Research Catalog

Title

The first Ethiopians : the image of Africa and Africans in the early Mediterranean world / Malvern van Wyk Smith.

Author

Van Wyk Smith, Malvern

Publication

Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 528 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map; 23 cm

Summary

The First Ethiopians explores the images of Africa and Africans that evolved in ancient Egypt, in classical Greece and imperial Rome, in the early Mediterranean world, and in the early domains of Christianity. Malvern van Wyk Smith was inspired by his curiosity regarding the origins of racism in southern Africa and consulted a wide range of sources for this book. From rock art to classical travel writing; from the pre-dynastic African beginnings of Egyptian and Nubian civilizations to Greek and Roman perceptions of Africa; from Khoisan cultural expressions to early Christian conceptions of Africa and its people as demonic; from Aristotelian climatology to medieval cartography; and from the geo-linguistic history of Africa to the most recent revelations regarding the genome profile of the continent's peoples. The research led to a startling proposition: western racism has its roots in Africa itself, notably in late New-Kingdom Egypt as its ruling elites sought to distance Egyptian civilization from its African origins. -- Publisher description.

Subject

• Africans > Mediterranean Region > History
• Nubia > History
• Africans in art
• Africans in literature
• Racism > Egypt
• Africains dans l'art
• Africains dans la littérature
• Racisme > Égypte
• Africans
• Antiquities
• Racism
• Africans > Mediterranean Region > History
• Racism > Egypt
• Ethiopia > History
• Egypt > History
• Egypt > Antiquities
• Africa > Antiquities
• Éthiopie > Histoire
• Égypte > Antiquités
• Africa
• Egypt
• Ethiopia
• Mediterranean Region
• Nubia > History

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Ethiopia, Egypt and the matter of Africa -- Who were the Egyptians? -- The Egypt of Africa : African resonances in predynastic Egypt -- The Egypt of the rock artists -- Africa in Egypt : proto- and early-dynastic manifestations -- Africa in Egypt : dynastic responses -- Africa in Egypt : later dynastic encounters -- The first Ethiopians -- Ethiopians in the Greek and Ptolemaic world -- Ethiopians in the Roman world -- The "Ethiopia" of the early Christian world -- The "real" Ethiopians.

ISBN

• 9781868144990
• 1868144992

LCCN

2010453514

OCLC

• 477218537
• SCSB-11517978

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library