excerpts from the book...
Ancient Egypt & Black Africa
A Student's Handbook for the Study of Ancient Egypt in Philosophy, Linguistics, & Gender Relations
by Theophile Obenga
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... Etymology is the science that studies the origin of words.
... Philosophy has nourished science. It preceded the sciences. Science (physics, chemistry,
mathematics, politics, aesthetics, logic, biology, sociology, etc.), was born of philosophy.
... The Greeks (Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, etc.) were taught, instructed and educated by,
Egyptian priests; the Egyptian sbo, "instructed" became sophos in Greek, with the derivative
sophia, and the compound sophon, hence philosophia.
... The philosopher is the friend of wisdom. He is instructed, and learns by studying nature.
Philosophy is therefore the exercise of reason in the fields of thought and action. The result of
this is a conception of the problems of life, of the world. Often, the conduct of the philosopher
is reflective and moderate, prudent, circumspect and reserved. He acts with wisdom.
... So the Egyptian sage should be informed of all these things, clear sighted in the examination
of a problem, moderate in action. He had to know the tradition in studying ancient texts. He
surely had some experience of human existence in order to unravel all these complicated
questions. He had to apply himself to thought, meditation, day and night, in order to find the
"correct paths". Constantly dissatisfied, he is always in search of the better and the best. A
sage sees to it that he is asked for advice, while he himself asks for advice.
... Such a sage owed it to himself to know the cause of all things, natural, social, and human. To
be a philosopher in Pharaonic times, one had to be a sage and a scientist at the same time.
... Wisdom in ancient Egypt is linked to reason, knowledge, action, prudence, morality. The
sage is eternally dissatisfied, for he must constantly better himself, in wisdom, in his
meditation, his action, his conduct.
... The authentic sage, for the ancient Egyptians, must have shown a strong inclination for
erudition, to have had faith in the organising virtues of the intellect, pursued essential
qualities. He was a sort of "universal technician", dedicated to rational, human culture, having
a mind constantly awake before things and men.
Indeed, the ancient Egyptians left pyramids, obelisks, temples, stelae, but one often forgets the
huge philosophical work accomplished by them, during almost thirty centuries.
...Greeks had no ethnic complex about going and learning in the Nile Valley, under authority of
the wise Egyptians.
...'The historical consciousness of mankind', stated Professor Cheikh Anta Diop,' is still suffering
from these voluntary distortions of history'.
... The Egyptians were the first to state (protoi) the doctrine of the immortality of man's soul (os
anthropou psyche athanatos esti), says Herodotus (II, 123).
... The Egyptian Noun is indeed the first principle is matter, a liquid, fluid ether. The four
elements: water, earth, fire, air, were identified by Egyptian priests who made them constituent
elements in the advent and evolution of the founder of Greek philosophy.
...The 'mysteries' were an immense part of Egyptian knowledge mystery of life and death,
mystery of the power of the number, mystery of the beyond, mystery of the gods, mystery of
the human spirit:...
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