How Our Ancestors Buried the Keys to Our Liberation in Plain Sight
Our ancestors encoded a message for us
Anthony Browder
Jun 25, 2025
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Certain information had to be buried in plain sight so you could dig it up when the time was right.
After nearly 50 years of studying ancient African civilizations and their influence on modern America, I've come to understand something profound about the nature of knowledge preservation. What looks like cultural destruction and historical erasure is actually part of a much larger strategy—one that our ancestors orchestrated thousands of years ago.
They knew the fall was coming.
And they prepared for the rise.
The Strategic Burial of Ancient Wisdom
This is something that's taken me decades to fully comprehend.When I look at the symbols scattered throughout Washington DC—the Egyptian tekhen (obelisk) we call the Washington Monument, the pyramid on our dollar bill, the sacred geometry embedded in the city's layout—I no longer see these as mere coincidences or even simple appropriation.
I see a preservation system.
Think about it this way: if you knew your civilization was going to face a period of decline, what would you do with your most precious knowledge?
You'd hide it where your descendants could find it when they were ready to reclaim their power.
You'd bury treasure maps in plain sight.
When the Masons who designed this nation's capital, stole African knowledge, they were unknowingly becoming custodians of it. They surrounded themselves with our symbols, thinking they were harnessing their power for themselves alone. But symbols carry more than just energy.
They carry memory.
The Movie That Revealed Everything
There's a scene in Ryan Coogler's film "Sinners" that crystallized this understanding for me.The character Smoke is about to confront the Ku Klux Klan. Before the final battle, he buries a box filled with weapons. After taking out the main targets with his sniper rifle, he returns to unearth his tommy gun and finishes the job.
That's exactly what's happening now.
We're in the phase where African men and women are unearthing treasures that have been buried right in our own backyard.
The tools for mental liberation, spiritual awakening, and systematic change have been waiting under our feet this entire time.
The 100-Year Awakening Cycle
The timing of this awakening isn't random.We're living through the 100th anniversary of Arthur Schomberg writing "The Negro Digs Up His Past" in 1925. Think about the significance of that title and this moment. We are literally and figuratively digging up our past right now.
When a 10-year-old John Henrik Clarke read that article, it inspired him to jump on a freight train to Harlem. He marched into Schomberg's office with youthful arrogance and demanded to be taught everything.
Schomberg just laughed.
"Boy," he said, "go and learn about your enemy. Study your enemy, then study yourself, then study the world that your enemy created. Then come back to me with that knowledge so we can have an intelligent discussion."
That advice created one of the greatest historians of our time. But more importantly, it established a pattern for how buried knowledge gets transmitted across generations.
The Pattern of Preservation
The burial strategy works in 5 Phases:Phase 1: The Seeding (Ancient Kemet) Ancient knowledge was embedded in symbols, architecture, stories, and systems during periods of African influence and power.
Phase 2: The Concealment (Greek/Roman Conquests - 1700s) As power structures shifted, this knowledge became hidden and was appropriated by others who understood its value but not necessarily its origin.
Phase 3: The Forgetting (The Maafa/Transatlantic Slave Trade) Multiple generations passed where the descendants of the original knowledge holders lost conscious connection to their heritage.
Phase 4: The Awakening (Harlem Renaissance - Civil Rights Era) Individuals began to notice patterns, question narratives, and start digging deeper into hidden meanings.
Phase 5: The Reclamation (Present) The buried treasures are being unearthed, understood, and used to restore power to their rightful inheritors.
We're moving into Phase 5 right now.
Hidden in Plain Sight: The Washington Monument
Let me walk you through how this preservation system works using the most obvious example.Standing in the geographical center of America's capital is a 555-foot tall Egyptian tekhen (obelisk). They call it the Washington Monument, but that's just the public name. Inside, it's actually dedicated to Asar (Osiris), the first king of ancient Kemet.
Why would white Masonic founders place a 6,000-year-old African resurrection symbol at the heart of their new nation?
The surface answer is that they were appropriating its power for themselves.
But the deeper truth is that they were unknowingly preserving it for us.
Every law mandating that no structure in DC can be taller than that obelisk ensures that this symbol of African resurrection remains the highest point in American governmental power.
They thought they were controlling the symbol. But the symbol was controlling them.
The same pattern appears on our currency.
When I first wrote "The Browder File," I mistakenly identified the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill as Egyptian. It wasn't until I traveled to Sudan in 2016 that I realized it's actually a Kushite pyramid—identifiable by its steeper angle.
This means that in 1782, when they designed the Great Seal, those white men knew something about Kushite history that most modern Africans don't know. They understood the power associated with symbols from civilizations that were already ancient when Egypt was young.
But here's the beautiful irony: every time you handle money, you're touching African spiritual technology. Every transaction becomes a reminder of where true wealth and wisdom originated.
They put our power on their currency, thinking it would serve them. Instead, it serves as a constant signal to anyone who knows how to read the signs.
Washington DC itself is a massive preservation project.
The city is designed as a perfect square, aligned to the four cardinal points of the compass—just like the sacred cities of ancient Kemet. The Washington Monument sits at the geographical center of this square, with 16th Street running north as the spiritual corridor.
On this seven-mile stretch, you'll find more churches than anywhere else in America, plus two Masonic temples. The entire layout copies the sacred architecture of Waset (modern Luxor) and Karnak.
These were copying ancient African city planning—And preserving it in the most powerful location in the Western world.
Every president, every congressman, every Supreme Court justice operates within this African sacred geometry every single day.
The energy that flows through these patterns affects every decision made in that city, whether they understand it or not.
The Timing Is Everything
This awakening couldn't happen until now because the technology and communication systems needed to be in place.Imagine trying to share this knowledge 50 years ago. You'd need to publish books, hope they reached the right people, and rely on word-of-mouth to spread awareness. Most people would never encounter these ideas.
But now? A single video, podcast, or article can reach millions instantly. The internet has become the perfect tool for unearthing and sharing buried treasures of knowledge.
The same technology being used to control minds can be leveraged to free them.
The timing is divine.
Our ancestors weren't naive about what was coming.
They understood cycles of power, the nature of civilizational rise and fall, and the importance of long-term thinking. They knew that surface-level knowledge could be destroyed through book burning, cultural suppression, and educational indoctrination.
But they knew it would be much harder to erase:
- Symbolic knowledge
- Architectural knowledge and,
- Mythological knowledge embedded in stories
Right now, across the world, people of African descent are having the same realization I had when I first saw the Washington Monument after returning from Egypt:
"Wait a minute. I just saw that in Africa."
This recognition is happening simultaneously because the time is right. The hundred-year cycle is complete. The technology exists. And the need is urgent.
The treasures are revealing themselves to anyone willing to dig.
If you're reading this and feeling that spark of recognition, you're part of this awakening.
Your job isn't to convert the unwilling or convince the skeptical. Your job is to:
- Study your enemy - understand the systems that have hidden this knowledge
- Study yourself - reconnect with your authentic heritage and purpose
- Study the world your enemy created - see how ancient wisdom was preserved within modern structures
- Connect with others who are digging - find your community
- Share what you unearth - become a link in the transmission chain
That time is now.
What we unearth will lead to our liberation, the knowledge of who we really are and the ability to become what we're truly capable of becoming.
Start digging.
Thanks for reading
Anthony T. Browder
Founder of IKG Cultural Resource Center
PS.
If you liked this newsletter and want to find out more about the subjects covered, check out my webinar The Cinematic Genius of Ryan Coogler and Sinners
Also:
- Join me on my field Trips in Washington DC: Egypt on the Potomac
- And (if you haven't already), check out the online Clarke Enhance History Project
