History of Ethiopia According to Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and

Strabo

Herodotus (490-425 BC) The first Greek historian. Called the Father of History.

He reports faithfully what the Egyptian priests communicated to him as the history of their country,
when he visited Egypt about 460 to 450 BC.

"I went as far as Elephantine [Aswan] to see what I could with my own eyes, but for the country still
further south I had to be content with what I was told in answer to my questions. South of Elephantine
the country is inhabited by Ethiopians. . . Beyond the island is a great lake, and round its shores live
nomadic tribes of Ethiopians. After crossing the lake one comes again to the stream of the Nile, which
flows into it . . . After forty days journey on land along the river, one takes another boat and in twelve
days reaches a big city named Meroë, said to be the capital city of the Ethiopians. The inhabitants
worship Zeus and Dionysus alone of the Gods, holding them in great honor".

"The Ethiopians to whom this embassy was sent are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in the
whole world. In their customs they differ greatly from the rest of mankind, and particularly in the way
they choose their kings; for they find out the man who is the tallest of all the citizens, and of strength
equal to his height, and appoint him to rule over them . . . The spies were told that most of them lived
to be a hundred and twenty years old, while some even went beyond that age --- they ate boiled flesh,
and had for their drink nothing but milk. Among these Ethiopians copper is of all metals the most
scarce and valuable. Also, last of all, they were allowed to behold the coffins of the Ethiopians, which
are made (according to report) of crystal, after the following fashion: When the dead body has been
dried, either in the Egyptian, or in some other manner, they cover the whole with gypsum, and adorn it
with painting until it is as like the living man as possible. Then they place the body in a crystal pillar
which has been hollowed out to receive it, crystal being dug up in great abundance in their country,
and of a kind very easy to work. You may see the corpse through the pillar within which it lies; and it
neither gives out any unpleasant odor, nor is it in any respect unseemly; yet there is no part that is not
as plainly visible as if the body were bare. The next of kin keep the crystal pillar in their houses for a
full year from the time of the death, and give it the first fruits continually, and honor it with sacrifice.
After the year is out they bear the pillar forth, and set it up near the town. . ."

"Where the south declines towards the setting sun lies the country called Ethiopia, the last inhabited
land in that direction. There gold is obtained in great plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild trees of
all sorts, and ebony; and the men are taller, handsomer, and longer lived than anywhere else. The
Ethiopians were clothed in the skins of leopards and lions, and had long bows made of the stem of the
palm-leaf, not less than four cubits in length. On these they laid short arrows made of reed, and armed
at the tip, not with iron, but with a piece of stone, sharpened to a point, of the kind used in engraving
seals. They carried likewise spears, the head of which was the sharpened horn of an antelope; and in
addition they had knotted clubs. When they went into battle they painted their bodies, half with chalk,
and half with vermilion. . ."
(Herodotus: The Histories, c 430 BCE, Book III); Herodotus, The History, trans. George Rawlinson
(New York: Dutton & Co., 1862)

Herodotus on the pharaohs: "So far, all I have said is the record of my own autopsy and judgment
and inquiry. Henceforth I will record Egyptian chronicles, according to what I have heard, adding
something of what I myself have seen" . . . . "The priests told me that Min was the first king of Egypt,
and that first he separated Memphis from the Nile by a dam" . . . "After him came three hundred and
thirty kings, whose names the priests recited from a papyrus roll. In all these many generations there
were eighteen Ethiopian kings, and one queen, native to the country; the rest were all Egyptian
men" . . . "The name of the queen was the same as that of the Babylonian princess, Nitocris. She, to
avenge her brother (he was king of Egypt and was slain by his subjects, who then gave Nitocris the
sovereignty) put many of the Egyptians to death by treachery".
(Herodotus: The Histories, c 430 BCE, Book II, chap. 99

"For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it from
others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had
remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they
believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured
myself not only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing,
for there are other races which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and
Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The Phenicians and
the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and
the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are their
neighbours, say that they have learnt it lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men
who practise circumcision, and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians. Of the
Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I am not able to say which learnt from the other,
for undoubtedly it is a most ancient custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse with the
Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely that those of the Phenicians who have
intercourse with Hellas cease to follow the example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not
circumcise their children."
(Herodotus, The Histories, Book II: 104)

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. From his own statements we learn that he traveled in
Egypt around
60 BC. His travels in Egypt probably took him as far south as the first Cataract.

