Customer Reviews

Genesis of the Pharaohs: Dramatic New Discoveries Rewrite the Origins of Ancient Egypt

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"Genesis of the Pharaohs" ponders the question of the origin of the direct ancestors of Pre-Dynastic Egypt. Wilkinson attempts to refute theories that these ancestors came from outside the area either forceably or peacefully, and brought their complex culture with them, which formed the basis of the Old Kingdom. Rather, through a comparative analysis of the rock art of the eastern savanna (located between the Nile and the Red Sea) with the art of the Naqada and Pre-Dynastic periods, the author proposes that the ancestors of Ancient Egyptian civilization were locals who lived in and around the eastern savanna.

Wilkinson's enthusiasm for his subject is very apparent, and he creates an enjoyable experience for the most part for readers of this book. However, I thought that the evidence he used to support his story was speculative and subjective, and this is inevitable when Wilkinson's argument is based primarily on art comparison. In certain parts of the book, I felt that the author was taking on the role of a salesman who was trying to sell us his story, and using his personality rather than the evidence to win us over.

At times, I also thought Wilkinson's enthusiasm was excessive to the point that he became too familiar with his subject. For example, in one of the chapters, he concocts a hypothetical story of a boy named Seth who lived in the eastern savanna region during the time that the rock art was created. Wilkinson goes through the trouble of constructing a hypothetical scenario involving the boy's interaction with his parents and his environment, all against the backdrop of the rock art. Apparently, this fictional account was meant to reinforce what Wilkinson thought was the social function of the rock art paintings to these early people. Instead, it left me feeling like I had mistakenly picked up a children's book rather than a book on Pre-Dynastic art.

Nevertheless, the idea that Wilkinson considers is an important one, and most Ancient Egyptophiles as well as students of art history will find this book worthwhile. I just felt that this work could have been much better if it were rewritten in a different tone and more material evidence included.

For anyone interested in the origins of ancient Egyptian civilization, this is a superb book. The author does not succumb to sensationalism, but offers this latest theory based on dateable artifacts studied with standard and most recent scientifically-based archeological methods.

This very readable book examines the predynastic evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt's pharaonic civilization derived from indigenous semi-nomadic cultures about 7000-5000 years ago. Beginning with a survey of various archeological expeditions to Egypt's Eastern and Western deserts in search of prehistoric rock art, the book continues with a disussion of how rock art is dated, then sketches the cultures that produced the rock art and other predynastic artifacts. Finally, the possible meanings of the main motifs (animals forms, human forms, and boats) of the predynastic cultures are examined in light of how this symbology may be the origins of the ancient Egyptian royal and religious iconography of dynastic times.

The author's style is not dry but rather unfolds as a story that draws in the reader. No knowledge of archeology or of ancient Egypt, either dynastic or predynastic, is assumed. The maps, chart, figures, and numerous high-quality full-color plates assist learning and make the book delightfully self-contained.

The author makes it clear that this field is in its infancy and with the questions posed and the included bibliography invites the serious student and the scholar/researcher to further investigation, whether in the literature or in the field.

Ever since Herodotus wrote that "Egypt is the gift of the Nile," people have focused on the river as the locus of Egyptian civilization. Lately that's changed, with amazing discoveries in the Western and Eastern deserts (which were actually grassy plains 6,000 years ago, when Egypt got started.)

Wilkinson's book directs our attention to the former Eastern savannah, now a desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea. In pre-historic times there was enough rainfall to support grasses and game; the region was populated by semi-nomadic people who made a living from cattle herding and hunting. The early pastoralists migrated here annually from temporary settlements on the east bank of the Nile, taking advantage of unique resources available at different times of the year: fishing, farming, and clay (for making pottery) near the river, and minerals, game, and pasture for their flocks on the savannah.

It is here, Wilkinson asserts, that we can find some of the earliest evidence for Pre-Dynastic Egyptian lifestyles, beliefs, imagery, political organization, and religion. Much of it comes from rock art, which was incised on the walls of rock shelters above the ancient stream beds. Petroglyphs show the wild and domesticated animals upon which the people's livelihood depended; scenes of the hunt; of herding; afterlife beliefs, most notably the funeral boat on which the deceased symbolically rode to the heavens; and gods with their distinctive feathered plumes.

For those who love art history, it's especially gratifying to note the large part that iconographic analysis has played in establishing the probable origins of Egyptian civilization, and the lifestyle and beliefs of the earliest Egyptians.

A fascinating and easy-to-read book, this will be enjoyed by just about everyone, from general reader to specialist, who is interested in prehistory, rock art and the origins of ancient Egypt.

