Pharaoh Senwosrt I, also known as Sesostris. Herodotus reported that a Sesostris conquered Greece around this Pharaoh's time.
Credit: KAM Nile Valley History website
http://www.swt.edu/studentorg/kammaasi/nileval.html
Ta_Seti, a premier online African-centered discussion group!
Pharaoh Senwosrt I, also known as Sesostris. Herodotus reported
that a Sesostris conquered Greece around this Pharaoh's time.
Credit: KAM Nile Valley History website
http://www.swt.edu/studentorg/kammaasi/nileval.html
I have been tracking responses to my `Black Soil' posting. Four
stand out: Vdismas', P.Daniel's, Ortiz', and most recently
Yurco's. I was eagerly awaiting the last, because he is a reputed
`expert' (or authority) on the matter. Well, I am going to show
that his input merely aggravates my earlier indictment of
(western) Egyptology. The rub, this time, has to do with
downright trickery.
Let me start with Vdismas. She queries (June 3, 1996):
"Is Otabil saying that Egypt was entirely fertile? That
there was no desert portion of this country? It is my
understanding that this ancient country, like modern Egypt, was
indeed composed to[sic] two types of land: the red desert that
was barren, and the[sic] was the country looked like to its
inhabitants, they used the Kemet/Desheret distinction."
The query follows this observation of mine:
"Ortiz (5/31/96), following R.A. Faulkner's scholŠ, wrote:
`Kemet: Black land watered by the Nile flood and therefore
inhabitable and fertile, and Desheret is the contrasting red sand
of the desert.' [Wherewith my argument:
"Now if this (i.e. Ortiz' claim) be sensible, then
1a. we have to assume that the surface area of Km.t (as
Black Soil) consisted solely of the floodable (washable) parts;
but, since these parts are designated /Km.t/, the name of the
country, the assumption further implies
1b. that the ENTIRE country is subject to flooding, for it
is after all the residual deposit (Black silt) that allegedly
forms the referent (and content) of /Km.t/."
Vdismas, Otabil is NOT saying that `Egypt' was entirely
fertile, etc. He is merely urging the assumption as a stringent
consequent of the absurd distinction used to explain the
denotation of /Km.t/.
Let me underscore a very savage, yet insidious, ruse at work
in the matter. The burning question is:
WHAT DID THE INDIGENES/NATIVES/AUTOCHTONS THEMSELVES CALL
THEIR COUNTRY, AND BY EXTENSION, THEMSELVES?
The answer from the `experts' and their disciples invariably is:
The `Egyptians' distinguished between the fertile and barren
portions/parts of their land, calling the former /Km.t/ (Black
land/soil) and the latter /Desheret/ (Red Sand/land).
Now this stock Eyptological response-cum-explication
shamefully begs the question of autochtony. To mention
`Egyptians' is to camouflage the actual, indigenous self-
designation, because /Egyptians/, /Egypt/, /Aigyptos/ are all
alien--and o combien Greek--GRAFTS. If there is no authentic
substitute for `Egyptians', then one has to logically infer that
the indigenes did not call themselves anything, or--worse--that
they were UNNAMEABLE.
The swindle is further evident in the deflection from
/country/ to /land/. A country is a nation; "land" is essentially
a geographical designate, except perhaps in the romantic,
nationalist sense of `mother-/fatherland'. But this latter sense
is far removed from `expert' consideration, for fairly obvious
reasons. For to decode `land' into `country/nation' would
unavoidably entail conversion of `those of the Black land/soil"
into `those of Black country/nation'. Some quipped the other day
there is any known pattern or precedent of a nation or people
naming themselves--or being named--by their color. Godammit, what
of `BLACK AFRICA'? This wretched homonculus which has for so long
been wielded to macabre effects, over the frontier, by/in the
Academy--from (Wst) Egyptology to anthropology to foul geography
to phylography?
Anyhow, the dogged effort to smuggle in Greece is what has
obfuscated an otherwise simple issue. "Simple", because there is
documentary evidence that the natives called themselves
"Kemites". This knowledge was for long concealed by (Western)
Egyptologists, doubtless at the impetus of Aryanism. It is
instructive thus to note the way Diop, for instance, invokes
/Km.t/ in his treatment of the subject, referenced in my previous
posting: "We now know that the native Egyptians called their
country/themselves....". Why and how NOW????
