Rare and very interesting photos
- Thread starter Alumni
- Start date
Saturday afternoon at a 'juke joint' in the Delta area. Clarksdale, Mississippi, November 1939.
Last edited:
1941 - African American soldiers of the 349th Field Artillery Regiment straddle the barrel and carriage of a large artillery piece, Fort Still, Oklahoma.
Last edited:
1941 - African American women workers pick and pack freshly steamed crab meat in Baltimore, Maryland.
Children, dressed for Easter, going to the movies. Chicago, Illinois, April 1941.
Last edited:
Somebody put haters gonna hate on that pic , them 2 in the back look salty
Pretty much.
Alabama Negro Winfield Townsend burned at stake in Eclectic, Alabama for assaulting a white woman
During the nighttime hours of May 31 and June 1, groups of armed whites made "drive-by" shootings in black residential neighborhoods, firing into African-American homes
White rioters began setting black homes and businesses on fire around midnight, largely along Archer Street. There were atrocities as well. One elderly African-American couple, it was later reported, was shot in the back of the head by whites as they knelt in prayer inside their home
While the white rioters continued their assault upon the African-American community, black Tulsans soon found themselves subject to arrest by Tulsa officials and "Special deputies"
Tulsa Riots
As the riot wore on, African-American families frequently be came separated, as black men were often the first to be led away at gunpoint. For many black Tulsans, it was hours-and, in some cases, much longer-before they learned the fate of their loved ones
Many African Americans were forced to spend the winter after the riot in tents (Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society).
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o1_1280.jpg">
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o2_1280.jpg">
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o3_r1_1280.jpg">
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o4_r1_1280.jpg">
Mysterious 1200AD temple under Mexico City has bodies of 15 children - and a dog slain to keep them company in the afterlife.
Archaeologists in Mexico City have unearthed the skulls and other bones of 15 people, most of them the children of traveling merchants during Aztec times.
The mysterious mass grave had a ceremonial purpose, researchers say - and the children were surrounded by religious items including a dog sacrificed to ‘keep them company.’
Researcher Alejandra Jasso Pena says they also found ceramic flutes, bowls, incense burners.
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o2_1280.jpg">
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o3_r1_1280.jpg">
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79uq7X8RW1qbvbd7o4_r1_1280.jpg">
Mysterious 1200AD temple under Mexico City has bodies of 15 children - and a dog slain to keep them company in the afterlife.
Archaeologists in Mexico City have unearthed the skulls and other bones of 15 people, most of them the children of traveling merchants during Aztec times.
The mysterious mass grave had a ceremonial purpose, researchers say - and the children were surrounded by religious items including a dog sacrificed to ‘keep them company.’
Researcher Alejandra Jasso Pena says they also found ceramic flutes, bowls, incense burners.
Poland’s secret is that the jews where being blamed all over Europe as scapegoats for the black plague. Poland was the only place that accepted Jewish refugees, so pretty much all of them moved there.
Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.
Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it.
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m50b4j3OQB1rwtm0po1_500.gif">
Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.
Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it.
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m50b4j3OQB1rwtm0po1_500.gif">
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5rrw7Cx6F1r13gsho1_500.jpg">
Southern sheriff proudly leans on tree with two lynched black men - The vociferous disapproval by Northern liberals of the Southern propensity for burning black men with a carnival-like atmosphere - such as Henry Smith in Paris, Texas; Sam Hose in Atlanta, Georgia; and Henry Lowry in Memphis, Tennessee - caused lynchings to be a less overtly community-sponsored event. Southerners thought that blacks born after the Civil War were undisciplined by slavery, and were certainly unschooled in proper race etiquette. Northern carpetbag teachers and tradesmen had not taught Southern blacks their proper role in Southern culture - it was up to the citizens of the former Confederate states to do so. The threat of lynching or a short life in the convict labor system was a powerful incentive for blacks to behave. With the rest of the country frowning on community burning, hanging a black man before or after he was shot and mutilated became the accepted norm. Masked and unmasked men abducted suspects from the law and provided this form of “Southern Justice.” Much of the time, lawmen participated in the lynchings. The suspects were usually dealt with at night, after honest Southern gentlemen had put in a hard day’s work. The next day, posing proudly beside the results of their night’s labor, photographs were taken to provide family photo albums with poignant symbols of Southern culture.
