surinamese of African Descent in Holland

Image:  Book cover of De kleurling, by author Herman Hennink Monkau 

Surinamese of African descent often had great expectations when moving to The Netherlands. These expectations were not always realized in the first or second generation. In De kleurling, Dutch-born author Herman Hennink Monkau writes of the experience of a first and second generation Suriname family in The Netherlands.

The change in weather was the first adjustment for early Surinamese immigrants to post-colonial Europe. Monkau gives special attention to the second adjustment felt by those early immigrants seeking paradise in The Netherlands: a Dutch-style racism targeted at immigrants of African-descent described by commentators as a sort of tragic comedy. 

The novel's backdrop is a Jazz-infused Holland at the beginning of the 1930s. While the characters are mostly Surinamese and Dutch, Monkau manages to delicately interweave into the novel the 17th century slave history of Suriname's Joden Savanna (jodensavanne or Jewish Savanna)-- transplanted Portuguese Jewry from Brazil.

At this juncture the reader sees Suriname, a small country located along the northeast coast of South America. Sharing a southern border with Brazil, in 1664, a large group of mainly Portuguese Jews migrated or were banished (depending on the historical account) from Brazil and started sugar-cane plantations at Joden Savanna, Suriname. 

Three years later, in 1667, the Dutch swapped/traded New Amsterdam (known now as New York in the USA) with the English territory of Suriname. Nearly two hundred years later, in 1863, slavery was abolished in Suriname. Migration of native Surinamese to the former Dutch colony in Europe followed in the subsequent years after independence from The Netherlands - hence De kleurling.

Location of Suriname in South America

About the Author:

Herman Hennink Monkau was born in Amsterdam. His father is native to Suriname and his mother is Dutch. In 1975, Monkau traveled to his father's native Suriname were he successfully practiced civil engineering drafting in Paramaribo and wrote as a journalist under the pseudonym “Bakra” from the region. His columns were published in the Het Parool publication between 1983 to 1986.

Monkau moved from Suriname to the California region of the United States for a time before moving to Italy. Long since moving back to his birth city of Amsterdam, Monkau published De kleurling in August 2006. It was published through the Prometheus book publishers in the Dutch language. The english speaking world is waiting on a translation.

Monkau is best known professionally as an industrial designer who has worked out of Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Cosenza (Italy), and Los Angeles. After last speaking with Monkau in Amsterdam, he stated that his most recent writing project is a biography of the Suriname-born black inventor Jan Ernst Matzelinger.

Langston Hughes: The Long Tradition of Black Poets

Langston Hughes (James Mercer Langston Hughes) was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri to James Nathaniel Hughes and his wife Caroline Mercer Langston, a school teacher. Hughes became a great African American poet, short story writer, novelist, and columnist. Along with such scribes as Claude McKay and W.E.B. Du Bois, Hughes' works had a great influence on the Harlem Renaissance in the USA and the Négritude movement in France and francophone Africa and the Caribbeans. Brother Hughes died May 22, 1967.

In this picture, standing center right, is Hughes as member of the Meschrabpam's American Negro Film Group, includes writer Dorothy West (seated right), on board the Europa on June 17, 1932.

The Negro Mother, a poem by Langston Hughes

Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In order that the race might live and grow.
Look at my face -- dark as the night --
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
I am the woman who worked in the field
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
I am the one who labored as a slave,
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave --
Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too.
No safety, no love, no respect was I due.


Three hundred years in the deepest South:
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth.
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.


Now, through my children, young and free,
I realized the blessing deed to me.
I couldn't read then. I couldn't write.
I had nothing, back there in the night.
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun,
But I had to keep on till my work was done:
I had to keep on! No stopping for me --
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast -- the Negro mother.
I had only hope then , but now through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow --
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my pass a road to the light
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
Remember the whip and the slaver's track.
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife
Still bar you the way, and deny you life --
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers
Impel you forever up the great stairs --
For I will be with you till no white brother
Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.

DEMOCRACY

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
        Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
       To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom
       When I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's
bread.
          Freedom
          Is a strong seed
          Planted
          In a great need.
          I live here, too.
          I want freedom
          Just as you.