Now while (Western) Egyptologists might grudgingly
acknowledge the FACT of the authentic usage (i.e. Km.t), they
still cannot accept the full implications. Whence the recourse to
the Red Sand/Black Soil nonsense. If /kmtjw/ refers to "those of
the black land/soil", then there should be an equivalent
designation for "those of elsewhere" (than Km.t as black soil).
The trick is that the experts have hammered in an indefeasible
dichotomy between Red Sand and Black Soil. Yet since Red Sand has
been declared uninhabitable, "those of elsewhere" becomes
logically inconceivable. This, however, throws up "those of the
Black Soil" as the sole human inhabitants of the country.
Alas, this so-called B.S is made up of the relatively tiny
strips adjacent to the river banks. If this mapping is
disallowed, then we have to alternatively grant that the black
silt deposits cover the range between the banks and...the
nation/country's borders. In other words, the Nile has to flood
the territory as far as the Red Sea! But if such were the extent
of flooding, then there should be NO Red Sand (or barren soil)
either, since the Kmt/Desheret dichotomy owes to the former's
Kmt's supposedly benefiting from the flooding, precisely where
the Desheret does/did not.
Here, I have to chuckle at Vdismas' repartee: "Once again, I
am under the impression that the Egyptians [see...] constructed
dams and irrigation systems so that the Nile flood was useful and
did not force them to move to an internal colony."
I would not wager on dams. But what would be the utility of
irrigation systems if the "Black land" were a gift of the Nile"?
If Kmt qua B.S were naturally watered, then why would the "Black
landers" go to the trouble of building irrigating systems? What
for? To water the already fertile land? Alternatively, would not
the irrigation systems be rather targeted at Desheret? And if
they were, would not Desheret over time grow decreasingly barren?
Granted this probability, would the rigid dichotomy Kmt/Desheret
be empirically entertainable?
These questions are necessitated solely by the absurdity of
Kmt as B.S. And the absurdity becomes all the more graphic in
symbolic formulation, as with
(1) X = Y + Z
Where X is the unnameable country, Y Red Sand, and Z Black Soil.
Now (2) Z = X (for Wst. Egyptology)
(3) Z = X - Y (for commonsense geography/geology)
Given (1) and (2), we can solve for Z in (3) with
Z = (Y + Z) - Y
yielding Z = Z
The solution, then, to the commonsense question of Kemetik
identity is a wasteful tautology: Kmt is Kmt. Yet this is more
consoling than the underhand equation of Kmt with an unnameable
country or nation, which is knowable only as a Greek/Hellenist
fixture. [Remark that (X = Y + Z) would seem salutory, save that
it would beget "black landers AND red landers", something ruled
out in principle by the posited uninhabitableness of Y.]
Vdismas further writes (in response to Gloria):
"I did not read Otabil as saying that Egypt contained both
fertile and infertile soil. Otabil's meaning could also be that
there was-no-desert component to the country.
In his post, Otabil is attempting to refute the Oxford
dictionary's definition of Kemet and desheret.
...Is Otabil being serious about Egypt consisting of two
types of lands? Is he holding this distinction up to ridicule by
forcing an incorrect assumption?"
Otabil is ridiculing the artless, but now crotchety, use of
`Egypt' as some metalanguage to account for indigenous
classification. To maintain `Egypt', and have it consist of Kmt
and Desheret is to commit a terrible travesty. What indigenous
designation would equate with the sum of Kmt and Desheret? Kmt or
Kmt.Desheret (i.e. Kmt multiplied by Desheret)?
--- --- ---
Peter Daniels, uncovering `Kwesi's Shit', writes (6/4/96):
"...I found that he was talking about the literal meaning of
the names Kemet and Desheret. Hi{(sic) arguments were quite
logical and amusing. There's only one problem: geographic names
do not "describve(sic)" what they refer to. Most of Greenland
isn't Green; there are very few Indians in Indiana; the Pacific
Ocean has some pretty mighty storms; and so on. The term "black
land" which apparently refers to the fertile black soil (as
opposeed(sic) to the barren red soil of the encompassing desert)
need not accurately characterize all and only the soil that is a
particular color, for all time."
Aha! In the Nature-of-Debate I, I characterize P.Daniels as
a supine Orientalist, and how admirably he acts the the part in
the above! In precisely what consists `Kwesi's shit'? In the
`quite logical arguments'? In the attested amusement? Or in the
`only one problem'? I will safely grant the last. BUT hold it...I
have NOT argued or advocated the geographical detonation. It is
rather your acolytes in (Western) Egyptology who have been doing
precisely that. The tenor of my first posting, as of the present,
categorically derogates from the Km.t qua Black Soil rubbish.