"They (the Ethiopians) say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris
["King of Kings and God of Gods] having been the leader of the colony . . . they add that the Egyptians
have received from them, as from authors and their ancestors, the greater part of their laws."
Diodorus's declared intention to trace the origins of the cult of Osiris, alias the Greek Dionysus also
commonly known by his Roman name Bacchus. The Homeric Hymn "To Dionysus" locates the birth of
Dionysus in a mysterious city of Nysa "near the streams of Aegyptus" (Hesiod 287). Diodorus cites this
reference as well as the ancient belief that Dionysus was the son of Ammon, king of Libya (3.68.1),
and much of Book 3 of the Bibliotheka Historica is devoted to the intertwined histories of Dionysus and
the god-favored Ethiopians whom he believed to be the originators of Egyptian civilization. [emphasis
added]
(1st century B.C., Diodorus Siculus of Sicily, Greek historian and contemporary of Caesar Augustus,
Universal History Book III. 2. 4-3. 3)

Editors Note:

Dionysus is Orisis reinvented. The mysteries were neither of Cretan origin nor a part of the original
Greek religion is well established by the fact that the initiatory rites as practiced among these islanders
were open to everyone, in contrast to the secret rituals of Byblus, Cyprus, Thrace, Samothrace, and
Eleusis (Diodorus, Book V, 77). The mystery, which originated in Egypt, was imported into Greece
long after Zeus and his family had migrated from Mt. Ida to Mt. Olympus.

Diodorus devoted an entire chapter of his world history, the Bibliotheke Historica, or Library of History
(Book 3), to the Kushites ["Aithiopians"] of Meroe. Here he repeats the story of their great piety, their
high favor with the gods, and adds the fascinating legend that they were the first of all men created by
the gods and were the founders of Egyptian civilization, invented writing, and given the Egyptians their
religion and culture. (3.3.2).

Diodorus continues:

"Now they relate that of all people the Aithiopians [Ethiopians] were the earliest, and say that the
proofs of this are clear. That they did not arrive as immigrants but are the natives of the country and
therefore rightly are called authochthonous is almost universally accepted. That those who live in the
South are likely to be the first engendered by the earth is obvious to all. For as it was the heat of the
sun that dried up the earth while it was still moist, at the time when everything came into being, and
caused life, they say it is probable that it was the region closest to the sun that first bore animate
beings".

"They further write that it was among them that people were first taught to honor the gods and offer
sacrifices and arrange processions and festivals and perform other things by which people honor the
divine. For this reason their piety is famous among all men, and the sacrifices among the Aithiopians
are believed to be particularly pleasing to the divinity."

"The Aithiopians [Ethiopians] say that the Egyptians are settlers from among themselves and that
Osiris was the leader of the settlement. The customs of the Egyptians, they say, are for the most part
Aithiopian, the settlers having preserved their old traditions. For to consider the kings gods, to pay
great attention to funeral rites, and many other things, are Aithiopian practices, and also the style of
their statues and the form of their writing are Aithiopian. Also the way the priestly colleges are
organized is said to be the same in both nations. For all who have to do with the cult of the gods, they
maintain, are [ritually] pure: the priests are shaved in the same way, they have the same robes and the
type of scepter shaped like a plough, which also the kings have, who use tall pointed felt hats ending
in a knob, with the snakes that they call the asp (aspis) coiled round them."