- Langston Hughes

Olmec Society of Mexico: Americans and Africans Before Spain's Colonization of the Americas

Olmec Head at La Venta Park, Villahermosa. Tabasco, Mexico

The Olmec civilization was a pre-Columbian society within the heartland of the Americas, operating as a kingdom c. 1200 BC to 400 BC. The Olmec society included the current geographic regions of Mexico, parts of what is now the United States' Colorado, Texas, California, and into Canada. The Olmec existed before the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations. The early research of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, as set out in his book They Came Before Columbus, confirmed the Kmt-Nubian (Nilotic African) presence among the Olmec through reports of carbon dating skeletal bones and iconographic stones to 948-680 BCE.

The stone heads that remain at Olmec provide snap shots of the Kemet-Nubians that sailed from the Nile valley region from the horn of Africa to not only Europe and Asia, but to the Americas before the Christian-era. This documentary provides live footage of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima's on-site research in the Olmec regions of the Americas, such as the Olmec capital of La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico.

Africans in America are described by the local historian/tour guide in this documentary as a priesthood class. Dr. Van Sertima states that they were among the ruling elite of the Olmec, living alongside Mesoamerican native societies in relative harmony.

BHH blogger in front of one of the two Olmec heads featured at LACMA's exhibition 

"Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico" in October 2010 in Los Angeles

Further references: 

• Dr. Ivan Van Sertima great archaeological and history documentary series HERE or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IywJ1DGuecY.

• They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, by Ivan Van Sertima (2003)

The Soul of Bronzeville: The Regal, Club DeLisa and The Blues Exhibit

The DuSable Museum of African American History presents the exhibition “The Soul of Bronzeville: The Regal, Club DeLisa and The Blues." Through instruments, original photographs, personal memorabilia, concert collectibles, music and moving footage, this exhibition, curated by Gregg Parker, salutes Chicago as the home of many legendary Blues musicians. The exhibit runs through June 27, 2010 at the DuSable Museum in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.dusablemuseum.org/).

Africans in Medieval England

 

Images of artistic renderings of African descent knights of medieval Europe

Human skeletal remains were found in a friary in Ipswich, Suffolk, England in the 1990s with recent carbon testing dating the remains to the European medieval period of 1190-1300. Scientific experts have confirmed that it is the oldest fossil record evidence of the African presence in Medieval Europe. The European Medieval Period, also called The Middle Ages, is generally dated by Western historians as running from the 5th-15th centuries.

Map of the Suffolk Region of England

Isotopic forensic testing conducted by experts from the University of Dundee Scotland identified the archaeological remains at Ipswich as a human of African descent, likely from the northern regional area of the African continent, in a country now called Tunisia in the Atlas Mountains region. Body carbon dating was also performed by experts for the History Cold Case program on BBC2, which will release a documentary news feature that includes expert facial reconstruction from the skull remains. The remains were found buried on consecrated religious grounds at a friary in the Suffolk region of the United Kingdom.

Image: The Mosque of Uqba, Tunisia

In ancient times, this region was populated by a people called Phoenicians (/fɨˈnɪʃə/) by English speakers and Canaan (Kana`an) in the Hebrew language. Later European and Arab settlers came into the region, such as the Roman Empire under the Eastern Germanic Tribe called Vandals, and the Ottoman Empire. The Mosque of Uqba, also known as the Great Mosque of Kairouan, was founded in 670 B.C.E. in Tunisia (pictured above). It is known as the oldest mosque in what is called by Arab settlers as the Muslim West.

Map of Medieval Africa

Photo: original land of people Canaan along the Nile river

before migrating throughout the African continent 

"We don't know much about the migration of ordinary people," said Jim Bolton, a historian at Queen Mary, University of London.  "I believe that this is the first physical evidence of Africans in medieval England." Prior to this discovery, however, the oldest known humans of African descent to live in this region of Europe were identified from the tax records. This was a couple whose lifetime dated approximately 150 years after the African man at Ipswich.