Forgotten? Looks like looted Egyptian civilization to me.
Could someone flag this please before it eats the whole thread?
E: thank you!
The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
21–30 of 145 posts
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#22Forgotten? Looks like looted Egyptian civilization to me.
There's a reply to sentiments like yours in the first few paragraphs of the article. > For years, European and American historians and archaeologists viewed ancient Kush through the lens of their own prejudices and that of the times. In the early 20th century, the Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner, on viewing the ruins of the Nubian settlement of Kerma, declared the site an Egyptian outpost. “The native negroid rac…
Well... there is borrowing between civilizations. One might suspect that either Egypt developed pyramids, or Kush did, and the other borrowed the idea. The word "looting" doesn't fit, though, because if Kush borrowed the idea from Egypt, Egypt still had the idea - they didn't lose it. And Kush built their own pyramids; they didn't take Egyptian pyramids and move them south.
In the same way, we don't say that Rome looted Greek civilization, though they borrowed quite a bit.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#23"Be, be-fore we came to this country
We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys
There was empires in Africa called Kush
Timbuktu, where every race came to get books
To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans
Asian Arabs and gave them gold, when
Gold was converted to money it all changed
Money then became empowerment for Europeans
The Persian military invaded
They heard about the gold, the teachings, and everything sacred
Africa was almost robbed naked
Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships
Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went
He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces
Shot up they nose to impose what basically
Still goes on today, you see?"
- From I Can by Nas https://genius.com/Nas-i-can-lyrics
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#24If the area was more prosperous today, it would have hired many historians and PR to spread its historical significance. Many European cities do this to increase tourism revenue.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#25I think it's fair to say that Kush has never been 'forgotten'--in fact, it's been heavily researched, documented, debated. This article title is a bit clickbait-y, and hinges on the current fad of 'Europeans are all racists and didn't acknowledge/appreciate a Black civilization', which is of course wrong.
Looking at a strain of thought that seeks to attribute the current differences in outcomes and 'accomplishments' between Africans and Europeans to the inherent qualities of their populations, thereby discarding the possibility that such outcomes could have been different not so long ago, and seeing this strain of thought dominate HN and HN-adjacent communities (in the form of "we should dig into at'uncomfortable questions' and so forth"), I'd say that yes, Kush has largely been forgotten by the general population, even that part of which who likes to call itself 'educated'.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a reply to sentiments like yours in the first few paragraphs of the article. > For years, European and American historians and archaeologists viewed ancient Kush through the lens of their own prejudices and that of the times. In the early 20th century, the Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner, on viewing the ruins of the Nubian settlement of Kerma, declared the site an Egyptian outpost. “The native negroid rac…
Well... there is borrowing between civilizations. One might suspect that either Egypt developed pyramids, or Kush did, and the other borrowed the idea. The word "looting" doesn't fit, though, because if Kush borrowed the idea from Egypt, Egypt still had the idea - they didn't lose it. And Kush built their own pyramids; they didn't take Egyptian pyramids and move them south. In the same way, we don't say that Rome loo…
However, Rome (and others) _did_ literally loot _Egyptian_ architecture; there are more Egyptian Obelisks in Italy today than in Egypt.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#27I think it's fair to say that Kush has never been 'forgotten'--in fact, it's been heavily researched, documented, debated. This article title is a bit clickbait-y, and hinges on the current fad of 'Europeans are all racists and didn't acknowledge/appreciate a Black civilization', which is of course wrong.
Yes, Sudan hasn't been totally ignored, but the 3 classical areas of Rome, Greece, and Egypt have gotten a very disproportionate share of work, with France and the Levant/near east as second fiddles. On that scale, I think it's fair to describe Sudan and other outlying areas (like the Caucasus) as effectively ignored. The article also isn't talking about "Europeans are racist and didn't appreciate black people". It's…
The work is in proportion to the amount of documents that are retained today. The reason why Rome and Greece are "popular" is they determined intellectual thought from the fall of the Western Rome until, probably, humanism (some one millennia later) so much of what they wrote down has been retained (or, more accurately, wasn't destroyed).
As an example: we know Carthage was a huge civilisation...until Rome razed it so we have no real idea today what ancient Carthage actually was like apart from that it was significant enough for Rome to burn to the ground.
Also, talking about "Europeans" is indicative of a total misconception of history in the period. Rome was a Mediterranean as much as a European one (north of Rome wasn't Europe as today, it was just a bunch of tribes). Many important figures that, ironically, people today say are examples of an over-emphasis on "Europeans" were Africans. Augustine being the best example, basically founded the theology of the early Church, he was a Roman but he was (in today's terms) also African. In short, trying to read the present back into the future is not smart.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#28If our cultural memory of much more recent events indicates anything, I reckon we've "forgotten" quite a few things that went on 5k ya.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#29I think it's fair to say that Kush has never been 'forgotten'--in fact, it's been heavily researched, documented, debated. This article title is a bit clickbait-y, and hinges on the current fad of 'Europeans are all racists and didn't acknowledge/appreciate a Black civilization', which is of course wrong.
"the current fad of 'Europeans are all racists and didn't appreciate a Black civilization', which is of course wrong."
The leaders of European nations fed and feed their populations large amount of misinformation about who they are and who people outside their borders were. If a monarch was chosen by god, how could the greatest structures in human history not be in Europe? The answer was to whitewash as much as possible.
You see this in the restoration of art for the last few centuries, many brown/black pieces turned white all of sudden. Some claim this was unintentional, but if we look at how Africans have been treated for the past 500± years, that claim seems suspicious and sounds more like ass-covering when the fraud was revealed.
I expect this exposing of fraud to ramp up as automated translation allows us to compare notes between the great civilizations of human history.
Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
#30I think it's fair to say that Kush has never been 'forgotten'--in fact, it's been heavily researched, documented, debated. This article title is a bit clickbait-y, and hinges on the current fad of 'Europeans are all racists and didn't acknowledge/appreciate a Black civilization', which is of course wrong.
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Nubian_(Civ6) Yeah, doesn't look forgotten to me https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Amanitore_(Civ6) > Kandake Amanitore ruled Nubia at the turning of an era. A powerful queen, feared by her enemies and beloved by her people, she was one of the last great builders of the Kingdom of Kush. Amanitore restored the Land of the Bow to its greatness following a period of turmoil. Her r…
Loading up gamefaqs.com Age Of Empires II Walkthrough to prove my point about human civilizations.