After the photographic postcard was approved for mailing in 1908, sending postcards of these events was very popular. Some photographic supply companies promised to send one a month to subscribers. This photographic postcard was eventually mailed (from Springfield, MO to Atlanta, GA), thus making it even more valuable. The Jim Crow laws of the 1890s and the convict labor system had totally devalued a black person’s life. One old black Southerner recalled that in those days, “They had to have a license to kill anything but a ******. We was always in season.” Turn-of-the-century medical and criminal sciences supported Southern views; the degeneration theory popular between 1870 and 1910 and the feeblemindedness theory (1905-1920), along with criminal anthropology studies, labeled blacks as inferior human beings with atavistic tendencies which made their animalistic behavior natural. This photograph style of posing with a black man hanging from a tree is similar in composition to that of a proud hunter with his kill.
Southern sheriff proudly leans on tree with two lynched black men - The vociferous disapproval by Northern liberals of the Southern propensity for burning black men with a carnival-like atmosphere - such as Henry Smith in Paris, Texas; Sam Hose in Atlanta, Georgia; and Henry Lowry in Memphis, Tennessee - caused lynchings to be a less overtly community-sponsored event. Southerners thought that blacks born after the Civil War were undisciplined by slavery, and were certainly unschooled in proper race etiquette. Northern carpetbag teachers and tradesmen had not taught Southern blacks their proper role in Southern culture - it was up to the citizens of the former Confederate states to do so. The threat of lynching or a short life in the convict labor system was a powerful incentive for blacks to behave. With the rest of the country frowning on community burning, hanging a black man before or after he was shot and mutilated became the accepted norm. Masked and unmasked men abducted suspects from the law and provided this form of “Southern Justice.” Much of the time, lawmen participated in the lynchings. The suspects were usually dealt with at night, after honest Southern gentlemen had put in a hard day’s work. The next day, posing proudly beside the results of their night’s labor, photographs were taken to provide family photo albums with poignant symbols of Southern culture.
After the photographic postcard was approved for mailing in 1908, sending postcards of these events was very popular. Some photographic supply companies promised to send one a month to subscribers. This photographic postcard was eventually mailed (from Springfield, MO to Atlanta, GA), thus making it even more valuable. The Jim Crow laws of the 1890s and the convict labor system had totally devalued a black person’s life. One old black Southerner recalled that in those days, “They had to have a license to kill anything but a ******. We was always in season.” Turn-of-the-century medical and criminal sciences supported Southern views; the degeneration theory popular between 1870 and 1910 and the feeblemindedness theory (1905-1920), along with criminal anthropology studies, labeled blacks as inferior human beings with atavistic tendencies which made their animalistic behavior natural. This photograph style of posing with a black man hanging from a tree is similar in composition to that of a proud hunter with his kill.
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m44w3ighJU1qgfbgio1_500.jpg">
AN EXAMPLE OF AFRICAN MEDICAL SCIENCE. ILLUSTRATION OF AFRICAN DOCTORS IN 19TH CENTURY (1879) KAHARA,UGANDA PERFORMING A CAESARIAN SECTION. THIS OPERATION WAS UNKNOWN IN EUROPE AT THE TIME.
Africans were performing many advanced medical procedures long before they had been conceived in Europe this is just one of many examples.
The British traveler R.W. Felkin who reported this noted that the healer used banana wine to semi-intoxicate the woman and to cleanse his hands and her abdomen prior to surgery. He used a midline incision and applied cautery to minimize hemorrhaging. He massaged the uterus to make it contract but did not suture it; the abdominal wound was pinned with iron needles and dressed with a paste prepared from roots. The patient recovered well, and Felkin concluded that this technique was well-developed and had clearly been employed for a long time. Similar reports come from Rwanda, where botanical preparations were also used to anesthetize the patient and promote wound healing.
Reference:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part2.html
AN EXAMPLE OF AFRICAN MEDICAL SCIENCE. ILLUSTRATION OF AFRICAN DOCTORS IN 19TH CENTURY (1879) KAHARA,UGANDA PERFORMING A CAESARIAN SECTION. THIS OPERATION WAS UNKNOWN IN EUROPE AT THE TIME.
Africans were performing many advanced medical procedures long before they had been conceived in Europe this is just one of many examples.
