Teilhard de Chardin and Senghor on the civilization of the universal

II.4.3. Africa and Civilization

Cheikh ANTA DIOP devoted his whole life to rewrite history, placing the origins of civilization in Africa, in ancient Egypt. Throughout his writings, he proves scientifically that Africa is at the centre of civilization. Going back to ancient Egypt, at the time of Pharaohs, Cheikh Anta Diop shows that history has been falsified and that the sciences that constitute the core of western civilization had their origins in Egypt though Westerners failed to recognize this fact in their writings in order to claim later on that Africa has nothing to offer to the other peoples as far as civilization is concerned. Accepting this racialist views would be rejecting the place and role of Africa in the building up of the Civilization of the Universal. Thanks to Diop, we are going to see how the sciences saw their beginnings in Egypt, that is, in Africa.

II.4.4. Africa and the Sciences

In Mathematics, more especially in geometry, from his research, Cheikh Anta Diop demonstrates that ARCHIMEDES in his mathematical elaborations only repeated the theories that already existed in Egypt before him. In the works of Archimedes, scientific acquisitions present in ancient Egypt, are implied as Diop says:

[...] les acquisitions scientifiques antérieures des anciens Egyptiens sont largement impliquées dans les livres d'Archimède intitulés De la sphère et du cylindre, De la mesure du cercle, pour ne citer que ceux-là. [...] En effet, Archimède dans ce dernier livre, en calculant la valeur Ï=3,14 n'a fait nulle part allusion à la valeur très voisine de Ð=3,16 trouvée par les Egyptiens deux mille ans avant lui. Il ne se doutait pas qu'un papyrus égyptien apprendrait accidentellement la vérité à la postérité. Le traité d'Archimède De l'équilibre des plans ou de leur Centre de gravité, porte sur l'équilibre du levier, problème que les Egyptiens avaient maîtrisé depuis 2600 av. J.C., époque de la construction des pyramides.^67(*)

Hence, what Archimedes assumed to have discovered, like the value of Ï=3,14 was already present in Egypt. The problem here is that Westerners are usually dishonest in the way they handle their findings and in the way they exploit them in ancient Egypt. This is actually what leads to the falsification of history. Fortunately, Cheikh Anta Diop committed his life to bring the truth to light: Africa is not only the cradle of humanity, but also the cradle of science, art, and philosophy; in brief, the cradle of civilization.

Taking cognizance of this will enable us build in ourselves a certain legitimate pride and will enable us gather momentum in order to make our contribution to the building up of the Civilization of the Universal a task for all Africans.

In algebra, the Egyptian influence was so strong as far as PYTHAGORAS is concerned that the latter's school used hieroglyphic signs in their mathematical notations, despite the difference in the language. For example, the sign of water `ìììì' used to symbolise numeric progressions; alongside with other Egyptian signs like: ê used to represent a series of uneven numbers and = used to represent even numbers.

Diop asserts:

Les Egyptiens avaient une notion claire des séries Mathématiques et de leurs propriétés particulières : Ils connaissaient très certainement les séries que sont les progressions géométriques, et très probablement d'autres types de séries aux propriétés beaucoup plus complexes.^68(*)

The Egyptians were aware of mathematical series, the numeric progressions and other proprieties of high complexity. In a passage of PLUTARCH cited par Hoefer in Civilisation ou Barbarie, Diop proves that Greeks were aware of the fact that the theorem known as « the Pythagorean theorem » was an Egyptian discovery:

Les Egyptiens paraissaient s'être figuré le monde sous la forme du plus beau des triangles, de même que Platon, dans sa Politique, semble l'avoir employé comme symbole de l'union matrimonial. Ce triangle, le plus beau des triangles, a son côté vertical composé de 3, la base de 4 et l'hypoténuse de 5 parties, et le carré de celle-ci est égal à la somme des carrés des cathètes. Le côté vertical symbolise le mâle, la base la femelle, l'hypoténuse la progéniture des deux^69(*).

In effect, Ferdinand HOEFER remarks that the Egyptians considered the perfection of the world to be represented in the form of the most beautiful triangle and Plato seems to have used it in his Politics. The most beautiful triangle has four parts at its basis, three at its vertical side and five at his hypotenuse. It was the symbol of matrimonial union: the vertical side symbolising the male, the basis the female and the hypotenuse the descendance.

