RESEARCH: EGYPT, WHITES ENSLAVED BY BLACKS. The African Origin of Civilization Chapter 10 p. 209 . . . the great reign of the Eighteenth Dynasty began under Tuthmosis III, that other outstanding southern monarch, whose mother was a Sudanese Nubian. He overpowered all the States of Western Asia and the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, reducing them to the status of vassals compelled to pay annual tribute. This was the case with Mitanni (an Indo-European state on the Upper Euphrates), Babylonia, Cilicia, the Hittite State, Cyprus, Crete, etc. Syria and Palestine were simply integrated into the Egyptian kingdom. . . . After the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Egyptians acquired the habit of holding as hostages the sons of vassal rulers of Asia and the Mediterranean, training them in the Pharaohs court in the hope that they might later govern their countries as good vassals. p. 211 . . . With the deification of Ramses II, feudal privilege and royal absolutism reappeared. The clergy recovered its former prerogatives, as at the time of the Sixth Dynasty. The temples again profited from immense holdings, endowed with immunity which empowered them to dispense justice to their tenants (cf. Pirenne, I, 21). At the same time they received tens of thousands of Aryan slaves branded with a hot iron. These were the only cases of a slave labor force in Egypt for large-scale production. p.212 The end of the reign of Ramses II and that of Merneptah witnessed great migrations of peoples that upset the ethnic balance around the Mediterranean and in Western Asia. Circa 1230 B.C., Merneptah conquered the first large coalition of Indo-Europeans led by Merirey, as we have seen. . . . Another group, probably the Etruscans, under-Aeneas, settled in Italy; these were the same ones who had joined the Libyan coalition defeated by Merneptah. On the Egyptian inscriptions they were designated by the name Tursha. coalition defeated by Merneptah. After the defeat, the survivors followed the coasts of Cyrenaica as far as Queen Didos Carthage, or traveled there by the open sea. . . . But Carthage was not founded until the ninth century B.C. . . . Should we then assume that they spent considerable time in Libya, where their stay is in fact mentioned in Egyptian documents? Perhaps they remained there after the coalition was defeated by Merneptah. During that sojourn they doubtless acquired various elements of Egyptian culture (sarcophagus, agrarian life, the divining art, architectural skills) which they definitely lacked at the outset. The 9,000 or so captives taken in battle Merneptah gave as slaves to the various temples to express his gratitude to the gods. . . . p. 213 So it was as a prisoner of war, transformed into a slave, chained and branded, that the white man first entered Egyptian civilization. . . . From then on Egypt continually had to defend its borders against the immense thrust of-white-skinned peoples from the north, from the sea, and the east. . . . The White slaves given to the temples were employed by the priests either in farming or in the local militia. With the collapse of the central power, local militias increasingly assumed local security functions. Taking advantage of the anarchy, Syrian, Palestinian, and Libyan slaves had rebelled under the leadership of foremen and military officers of their race who supervised their labor. Pirenne quotes a passage from Diodorus relating that Aramaean slaves captured by Ramses II took advantage of the turmoil to revolt and create near Memphis a village that they controlled and called Babylon, in memory of their country. Similarly, Phrygians founded a shortlived village called Troion, in memory of Troy. p. 214 . . . The most formidable coalition ever witnessed during Antiquity was formed against the Egyptians. It comprised the whole group of white-skinned peoples who had been unstable since the first migrations of the thirteenth century.; . . . p. 215 . . . the ancient ethnic groups must have been disrupted all around the Mediterranean, except for Egypt which alone had been able to repulse the Indo-Aryan invasion. Meanwhile, the Libyans in the western part of the Delta, were organizing still another coalition, the fifth directed against the Black Egyptian nation by the Indo-Europeans. Ramses III defeated them at Memphis in 1188 B.C. After that date the White Libyans never again revolted against Egypt, but they tried by every possible means to infiltrate peacefully and to settle there as serfs or semi-serfs, working at various kinds of manual labor, as farmers or artisans, especially in the Delta. They were also employed in the army as an auxiliary foreign corps called Kehek. The situation was identical in the Nubian Sudan where Libyans were also used as semi-serfs in the army. But the Libyans settled in the Delta, because of its proximity. These people, whose alien slave origin was obvious, would