The British traveler R.W. Felkin who reported this noted that the healer used banana wine to semi-intoxicate the woman and to cleanse his hands and her abdomen prior to surgery. He used a midline incision and applied cautery to minimize hemorrhaging. He massaged the uterus to make it contract but did not suture it; the abdominal wound was pinned with iron needles and dressed with a paste prepared from roots. The patient recovered well, and Felkin concluded that this technique was well-developed and had clearly been employed for a long time. Similar reports come from Rwanda, where botanical preparations were also used to anesthetize the patient and promote wound healing.
Reference:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part2.html
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4bxr53kGv1qek8f0o1_500.gif">
Fear of Negro rule was still evident in 1900. Cartoon by Norman E. Jennette published in the Raleigh News And Observer.
Rising Down, the eighth studio album of The Roots wasreleased on April 29, 2008. Above is the original drawing used the for the cover “The Vampire that Hovers Over North Carolina,” cartoon by Norman E. Jennette. Published in the Raleigh News And Observer, 27th September 1898 during the North Carolina Election of 1898, it is apparent that there was still fear of a Negro rule.
Questlove from The Roots explains the cover, “it’s about The Reconstruction period in American History. This drawing entitled “Negro Rule,” and it pretty much sums up the feeling of the Confederate Union towards the newly freed slaves and the idea that if given power they would reek havoc and chaos on the country.”
Fear of Negro rule was still evident in 1900. Cartoon by Norman E. Jennette published in the Raleigh News And Observer.
Rising Down, the eighth studio album of The Roots wasreleased on April 29, 2008. Above is the original drawing used the for the cover “The Vampire that Hovers Over North Carolina,” cartoon by Norman E. Jennette. Published in the Raleigh News And Observer, 27th September 1898 during the North Carolina Election of 1898, it is apparent that there was still fear of a Negro rule.
Questlove from The Roots explains the cover, “it’s about The Reconstruction period in American History. This drawing entitled “Negro Rule,” and it pretty much sums up the feeling of the Confederate Union towards the newly freed slaves and the idea that if given power they would reek havoc and chaos on the country.”
Keep em coming
king_101
Banned
THis is bullshit....THeres a white boy in that pic. The owner was also willing to burn that white boy? I call bullshit....
It maybe difficult to believe, yet this do occur.
Reference...
http://jennthasan.tumblr.com/post/13308773985/hazeltwotwiggs-june-1964-black
9/15/1938 - Washington, DC: Tuberculosis draws no color line. Of the 596 deaths attributed to tuberculosis in Washington in 1937, the Negro population contributed 391 to the white's 205. Negro physicians and nurses fight hand in hand with with health workers to stop the ravages of this disease.
Last edited:
1939 - An elderly African American man named uncle Ambrose Douglas aged 99 once a slave is holding the youngest of his 38 children.
Berrien County, Michigan, July 1940. Migrant fruit pickers in an old barn used a bunkhouse for unmarried Negroes.
Last edited:
July 1940 - A group of migrant workers from Florida stop alongside the road in Sawboro, North Carolina, on their way to Cranberry, New Jersey, to pick potatoes.
Last edited:
1940 - Men and women work a field on the Bayou Bourbeaux Plantation, a Farm Security Administration cooperative near Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Last edited:
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7deazs1jp1ruo07wo1_1280.jpg">
Early 11th century Cloisonné enamel, gold;
This medallion of Christ is from a group of twelve that once surrounded an icon of the archangel Gabriel. The medallions may have been sent as a gift from the Byzantine court to the neighbouring Christian state of Georgia.
At the Metropolitan museum of Art.
Early 11th century Cloisonné enamel, gold;
This medallion of Christ is from a group of twelve that once surrounded an icon of the archangel Gabriel. The medallions may have been sent as a gift from the Byzantine court to the neighbouring Christian state of Georgia.
At the Metropolitan museum of Art.
Very humbling, and a great history lesson..
off topic but I'v always loved 13th rounds avi.. I aint feeling J.Lin too much. But I understanf the business move & I love my ROCKETS!
This thread is 5+ stars!! keep it going fam.
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m76hq7aPSH1rubozqo1_500.jpg">
Mississippi sheriff Lawrence Rainey (right) and deputy Cecil Ray Price on trial in 1967 for the murder of three civil rights workers
The Mississippi civil rights workers murders involved the lynching of three anti-racism and social justice activists near Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi on June 21, 1964, during the American Civil Rights Movement.