"There are also numerous other Aithiopian tribes [i.e. besides those centered at Meroe]; some live
along both sides of the river Nile and on the islands in the river, others dwell in the regions that border
on Arabia [i.e. to the east], others again have settled in the interior of Libya [i.e. to the west]. The
majority of these tribes, in particular those who live along the river, have black skin, snub-nosed faces,
and curly hair".
(Diodous Siculus, Bibliotheke, 3. Translated by Tomas Hagg, in Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, vol. II:
From the Mid-Fifth to the First Century BC (Bergen, Norway, 1996))

Strabo (63 BC - 24 AD) a philosopher, historian and geographer from Amaseia in Pontus. He is
well known for this
17 “books” Geography describing the known parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.

The Geography of Strabo - Book XV (excerpts):

6: However, Sesostris, the Egyptian, he adds, and Tearco the Aethiopian [Ethiopian] advanced as far
as Europe; and Nabocodrosor, who enjoyed greater repute among the Chaldaeans than Heracles, led
an army even as far as the Pillars. Thus far, he says, also Tearco went; and Sesostris also led his
army from Iberia to Thrace and the Pontus; and Idanthyrsus the Scythian overran Asia as far as Egypt;
but no one of these touched India, and Semiramis too died before the attempt; and, although the
Persians summoned the Hydraces as mercenary troops from India, the latter did not make an
expedition to Persia, but only came near it when Cyrus was marching against the Massagetae.

13. The whole of India is traversed by rivers. . . . As for the people of India, those in the south are like
the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on
account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the
Egyptians.

21. To this statement Aristobulus and his followers, who assert that the plains are not watered by rain,
would not agree. But Onesicritus believes that rain-water is the cause of the distinctive differences in
the animals; and he adduces as evidence that the colour of foreign cattle which drink it is changed to
that of the native animals. Now in this he is correct; but no longer so when he lays the black
complexion and woolly hair of the Aethiopians [Ethiopians] on merely the waters and censures
Theodectes, who refers the cause to the sun itself, saving as follows: 'Nearing the borders of these
people the Sun, driving his chariot, discoloured the bodies of men with a murky dark bloom, and curled
their hair, fusing it by unincreasable forms of fire. But Onesicritus might have some argument on his
side; for he says that, in the first place, the sun is no nearer to the Aethiopians than to any other
people, but is more nearly in a perpendicular line with reference to them and on this account scorches
more, and therefore it is incorrect to say 'nearing the borders the sun' since the sun is equidistant from
all peoples; and that, secondly, the heat is not the cause of such a discoloration, for it does not apply
to infants in the womb either, since the rays of the sun do not touch them, But better is the opinion of
those who lay the cause to the sun and its scorching, which causes a very great deficiency of moisture
on the surface of the skin. And I assert that it is in accordance with this fact that the Indians do not
have woolly hair, and also that their skin is not so unmercifully scorched, I mean the fact that they
share in any atmosphere that is humid. And already in the womb children, by seminal impartation,
become like their parents in colour; for congenital affections and other similarities are also thus
explained. Further, the statement that the sun is equidistant from all peoples is made in accordance
with observation, not reason; and, in accordance with observations that are not casual, but in
accordance with the observation, as I put it, that the earth is no larger than a point as compared with
the sun's globe since in accordance with the kind of observation whereby we feel differences in heat --
more heat when the heat is near us and less when it is far away -- the sun is not equidistant from all:
and it is in this sense that the sun is spoken of as 'nearing the borders' of the Aethiopians, not in the
sense Onesicritus thinks.

The Black Egyptians--Original Settlers of Kemet

The Black Egyptians are the original settlers of KMT. "The native Sudanese are one
of the original pigmented Arabs in that region. They are members of the same ethnic
family with the ancient Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Southern Arabians, and the
primitive inhabitants of Babylon. All founders and sustainers of the mighty Nilotic
civilization we still admire today. They are very great nation of Blacks, who did rule
almost over all Africa and Asia in a very remote era, in fact beyond the reach of
history of any of our records.

