The First Ethiopians. Malvern van Wyk Smith

      

      THE FIRST ETHIOPIANS

      THE FIRST ETHIOPIANS

       The Image of Africa and Africans in the Early Mediterranean World

      Malvern van Wyk Smith

      Published in South Africa by:

      Wits University Press

      1 Jan Smuts Avenue

      Johannesburg 2001

       http://witspress.wits.ac.za

      Copyright© Malvern van Wyk Smith 2009

      First published 2009

      ISBN (print) 978 1 86814 499-0

      ISBN (EPUB - IPG) 978-1-86814-834-9

      ISBN (EPUB - ROW) 978-1-86814-835-6

      ISBN (PDF) 978-1-86814-634-5

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder and the publisher.

      All photographs taken by the author unless otherwise indicated. All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The author and Wits University Press gratefully acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in the illustrated section for the use of the images therein. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced here; please contact the Press at the above address in case of any omissions.

      Edited by Helen Moffett and Rustum Kozain

      Design and typesetting by Electric Book Works (electricbookworks.com)

      Index by Adrienne Pretorius

      Cover photograph by Malvern van Wyk Smith

      Major headings and some text set in Fontin Sans and Fontin

      (by Jos Buivenga, www.exljbris.nl)

      Body text and minor headings set in Warnock Light 10/14

      Printed and bound by Creda Communications, Cape Town

       From South and East, and from my West

       (The sandy desert holds the North)

       We look across a vast continent

      And blindly call it ours.

      You are not a country, Africa,

      You are a concept,

      Fashioned in our minds, each to each,

      To hide our separate fears,

      To dream our separate dreams.

      —Abioseh Nicol, ‘The Meaning of Africa’

      CONTENTS

       Preface

       Map

       Timeline

       Introduction

       1

       Ethiopia, Egypt and the Matter of Africa

       2

       Who were the Egyptians?

       3

       The Egypt of Africa

       African Resonances in Predynastic Egypt

       4

       The Egypt of the Rock Artists

       5

       Africa in Egypt

       Proto- and Early-Dynastic Manifestations

       6

       Africa in Egypt

       Dynastic Responses

       7

       Africa in Egypt

       Later Dynastic Encounters

       8

       The First Ethiopians

       9

       Ethiopians in the Greek and Ptolemaic World

       10

       Ethiopians in the Roman World

       11

       The ‘Ethiopia’ of the Early Christian World

       12

       The ‘Real’ Ethiopians

       Conclusion

       Bibliography

       Index

      PREFACE

      This book has been some thirty years in the making, although its effective composition could only begin once I had retired from Rhodes University in 2002. Over the previous decades the project had, however, grown substantially from what would have been little more than