The murders of James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from nearby Meridian, Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old white Jewish anthropology student from New York; and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old white Jewish CORE organizer and former social worker also from New York, demonstrated the dangers faced by civil rights workers in the South, especially during what became known as “Freedom Summer”, dedicated to voter education and registration. Blacks in Mississippi, as throughout the former Confederacy, lived under racial segregation and Jim Crow laws, and had been essentially disfranchised in Mississippi since the passage of the state constitution of 1890.
Mississippi sheriff Lawrence Rainey (right) and deputy Cecil Ray Price on trial in 1967 for the murder of three civil rights workers
The Mississippi civil rights workers murders involved the lynching of three anti-racism and social justice activists near Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi on June 21, 1964, during the American Civil Rights Movement.
The murders of James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from nearby Meridian, Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old white Jewish anthropology student from New York; and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old white Jewish CORE organizer and former social worker also from New York, demonstrated the dangers faced by civil rights workers in the South, especially during what became known as “Freedom Summer”, dedicated to voter education and registration. Blacks in Mississippi, as throughout the former Confederacy, lived under racial segregation and Jim Crow laws, and had been essentially disfranchised in Mississippi since the passage of the state constitution of 1890.
<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m77kkzIVkE1rv29kpo1_400.jpg">
Its pretty lengthy...
The following article by Nijel BPG first appeared in The BKF Magazine, July 1999.
REVISED July 1, 2000.
NUBA WRESTLING - The African Origins of the Martial Arts Revealed!
by Nijel BPG
“The Nuba of Sudan, Africa practiced a form of martial arts wrestling over 2,800 years before Christ. There are no other records in any corner of the world that can claim such a long, and unbroken martial arts tradition. This form of martial arts, which included weapons as well as fortification, and certainly empty hand self-defense blossomed in 12th Dynasty Egypt. Nuba Wrestlingâ„¢ is the original martial art that all of Africa, Asia, and Europe later came to benefit from”.
Excerpt from “Nuba Wrestlingâ„¢: The Original Art”
Millions of African-Americans, and Black people all over the world study Kung-Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Karate, or some other form of martial arts. Many of them will tell you that it has transformed their lives. Therefore books, videos, magazines, television and films will continue to portray the martial arts. There are even comic book characters such as Karnak, the 1960’s Marvel superhero and member of the mutant group known as the Inhumans. Karnak is a martial arts master who is able to discern the stress point of any solid object, no matter how large, and shatter that object with one powerful, and well placed karate chop.
As popular as the martial arts was and continues to be, less than one percent of Africans in diaspora, and only a slightly higher percentage of Asians, and Europeans are aware that the true origins of these magnificent arts are in fact African! Many African teens who fantasized themselves becoming the powerful Karnak, will be surprised to learn that he was actually named after an ancient African temple in Egypt, and that the very name of his ancient discipline bespoke it’s origin. It is only recently that modern science and anthropology has agreed to admit that all human life shares a common point of origin in Africa. It was a watershed day therefore, when the untold origins of the oldest martial arts on Earth were explored and documented in my 1990 book titled “Nuba Wrestlingâ„¢: The Original Art”. While not in general circulation, it is heralded as a landmark publication because it was the first global acknowledgement of Africa as the birthplace of the martial arts and sciences.
The entire scope of the African origins of the martial arts, and their related disciplines are too vast to cover in the scope of a single article. I will present some key excerpts from my book as well as information that I will elaborate on in an upcoming publication. What you are going to read will shed light on the who, what, and where, regarding the origins of the martial arts, as well as the influence this has had worldwide. Later, I will reveal some startling clues as to why the sciences of the martial arts developed as they did, and why they must continue to evolve.
In this year 2000 of the Olympic Games, there are many people who would argue that Greece, contains the oldest records of combative arts such as wrestling, boxing, and Pankration. While the western world can easily identify with Greek art, literature, philosophy, sport, military arts and sciences, as well as other significant aspects of Greek thought such as astronomy, and mathematics, these aforementioned arts and sciences did not originate in Greece. There is ample evidence and testimony by acclaimed philosophers and historians of ancient Greece such as Herodotus in 500 BCE, Pythagoras, Plato, and many others to support this fact. Many of them were put to death for the knowledge they imported into Greece. So significant was the source of Greek knowledge and culture, that the earliest inhabitants of the land derived their very name Greece from an ancient name for Africa, “Nigrecia”!