Egypt is a Greek word meaning “Black.”

1- The Egyptians of the Bible were Negroid.

2- The bible says both Egyptians and Ethiopians are descendants of Ham.
3- Arabs invaded Egypt in the 7th Century AD; therefore,
4- Arabs have no more connection to Ancient Egypt than Europeans have to
Ancient America.
5- Black Egyptians were eventually mixed with invading Libyans, Persians, Greeks,
Romans, Turks, Arabs and Western Europeans. That is where the mixed people of
the modern-day Arabs come from.

The following is supporting evidence from The African Origin of Civilization: by:
Cheikh Anta Diop

1- Evidence from Physical Anthropology

The skeletons and skulls of the Ancient Egyptians clearly reflect they were
Negroid people with features very similar to those of modern Black Nubians
and other people of the Upper Nile and of East Africa.
2- Melanin Dosage Test
Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop invented a method for determining the level of
melanin in the skin of human beings. When conducted on Egyptian mummies
in the Museum of Man in Paris, this test indicated these remains were of Black
people.
3- Osteological Evidence
"Lepsius canon," which distinguishes the bodily proportions of various racial
groups categories the "ideal Egyptian" as "short-armed and of Negroid or
Negrito physical type."
 4- Evidence From Blood Types
Diop notes that even after hundreds of years of inter-mixture with foreign
invaders, the blood type of modern Egyptians is the "same group B as the
populations of western Africa on the Atlantic seaboard and not the A2 Group
characteristic of the white race prior to any crossbreeding."
5- The Egyptians as They Saw Themselves
"The Egyptians had only one term to designate themselves =kmt= the
Negroes (literally). This is the strongest term existing in the Pharaonic tongue
to indicate blackness; it is accordingly written with a hieroglyph representing a
length of wood charred at the end and not crocodile scales," singular. ‘Kmt’
from the adjective =kmt= black; it therefore means strictly Negroes or at the
very least black men. The term is a collective noun which thus described the
whole people of Pharaonic Egypt as a black people."
6- Divine Epithets
Diop demonstrates that "black or Negro" is the divine epithet invariably used
for the chief beneficent Gods of Egypt, while the evil spirits were depicted as
red.
7- Evidence From the Bible
The Bible states that "…[t]he sons of Ham [were] Cush and Mizraim [i.e.
Egypt], and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and
Sabtah, and Raamah and Sabtechah." According to Biblical tradition, Ham, of
course, was the father of the Black race. "Generally speaking all semitic
tradition (Jewish and Arab) class ancient Egypt with the countries of the
black."
8- Cultural unity of Egypt With The Rest of Africa
Through a study of circumcision and totemism. Diop gives detailed data
showing cultural unity between Egypt and the rest of Africa.
9- Linguistic Unity With Southern and Western Africa
In a detailed study of languages, Diop clearly demonstrates that Ancient
Egyptian, modern Coptic of Egypt and Walaf of West Africa are related, with
the latter two having their origin in the former.
10- Testimony of Classical Greek and Roman Authors
Virtually all of the early Latin eyewitnesses described the Ancient Egyptians as
Black skinned with wooly hair.

After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, under the Ptolemies, crossbreeding

between white Greeks and black Egyptians flourished. "Nowhere was Dionysus
more favored, nowhere was he worshiped more adoringly and more elaborately than
by the Ptolemies, who recognized his cult as an especially effective means of
promoting the assimilation of the conquering Greeks and their fusion with the native
Egyptians." {Endnote 15: J. J. Bachofen, Pages choisies par Adrien Turel, "Du Regne
de la mere au patriarcat." Paris: F. Alcan, 1938, p. 89.}

These facts prove that if the Egyptian people had originally been white, it might
well have remained so. If Herodotus found it still black after so much
crossbreeding, it must have been basic black at the start.

