Cheikh Anta Diop - Research in Senegal

Research in Senegal

After 1960, Diop went back to Senegal and continued his research and political career. He established and was the director of the radiocarbon laboratory at the IFAN (Institut Fondamental de L'Afrique Noir). Diop dedicated a book about the IFAN radiocarbon laboratory "to the memory of my former professor Frédéric Joliot who welcomed me into his laboratory at the College de France." (After his death the university was named in his honor: Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar.) He had said, "In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin color and, hence, the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility."

Diop published his technique and methodology for a melanin dosage test in scholarly journals. Diop used this technique to determine the melanin content of the Egyptian mummies. Forensic investigators later adopted this technique to determine the "racial identity" of badly burnt accident victims.

Some critics have argued that Diop's melanin dosage test technique lacks sufficient evidence. They contend the test is inappropriate to apply to ancient Egyptian mummies, due to the effects of embalming and deterioration over time.

In 1974, Diop participated in a UNESCO symposium in Cairo, where he presented his theories to specialists in Egyptology. He also wrote the chapter about the origins of the Egyptians in the UNESCO General History of Africa.

Diop's first work translated into English, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, was published in 1974. It gained a much wider audience for his work. He proved that archaeological and anthropological evidence supported his view that Pharaohs were of Negroid origin. Some scholars draw heavily from Diop's groundbreaking work, while others in the Western academic world do not accept all of his theories. Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research.

Diop showed above all that European archaeologists before and after the decolonization had understated and continued to understate the extent and possibility of Black civilizations.

The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet's discoveries at the site of Kerma shed some light on the theories of Diop. They show close cultural links between Nubia and Ancient Egypt, though the relationship had been acknowledged for years. This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. He suggests that the peoples of the Nile Valley were one regionalized population, sharing a number of genetic and cultural traits.

Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.

Read more about this topic:  Cheikh Anta Diop

Famous quotes containing the words research in and/or research:

    The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?” [Was will das Weib?]
    Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

    If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.
    Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)