The year was 776 B.C. at a time when Egypt was already ancient, that the Greeks began the practice of wrestling in honor of the African God Amon, whom they renamed Zeus. the entire Greek pantheon of Gods and Goddesses are based on African deities that were simply renamed. Despite all of this however, it is significant to our study that Greece provides one of the first instances of a martial art and religious tradition being combined in the west. However, it was a tradition based on older African practices that the Greeks adopted, but never fully applied.
All present day scholars of what is commonly known as Greco-Roman wrestling attribute the origins of their sport to illustrations discovered on the walls of tombs at a region of ancient Egypt called Mahez, which as been renamed “Beni Hasan”, or “hill of the son of the Hasan family”. Although considered just a sport today, these illustrations point to a well developed science that actually developed in Nubia, but reached the zenith of expression in Egypt.
*At Beni Hasan, in four separate tombs, there are hundreds of paintings on limestone walls that for the most part, have since decayed. The paintings are of African martial artists using a variety of wrestling holds and locks. The illustrations total well over 500 individual pairs of wrestlers who are executing hundreds of sophisticated techniques. These images are mainly recorded in the tombs of governors, or princes by the names of Baqet III, his son Khety, and his son Amenemhat. They all reigned in Mahez during the 11th and 12th Dynasties. Illustrations were also found in the well known tomb of Prince Khemenhotep!!. The paintings feature pairs of fighters who are wrestling, as well as illustrations of warriors using other forms of unarmed combat that employ kicking and punching techniques. There are scenes of martial artists using weapons such as a lance, short sticks, daggers, staffs, and bow and arrows. There are even scenes of warriors utilizing military technology such as a testudo, which is a shielding device used during the siege of a castle. The earliest representation of a castle in the world can be found illustrated on an incense holder that originates from Nubia, the “mother civilization” of Egypt. Several paintings of castles in the Mahez tombs predates what we believe about the birth of castles, fortifications and medieval technology from Europe’s Middle Ages. All total, these paintings in Africa represent the most ancient, and prolific depiction of martial arts on Earth.*
Besides the accounts of ancient Greek historians themselves, information confirming the Greek’s access to Egyptian arts and sciences were recorded by 17th and 18th century Europeans in Egypt such as Edme F. Jomard, James Burton, Jean Champollion, Robert Hay, and others. The most complete and often referred to archeological study of the Mahez tombs were compiled by the Englishman Percy Newberry. Working for the Archaeological Survey of Egypt between 1890 and 1892, Newberry carried out “excavations” at Beni Hasan. The results were published in a two volume work as the First and Second Memoirs of the ASE (Percy E. Newberry, Beni Hasan, Part I [London, 1893] and Beni Hasan, Part II [London, 1893]. He states that graffiti on the walls that were written in Greek further proves that the Greeks were frequent visitors to the tombs in ancient times.
Its pretty lengthy...
The following article by Nijel BPG first appeared in The BKF Magazine, July 1999.
REVISED July 1, 2000.
NUBA WRESTLING - The African Origins of the Martial Arts Revealed!
by Nijel BPG
“The Nuba of Sudan, Africa practiced a form of martial arts wrestling over 2,800 years before Christ. There are no other records in any corner of the world that can claim such a long, and unbroken martial arts tradition. This form of martial arts, which included weapons as well as fortification, and certainly empty hand self-defense blossomed in 12th Dynasty Egypt. Nuba Wrestlingâ„¢ is the original martial art that all of Africa, Asia, and Europe later came to benefit from”.
Excerpt from “Nuba Wrestlingâ„¢: The Original Art”
Millions of African-Americans, and Black people all over the world study Kung-Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Karate, or some other form of martial arts. Many of them will tell you that it has transformed their lives. Therefore books, videos, magazines, television and films will continue to portray the martial arts. There are even comic book characters such as Karnak, the 1960’s Marvel superhero and member of the mutant group known as the Inhumans. Karnak is a martial arts master who is able to discern the stress point of any solid object, no matter how large, and shatter that object with one powerful, and well placed karate chop.
As popular as the martial arts was and continues to be, less than one percent of Africans in diaspora, and only a slightly higher percentage of Asians, and Europeans are aware that the true origins of these magnificent arts are in fact African! Many African teens who fantasized themselves becoming the powerful Karnak, will be surprised to learn that he was actually named after an ancient African temple in Egypt, and that the very name of his ancient discipline bespoke it’s origin. It is only recently that modern science and anthropology has agreed to admit that all human life shares a common point of origin in Africa. It was a watershed day therefore, when the untold origins of the oldest martial arts on Earth were explored and documented in my 1990 book titled “Nuba Wrestlingâ„¢: The Original Art”. While not in general circulation, it is heralded as a landmark publication because it was the first global acknowledgement of Africa as the birthplace of the martial arts and sciences.