Before examining the contradictions circulating in the modern era and resulting from
attempts to prove at any price that the Egyptians were Whites, let us note the
comments of Count Constantin de Volney (1757-1820). After being imbued with
all the prejudices we have just mentioned with regard to the Negro, Volney had
gone to Egypt between 1783 and 1785, he reported the Egyptian Race is the
very race that had produced the Pharaohs: the Copts (p. 27).

“All have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, and thick lips; in a word, the true
face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the
Sphinx; its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head,
typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where
Herodotus says: "As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the
Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair. ..." We can see
how their blood, mixed for several centuries with that of the Romans and Greeks,
must have lost the intensity of its original color, while retaining nonetheless the
imprint of its original mold. We can even state as a general principle that the face is a
kind of monument able, in many cases, to attest or shed light on historical evidence
on the origins of peoples. {End quote}

When Egypt was invaded by Arabs - Egypt suffered turbulent times when, in 609
AD, the country had sided with Nicetas, a lieutenant of Heraclius, in the rebellion
against the emperor Phocas. Only shortly after Heraclius overthrew Phocas, the
Byzantines were attacked by the Persians. The armies of the Sasanid King Khosrau
II invaded Egypt, inflicting cruel suffering upon its some of its inhabitants. This
Persian occupation lasted six years.

African Antiquity

In the Beginning...

Narmer (Menes) The 1st Pharaoh of Egypt

(Fig 5 - Diop Cheikh Anta, The African Origin of Civilization, 1974)

King Aha-Mena-Narmer is known by millions of people by the

Greek-distorted "version" of his name: King Menes. Notice the
African features from his high chick bones, flat nose and thick
lips. The Kufi/Crown upon his head is a sign of royal authority.

King Aha-Mena-Narmer is the founding King of the first Ancient Egyptian dynasty. He
also become the first Emperor of Kemet by unifying Upper and Lower Egypt into one
imperial federation, along the Nile Valley. From its Central-Eastern Kilimanjaro
Mountains sources to the Mediterranean Sea Delta, the Ancient Egyptian Empire
gave birth to the world's first civilization.

Since then, the imperial heritage has been carried on, from dynasty to dynasty and
from generation to generation. Extensive territory is nothing new to African Kings and
Emperors: it is simply a matter of historical, cultural and imperial continuity.

African history and culture trace their roots back to that pharaonic period, the ultimate
source of African humanities. The same way the European/Western world traces its
history and culture back to Greece and Rome. African human sciences, finally
reconciled with its Ancient Egyptian sources, can retrace the entire history of the
Nation, step-by-step.

On this immemorial timeline, the enslavement and colonial periods suffered by

African people can be considered as little parenthesis. Yet, the terrible impact of
colonial bound mis-education and cultural conditioning affects many people, Blacks
and Whites alike. Consequently, innocent victims of "schooling" who have lost their
historical memories, now find it hard to believe that, Black people actually played the
earliest civilizing role in the world. That misleading education has damaged the
minds, self-esteem and behavior of many people across racial lines:

"The History of humanity will remain confused as long as as we fail to distinguish

between the two early cradles in which nature fashioned the instincts, temperament,
habits and ethical concepts of the two subdivisions before they met each other after a
long separation, dating back to prehistoric times..."Cheikh Anta Diop

Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, in his “L’Antiquité Africaine Par L’Image” (Notes Africaines No
Special 145) drew two important conclusions:

1. Humanity born at the latitude of the African Great Lakes, near the Ecuador is
by necessity pigmented (black) and African. This is substantiated by Gloger’s
Law which states that warm blooded beings are pigmented in hot and humid
climates”.
2. All races are issued from the African race by direct relationships and, the other
continents were peopled from Africa at the Homo erectus stage, as well as the
Homo sapiens stage, which appeared about 150,000 years ago.

It has been finally proven that, for a time period beginning 5 million years ago up until
the glacial thaw (10,000 years ago), Africa almost unilaterally peopled and influenced
the rest of the world.