This interesting -- but not especially "dramatic" -- history by a Cambridge Egyptologist is a prime example of the sins of jacket-copy writers. Because the author, a thoroughgoing academic, actually has nothing whatever to say about refugees from Atlantis or space-aliens, beyond dismissing them as twaddle. There has always been contention between "nativists" and "diffusionists," no matter which ancient civilization is under discussion, including the Sumerians and the earliest Egyptians, and the arguments on each side can be fascinating. Wilkinson argues that the first kings of the Nile Valley some 6,000 years ago were not, in fact, produced by the local culture in the Delta but by interlopers from the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea -- which is not actually a new idea, either. However, he ties his theory convincingly to a series of petroglyphic monuments, first discovered by Arthur Weigall (a student of Flinders Petrie) in the early years of the last century, and later studied and photographed by Hans Winkler in the late 1930s. The sites are still there, relatively undisturbed because of the remoteness of the protected wadis in which they were carved (Winkler's chalking is still visible), and Wilkinson's task for nearly a decade has been to publicize them, to bring them to the attention of modern academics as well as the educated public. The parallels between the rock art and classical tomb art in the Valley of the Kings is remarkable. Both feature gods traveling by boat, both depict deities in twin-plumed headdresses. Moreover, the crook and flail -- the canonical accoutrement of the pharaohs -- were herdsmen's tools from the eastern lands (which had not yet become desert), not agricultural implements from the Delta. The author strives for a popular style but, given the technical subject matter, he doesn't always succeed. Still, it's a well-written treatment of a very interesting subject. Just ignore the jacket copy.

The earlier reviewer Donald Peyton is an illiterate idiot if he thinks this is Eurocentric propaganda. The truth couldn't be more different! Wilkinson is very critical of the old "Dynastic Race" theory which attributed dynastic Egyptian culture to Southwest Asian invaders, and although he does claim there were Palestinian immigrant communities in prehistoric northern Egypt, he makes it clear that most of northern Egypt at the time was an uninhabitable marsh and that it was the southern Egyptians, especially those living in the southeast, who laid the foundations for classical Egyptian civilization.

In fact, while reading Wilkinson's reconstruction of prehistoric Egyptian culture, I was reminded of another book I read about the Dinka in southern Sudan, "Warriors of the White Nile" by John Ryle and Sarah Errington. The proto-Egyptians as described by Wilkinson had the exact same cattle fixation and semi-nomadic lifestyle of shifting between river valley and savanna that the Dinka do today! In addition, both ancient Egyptians and Dinka consider cattle synonymous with wealth, as do many other cattle-herding cultures in Africa.

Far from being Eurocentric propaganda, this is an excellent resource for those interested in ancient Egypt's African heritage.

When I first saw this book, I thought it was a pseudo-scientific, sensationalist book written by some Velikovskian. Its title and cover certainly conveys that impression. Indeed, it might be quite deliberate. Toby Wilkinson presumably wants to reach out to those who mostly read "alternative" books about ancient Egypt. In reality, the book is solid science.

What makes the book interesting is that it refutes the idea that Egyptian civilization came from the outside, from the Middle East, read: not from Africans. This is known as the "Dynastic Race" theory. Recently, this theory has been popularized by pop musician-cume-maverick Egyptologist David Rohl. Wilkinson belongs to another faction within Egyptology, the one that has began to take the African roots of Egypt seriously.

According to Wilkinson, many aspects of Pharaonic civilization existed, at least in embryo, already during the pre-Dynastic period in Upper(southern) Egypt. Tribal rulers were burried in small, pyramid-shaped mounds. The boat and the cow were important religious symbols. We know from other studies that the Afro-asiatic ("Semito-Hamitic") languages originated in Ethiopia. This all points to an essentially African origin of Egyptian civilization. There is a continuity between the pastoralists roaming the Sahara, pre-Dynastic culture proper, and Dynastic culture. Mesopotamia had nothing to do with it.

Will Wilkinson's ideas stand further scientific scrutiny? True, archeology is by its very nature an inexact science. But personally, I believe he and others like him are on the right track.

Ancient Egypt might indeed have been "a Black thing".

Toby Wilkinson's "dramatic new discoveries" that were supposed to "rewrite the origins of Ancient Egypt" quickly morphs into a pathetic variation of the tired, worn out race-based "Egyptology" of the past, an Egyptology that forces all archeological, ethnological, linguistics, ancient Egyptian written documents-all scientific evidence -into a rigid intellectual paradigm. The UNSTATED premise of this rigid paradigm was that ancient Egypt was not a black African creation.
On pages 21-22, Wilkinson writes of Winkler's "obsession" : was the great civilization of "ancient Egypt" the "creation, not of "savage Africans, but of enlightened invaders from the "Aryan' world of the east." This was not only Winkler's obsession-it remains the obsession of Toby Wilkerson and most euro-centric writers and thinkers. They simply never state the premise! But they respect it! They adhere to it!