gradually be freed by Egyptian law. Later, some would become notables as a reward for loyal services to the Egyptian ruler. Yet, their slave origin would never be forgotten by the true Egyptian national, even when they took advantage of troubled periods to exercise control of a given district in the Delta where military command had been entrusted to them by the Pharaoh. We shall see how these foreign elements, who felt no real sentimental attachment to Egyptian soil, were to undermine political mores beginning with Psammetichus. To protect the country against invasion, Ramses III had to resort to conscription, drafting one Egyptian national out of ten (cf. Pirenne, II, 476). Because of their immunity, we do not know whether this measure was applicable to the temple properties. Since Ramses II, Libyans and other White foreigners who were recruited into the auxiliary armed services had farmed land belonging to the royal domain, of which the well-informed Egyptian administration kept a strict accounting. To prevent their flight in troubled periods, Ramses III had them all branded with the seal of the local administration. This old Egyptian practice leaves no doubt about their slave status, whether they were farmers in peacetime or enrolled in the auxiliary forces in time of war. Authors often misuse the term mercenaries to designate those who were, in fact, slaves bearing the indelible mark of their royal master. . . . p. 216 The Egyptian army was losing its nationality. It was rapidly becoming a force of free mercenaries or semi-slaves commanded by national officers; only the high command and a few detachments of archers remained Egyptian (cf. Pirenne, II, 477). This procedure reached its climax under the Libyan usurpers of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, more precisely, under Psammetichus. . . . The political and social situation under Ramses III and immediately after his death is described in detail by the Harris Papyrus, an exceptionally long document of some 115 pages. A review of the land registry shows that the temple properties constituted one-seventh of the arable lands which, according to modem authors, covered about 5 million acres. Lands allocated to the Theban temples, enjoying general immunity, amounted to approximately 585,000 acres, with 86,436 slaves to farm them. For Heliopolis, there were 113,000 acres and 12,364 slaves; for Memphis, 6,800 acres and 3,079 slaves. . . . Quoting several ancient writers, Marcel Reinhard and Andre Armengaud adopt an average of seven to eight millions for the population of Egypt, corresponding to a density or the order of 200 per square kilometer (some 520 per square mile). Though the White slaves were rather numerous, the Egyptian population could easily absorb them. The 30,000 slaves acquired during the Asian expedition of Ramses III represented a small minority when we consider the density of the indigenous national population. We can easily understand how that indigenous population was able to remain ethnically Black throughout Antiquity, despite the influx of Whites. This was why, strictly speaking, Egypt never adopted an economy dependent on slaves; that always remained marginal. p. 218 While Upper Egypt was becoming feudalistic, Libyans in Middle Egypt fomented a revolt that quickly spread to the Delta. This involved White slaves who had been in Lower Egypt since Ramses II and III and who were settled on plots of rigorously inventoried land. During the low period, they tried to seize every opportunity to become free and even to establish a kind of military feudalism. Facing this definite threat to national unity, the country was saved for the fifth time by the South, the Nubian Sudan. . . . Under the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Dynasties, feudalism had attained its zenith. All the Libyan and Achaean freedmen who occupied posts of any importance in the army set themselves up as chiefs or princes in their localities. Political power was thus usurped and fragmented by the Whites of the Delta, more commonly designated by the generic term Libyan. Not one of them, however, was able to impose his authority over the country; anarchy and decadence became general. p. 219 When the Libyan usurper, Osorkon, tried to force his son on Thebes as an Amon priest, the Theban clergy fled to the Nubian Sudan. The King of Sudan, Piankhi, moved immediately to reforge Egyptian unity by subduing one after another all the foreign rebels of Lower Egypt. These aliens had formed a new northern coalition under Tefnakht. Only two of the alien feudal lords in the north had refused to join that alliance. . . . So the country was divided into two camps: in the north, the coalition of White rebels, former slaves; in the south, the authentic Egyptian nation solidly behind the Sudanese king.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 18:19:05 +0000
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