Cheikh Anta Diop will continue to demonstrate in Civilisation ou Barbarie, the contribution of Egypt to the development of mathematics in many other aspects: equations of the first degree and equations of the second degree.^70(*)

In Astronomy, great work had been done by peoples of ancient Egypt:

Bien que tardif, le Papyrus Carlsberg décrit une méthode de détermination des phases de la lune dérivant des sources plus anciennes et sans aucune trace d'influence de la science hellénistique[...] ; cela semble prouver qu'il a existé des traités d'astronomie égyptienne.^71(*)

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The papyrus of Carlsberg describes a method used by Egyptians to determine the stages of the moon, without any influence of western science. This enabled them to bring about the calendar. They invented the year of 365 days containing 12 months of 30 days each and 5 days corresponding to the birth of the gods: Osiris, Isis, Horus, Seth, Nephtys who will bring humanity into existence and inaugurate historical times: Adam and Eve are thus in Diop's opinion, biblical representations of Osiris and Isis.

As for geometry, Egyptians were the exclusive inventors of the calendar, the one which just slightly reformed, regulates our lives today as Cheikh Anta Diop writes:

Comme pour la géométrie, les Egyptiens ont été les exclusifs du calendrier, celui-là même, a peine réformé, qui règle notre vie aujourd'hui, et dont Neugebauer dit « qu'il est vraiment le seul calendrier intelligent qui ait jamais existé dans l'histoire humaine (...) L'année est divisée en 3 semaines de 10 jours, le jour en 24 heures. Les Egyptiens savaient que cette année civile était trop courte, qu'il lui manquait un quart de jour pour correspondre à une révolution sidérale complète (...) Au lieu d'ajouter un jour tous les quatre ans et d'instituer une année bissextile, les Egyptiens ont préféré la solution magistrale qui consiste à suivre ce décalage pendant 1460 ans^72(*).

Actually, the calendar invented by Egyptians had 365 days and in order to institute the bissextile year, they estimated that they could add one day on the 365 days, after 1460 years. (365 X 4 = 1460).

As far as Medicine is concerned, the Egyptians proved their worth. There are many ancient healers that referred to Egypt in order to learn how to heal diseases. Cheikh Anta Diop in this light says:

Théophraste, Discoride, Galien citent perpétuellement les recettes qu'ils tiennent des médecins égyptiens, ou plus exactement comme le dit Galien, qu'ils avaient apprises en consultant les ouvrages conservés dans la bibliothèque du IIè siècle après J.C, et où s'était instruit sept siècles auparavant Hippocrate, le « père de la médecine. »^73(*)

Thus, even the one who is considered the father of medicine studied this science in the Egyptian library, five centuries before Christ. The origins of medicine are nowhere to be found than in Egypt.

Medicine was practised in Egypt at three levels as we read in the works of Cheikh Anta Diop. First, there were magicians and priests just like our nggambe men today, who assured mystical healing or like the saints in the Catholic Church. One could be at the same time a magician and a healer. Secondly, there were generalists as well as specialists of diverse illnesses. Finally, there were healers who at the same time were civil servants who in some cases offered their services free of charge in military expeditions for example.

In Chemistry, ancient Egypt is still standing at the centre of this discipline. The root of the word «chemistry» has an Egyptian origin as Cheikh Anta Diop says:

Il vient de Kemit: «noire», par allusion aux longues cuissons et distillations qui étaient de coutume dans les « laboratoires » égyptiens, afin d'extraire tel ou tel produit désiré. [...] Le chimiste français Berthelot était tombé en admiration devant les connaissances scientifiques égyptiennes en chimie, au point de leur consacrer un mémoire.^74(*)

Kemit is the word used by Egyptians, meaning `black', in relation to the lasting distillations in the Egyptian workshops, in order to obtain a precious product to be used.

* ⁶⁷ Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, p.307.

* ⁶⁸ Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, p. 340.

* ⁶⁹ Ferdinand Hoefer, in Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, pp. 342-343.

* ⁷⁰ Cheikh Anta Diop, op. c it., pp. 343-345.

* ⁷¹ Ibid., p. 353.

* ⁷² Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, p. 354.

* ⁷³ Ibid., p. 360.

* ⁷⁴ Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie, Paris, 1981, p. 362.