The entire scope of the African origins of the martial arts, and their related disciplines are too vast to cover in the scope of a single article. I will present some key excerpts from my book as well as information that I will elaborate on in an upcoming publication. What you are going to read will shed light on the who, what, and where, regarding the origins of the martial arts, as well as the influence this has had worldwide. Later, I will reveal some startling clues as to why the sciences of the martial arts developed as they did, and why they must continue to evolve.
In this year 2000 of the Olympic Games, there are many people who would argue that Greece, contains the oldest records of combative arts such as wrestling, boxing, and Pankration. While the western world can easily identify with Greek art, literature, philosophy, sport, military arts and sciences, as well as other significant aspects of Greek thought such as astronomy, and mathematics, these aforementioned arts and sciences did not originate in Greece. There is ample evidence and testimony by acclaimed philosophers and historians of ancient Greece such as Herodotus in 500 BCE, Pythagoras, Plato, and many others to support this fact. Many of them were put to death for the knowledge they imported into Greece. So significant was the source of Greek knowledge and culture, that the earliest inhabitants of the land derived their very name Greece from an ancient name for Africa, “Nigrecia”!
The year was 776 B.C. at a time when Egypt was already ancient, that the Greeks began the practice of wrestling in honor of the African God Amon, whom they renamed Zeus. the entire Greek pantheon of Gods and Goddesses are based on African deities that were simply renamed. Despite all of this however, it is significant to our study that Greece provides one of the first instances of a martial art and religious tradition being combined in the west. However, it was a tradition based on older African practices that the Greeks adopted, but never fully applied.
All present day scholars of what is commonly known as Greco-Roman wrestling attribute the origins of their sport to illustrations discovered on the walls of tombs at a region of ancient Egypt called Mahez, which as been renamed “Beni Hasan”, or “hill of the son of the Hasan family”. Although considered just a sport today, these illustrations point to a well developed science that actually developed in Nubia, but reached the zenith of expression in Egypt.
*At Beni Hasan, in four separate tombs, there are hundreds of paintings on limestone walls that for the most part, have since decayed. The paintings are of African martial artists using a variety of wrestling holds and locks. The illustrations total well over 500 individual pairs of wrestlers who are executing hundreds of sophisticated techniques. These images are mainly recorded in the tombs of governors, or princes by the names of Baqet III, his son Khety, and his son Amenemhat. They all reigned in Mahez during the 11th and 12th Dynasties. Illustrations were also found in the well known tomb of Prince Khemenhotep!!. The paintings feature pairs of fighters who are wrestling, as well as illustrations of warriors using other forms of unarmed combat that employ kicking and punching techniques. There are scenes of martial artists using weapons such as a lance, short sticks, daggers, staffs, and bow and arrows. There are even scenes of warriors utilizing military technology such as a testudo, which is a shielding device used during the siege of a castle. The earliest representation of a castle in the world can be found illustrated on an incense holder that originates from Nubia, the “mother civilization” of Egypt. Several paintings of castles in the Mahez tombs predates what we believe about the birth of castles, fortifications and medieval technology from Europe’s Middle Ages. All total, these paintings in Africa represent the most ancient, and prolific depiction of martial arts on Earth.*
Besides the accounts of ancient Greek historians themselves, information confirming the Greek’s access to Egyptian arts and sciences were recorded by 17th and 18th century Europeans in Egypt such as Edme F. Jomard, James Burton, Jean Champollion, Robert Hay, and others. The most complete and often referred to archeological study of the Mahez tombs were compiled by the Englishman Percy Newberry. Working for the Archaeological Survey of Egypt between 1890 and 1892, Newberry carried out “excavations” at Beni Hasan. The results were published in a two volume work as the First and Second Memoirs of the ASE (Percy E. Newberry, Beni Hasan, Part I [London, 1893] and Beni Hasan, Part II [London, 1893]. He states that graffiti on the walls that were written in Greek further proves that the Greeks were frequent visitors to the tombs in ancient times.
Similar threads