Dr. Leakey, one of the world's most reputable paleo-anthropologist, in his serious
work “Progress And Evolution Of Man In Africa”, reminds us that: “The critics of Africa
forget that men of science are today satisfied that, Africa was the birthplace of man
himself”. Human beings are Africa’s first contribution to humanity.

Advanced research and several studies in prehistory and paleo-anthropology have

confirmed the similarities between the original founders of the pharaonic civilization
(ancient Nubians, Ethiopians and Egyptians) and the modern day Africans.

Rawlinson concludes in “Origins Of Nations” that: “The authors of Genesis unites

together as members of the same ethnic family the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the
Southern Arabians, and the primitive inhabitants of Babylon”.

According to many ancient testimonies, the inhabitants of Sudan, Egypt, Arabia,

Palestine, Western Asia and India were Ethiopians, therefore Africans. Back in that
era, there were two lands called Ethiopia. Sir Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis, vol.1)
declared: “One on the east of the Red Sea, and the other on the west of it; and a very
great nation of Blacks, from India, did rule almost over all Asia in a very remote era,
in fact beyond the reach of history of any of our records”.

Herodotus who was initiated within the Ancient Egyptian mystery system declared
that:” The uniform voice of primitive antiquity spoke of the Ethiopians as one single
race, dwelling along the shores of the southern ocean, from India to the pillars of
Hercules”. (Herodotus, vol.1 book I)

Greece: An Average Student of Ancient Egypt

Dr. Theophile Obenga, in this magisterial book "African Philosophy in World History"
(Obenga,1998), successfully challenges and neutralizes the Hegelian philosophy of
history, continuing in the footsteps of Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, his mentor. Hegel
alienated the Caucasian mind by stating with ignorance that "Africa has no history".
That mis-education of the Caucasians led to arrogance with an unfounded racial
superiority belief system.

The seven liberal arts and sciences, which are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic,
geometry, music and astronomy, come out of Africa. Therefore, to the Ancient
Egyptians, and neither to the Greeks, nor to the Romans, are we indebted for the
present body of human knowledge. Greece and Rome were average students in
Ancient Egypt. Considered foreigners and childish, Greek students were unable to
access a complete initiation and induction within the Ancient Egyptian Mystery
System.

Aristotle of Stagira, Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras of Samos, Diodorus of Sicily, Plato

and Strabo were all initiated in Ancient Egypt, from a very young age until adulthood.
Their eyewitness accounts reflect the fact that they were taught and instructed by
dark skinned teachers born and raised in Africa. Greed, prestige and reputation
made most of them ungrateful, when they claimed all the theories and theorems,
formulas and axioms they learned in Ancient Egypt for themselves. Most Greek and
Roman students of Africa committed plagiarism by signing their names on their
African teachers writings, inventions,
creations and productions.

Thus, we now have: "Theorem of Pythagoras", "Thales'Axiom" among many illegal

appropriations of the African sciences of geometry, mathematics, architecture,
rhetoric and philosophy. Those operative sciences have been invented and
implemented in the heart of Africa, thousands of years before the Greeks and
Romans came into existence as a distinct race!
That saga continues today with the renaming of African scientific papyri such as the
"Rhind Papyri" and the "Moscow mathematical Papyri". Those Papyri and their
scientific content were produced and elaborated thousands of years before Rhind's
people were born. Eastern Europe was still under the ice-age with barbaric people.
Moscow, nor any of its founders, were even in existence at the time.

Since mankind originated first in Africa, it was necessarily black before becoming
white through mutation and adaptation, at the end of the last ice-age in Europe.
Scholars both ancient and modern have finally come to the conclusion that, the
African people created the world first civilization. Our ancestors did rule the world
from its seats of power, enthroned from the valley of the Granges, the Tigris and
Euphrates, to the Nile and Niger Rivers.

www.jolofempire.com
www.khidmatulkhadim.org