"Land of the Blacks" (Km.t), which I uphold, has nothing
whatsoever to do with the color of the surface area inhabited.
Indeed, it is exactly because soil color can change over
time that `those of the Black land' (or `Black landers') becomes
an embarrassingly irrational concoction. What if the Black soil
turned grey or ashen? What would the natives call themselves?
`Those of the grey/ashen land'? `Greylanders'? `Ashlanders?' And
by the way, since the change would be gradual, what would they
call themselves, during the transtion from Black to Grey or
Ashen? `Those of the not-so-Black land'? `Those of the coming
Grey/Ashen Land'? (Western) Egyptology ought to answer these
questions, not a Kemeticist.
Of course, P.Daniels may retort that it is all a matter
neither of logic nor empirical plausibility nor of commonsense,
but of...GRAMMAR! More on the grammar charade below. I would
note, in passing though, how the abject deference to `expertise'
on the subject serves to perpepuate the rut of Truth-Loot. These
same experts are the ones that hatched the absurdity--yes the
`shit'--you wrongly attribute to me. Since they are loath to
rethink their fictions, it would be foolhardy to defer to them,
except by witting condonation of the Loot. Well, heaven forfend
it.
And while tangentially on grammar, I may remind P. Daniels
that his dismissal of S.F Thomas was not only rude, but worse
erroneous. Here it goes:
"S.F. Thomas might turn his/her `bullshit detector' on
his/her own writing. In the name (Eg.) Ny-ankh-Pepi km (Eng.) Ny-
ankh Pepy the black, `km'/black' is an adjective--just as Yurco
said.
Why doesn't s/he confine his/her attention to someting(sic)
he/she seems to know something about such as the dynamite used to
sculpt the sphinx?"
`The black' (or km) in Ny-ankh Pepy the black is not so much
of an adjective as it is an ADJECTIVAL NOUN. As such, it
functions not as an epithet, but as an appositive. `The Black' in
this case is a nominal appositive (thanks especially to the
determinative `the'). Which means that it (adjectival noun) can
stand on its own, and form the subject of a verb in a separate
enunciation; such as /The Black holds holds sway/. `Black' as
pure adjective or epithet could not so stand.
For instance, in /Peter Daniels pontificus/, `pontificus'
would translate as `the pontiff'; wherewith either `P.Daniels the
pontiff' or `the pontiff P.Daniels'. Similarly, `pontificus'
serving as an adjectival noun (or nominal), can become a subject
or complement (direct or indirect), as was the case in one of my
previous postings in which I referred to you--reverently--as `the
pontiff from Chicago'.
Maybe, `Kwesi's shit' can help fertilize the forbidding
lethargy that comes with, or is born of, `pax pontifica'.
How you like me now?
--- --- --
Bernard Ortiz' initial rejoinder (6/4/96), uninterestingly
threadbare, was strictly in keeping with the standard line on the
Km.t vs Desheret. Later the same day, however, he posted a HIGHLY
DECEPTIVE addendum. Writes he:
"Kemeti referred to the two lands of Egypt, generally known
as Tamehu and Tashemau in the Middle Kingdom. (...) Egypt is
*always* referred to in the plural because it is the "two lands"
joined. [Even now, modern Egyptians refer to their area as the
"two lands".]
This quote represents a massive sleight of hand. The so-
called two lands have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the
Kmt/Desheret distinction, which is the one at issue. They instead
refer to LOWER vs UPPER KEMET (or OTHERWISE UNNAMEABLE COUNTRY),
a distinction that cuts across the dubious Kmt/Desheret fixture.
Lower vs Upper K (or...) is a LATITUDINAL division, whereas
Kmt/Desheret is LONGITUDINAL. Put otherwise, there could still be
red sand and black soil in both the lower and upper regions of
the country, insofar as the river taverses the length of the
country. The Lower v Upper set-up was only a political
ordination, and was symbolized by the two separate crowns. Now
who is zooming whom? Who is the fraud? Where is Yurco?
Well, I will pause here, and return to Yurco in my subsequent
posting on the subject.
Regards,
Kwesi Otabil
The Neo-Maat Institute
Report any problems to
Paul Kekai Manansala at p.manansala@sbcglobal.net Sponsored by AsiaPacificUniverse.com
Ta_Seti, a premier online African-centered discussion group!