In this book Mr. Wilkinson engages in an orgy of speculation to support his hypotheses.
It is a web of speculation deliberately contrived to mislead the general reader and to spread euro-centric myths in place of known facts.
Mr. Wilkinson writes on page 14, this astonishingly, euro-centric, ethnocentric, false and misleading assertion: "To European archeologists, as to the ancient Egyptians themselves, Nubia was a strange and exotic place, not quite part of pharaonic Egypt." To imply that "European archeologist" and "ancient Egyptians" held similar opinions about Nubia is nonsense .
In the texts from the tombs of Seti I, Merenptah, and from Ramses III(Book Of Gates) we find indisputable evidence written by the ancient Egyptians themselves which demonstrates that they considered themselves to be profoundly related to the peoples of Nubia. "The Semites(3mou), Sekhmet has transformed them,it is She that hammers their souls. You are those(Egyptians) that strike against them (Semites) for me. I am happy for the multitude that I gave birth to(or who came from me)among your name(those of the Egyptians) destined for the Nubian-Sudanese(nehasu),who are born with the favor of Horus. It is he who protects their souls." The passage is repeated with tamahou(Indo-Europeans) replacing 3mou(Semites/Asiatic). We know that etymologically the ancient Egyptian terms for Europeans and Asians are extremely pejorative, indicating a animal-like human, with a qualifying sign indicating something that walks on four paws like an animal.
The word for Nubian (nehase) does not have any racial or pejorative connotation whatsoever in the ancient Egyptian language. To translate the word nehase as black or Negro is a deliberate mistranslation. It seems to be the name of some group of ancient Africa people just as Yam and WaWat, were names of other African peoples.
Toby Wilkinson stumbles along attempting to create some kind of Apartheid Wall between these two ancient African peoples.
Wilkinson often remarks about the use of hippopotamus figures in ancient Egyptian culture. Toby Wilkinson again attempts to separate, in the minds of his readers, ancient Africans from ancient Egyptians (p.64). He writes how the lumbering bulk and small ears of hippos amused the ancient Egyptians... "inspired wry amusement" in those who drew them. On the other hand he writes, "....to African people, hippos are not always figures of fun: they are dangerous wild animals that pose a threat to humans". If Mr. Wilkinson dared step out side his euro-centric intellectual prison; he would have been able to tell his readers that the hippo is inextricably connected to African cultures. For example, the river valley civilizations of Africa could shade much needed light on the customs of ancient Egypt. Among the Pulaar people who live along the Senegal River there is a Diba clan, which has the Hippo as a totem for fishermen. We know there are several words for hippo in ancient Egyptian:h3b,db and dib, each term is followed by a hippo determinative . Thus we have the diba clan or hippo clan among African people today(De L'orgine Egyptienne Des Peuls, by Dr.Aboubacry M. Lam p.211). We could cite many, many, many more examples from throughout Africa from culture, language and religion. So again Mr. Wilkinson clearly shows that his work is far from scholarly, and that he remains willingly captive to the tyrannical Euro centric paradigm.

Perhaps Toby Wilkinson personifies the dilemma of the modern Euro-centric scholar who knows very well what happened to the late Sir E. A. Wallis Budge Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge,Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar, Keeper of The Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum.
Even knighthood could not save Budge from the vicious and endless slander that was heaped upon him and all of his work after he wrote in V.1 of Osiris& The Egyptian Resurrection, Dover1971,(p.xvii,Preface)the following about the study of the Ancient Egyptians: "The modern Sudani beliefs are identical with those of ancient Egypt, because the Egyptians were Africans and the modern peoples of the Sudan are Africans". All hell broke loose and Budge's works were condemned and ridiculed-finally they were ignored. Budge became a pariah.
So instead of "Dramatic New Discoveries to Rewrite the origins of Ancient Egypt", Mr. Wilkinson gives us an orgy of speculations, suggestions and assertions about African rock art from the Eastern desert. Again, all interpretations of the rock art is forced into the race-based euro-centric paradigm. Wilkinson does not tell his readers that all the periods and categories of rock art are found only in Africa.

Poor Toby Wilkinson remains locked in his Euro-centric Cambridge-built intellectual prison. He has the key to unlock the door. But what he does not have is the intellectual courage to use the key to unlock the door and step out into the bright sunshine.
Only then can he contribute to the rewriting of the true history of these fascinating African civilizations that we call "Ancient Egypt"!

Alas poor Toby...!