Ancient African Civilizations

Created by:
Thomas Weissinger
Professor Emeritus, University Library
Professor Emeritus, African American Studies

Last updated: 2007

Adams, William Yewdale. Nubia, Corridor to Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Africa in Antiquity: the Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 1978.

Agatucci, Cora. “Ancient Africa & African Empires Timeline.” New Crisis 107 (January/February 2000):
40a-40h.

Allen, Troy Duane. “Ancient Egyptian Kinship: An Afrocentric Case Study.” Phd. Thesis, Temple
University, 1998.

Armah, Ayi Kwei. “Who Were the Ancient Agyptians?” and “The Identity of the Creators of Ancient
Egypt.” [Special Issue] New African 450 (April 2006): 10-15 and 16-20.

Bekerie, Ayele. “The Ancient African Past and the Field of Africana Studies.” Journal of Black Studies 37
(January 2007): 445-460.

_____. Ethiopic, an African Writing System: Its History and Principles. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press,
1997.

Bell, Lanny David. “Interpreters and Egyptianized Nubians in Ancient Egyptian Foreign Policy: Aspects of
the History of Egypt and Nubia.” Phd. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1976

Ben-Jochannan, Yosef. Africa: Mother of Western Civilization. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1988.

_____. African Origins of the Major Western Religions. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991.

_____. Black Man of the Nile and His Family. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1989.

Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1987.

Brooks, Lester. African Achievements: Leaders, Civilizations, and Cultures of Ancient Africa. Stamford, CT:
De Gustibus Press, 1992. Originally Published As: Great Civilizations of Ancient Africa. New York: Four
Winds Press, 1971.

Burstein, Stanley, ed. Ancient African Civilizations: Kush and Axum. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener,
1998.

_____. Graeco-Africana: Studies in the History of Greek Relations with Egypt and Nubia. New Rochelle,
NY: A.D. Cariatzas, 1994.

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Byrd, Melanie and Ronald J. Caldwell. “The Hamitic Prophecy and Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.”
Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850: Proceedings 22: 313-320. Scholars Affiliated with the
1796-1801 French Military Expedition to Egypt Debated the Appearance and Racial Classification of
Ancient Egyptians.

Carruthers, Jacob H. Essays in Ancient Egyptian Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press, 1984.

_____. “Outside Academia: Bernal’s Critique of Black Champions of Ancient Egypt.” Journal of Black
Studies 22 (June 1992): 459-476.

Chami, Felix A. The Unity of African Ancient History: 3000 BC to AD 500. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: E & D
Ltd., 2006.

Chandler, Wayne B. Ancient Future: The Teachings and Prophetic Wisdom of the Seven Hermetic Laws of
Ancient Egypt. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1999.

Celenko, Theodore, ed. Egypt in Africa. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art in Cooperation with
Indiana University Press, 1996.

Clarke, John Henrik. “Ancient Nigeria and the Western Sudan.” Presence Africaine (English ed.), Nos. 32-
33 (1960): 11-18.

_____. “The Historical Legacy of Cheikh Anta Diop: His Contributions to a New Concept of African
History.” Presence Africaine 1989 (1-2): 110-120. Clarke presents recollections of his contacts with
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-86) as well as an evaluation of the Senegalese historian’s contributions to a new
concept of African history.

Dathorne, O. R. “Africa as Ancestor: Diop as Unifier.” Presence Africaine 1989 (1-2): 121-133. C. A. Diop
claimed that the ancient Egyptians were black and that the origins of Hellenic civilization were to be
found in Africa.

Diop, Cheikh Anta. African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. New York: L. Hill, 1974.

_____. Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill, 1991.

_____. Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical
Antiquity. Chicago: Third World Press, 1978.

Drake, St. Clair. Black Folk Here and There: An Essay in History and Anthropology. Los Angeles: Center for
Afro-American Studies, University of California, 1987-1990. 2 Vols.

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Faraclas, Nicholas. “They Came Before the Egyptians: Linguistic Evidence for the African Roots of Semitic
Languages.” In Federici, Silvia, ed. Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of
Western Civilization and Its Others. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995.

Finch, Charles. The African Background to Medical Science: Essays in African History, Science &
Civilization. London: Karnak House, 1990.

Fuglestad, Finn. “Precolonial Sub-Saharan Africa and the Ancient Norse World: Looking for
Similarities.” History in Africa 33 (2006): 179-203.

Gordon, Vivian Verdell, comp. Kemet and Other Ancient African Civilizations: Selected
References. Chicago: Third World Press, 1991. 30p.

Hall, Martin. “The Legend of the Lost City: Or, the Man with Golden Balls.” Journal of Southern African
Studies 21(2): 179-199. Europeans from medieval times developed a mythology that featured the
existence, in Africa, of a “lost civilization.” Attempts to link Great Zimbabwe with the ancient world
beyond Africa were part of this invented history.

Hansberry, William Leo. Africa and Africans as Seen by Classical Writers. Washington, DC: Howard
University Press, 1981.

Houston, Drusilla Dunjee. Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. Baltimore: Black Classic
Press, 1985.

Jackson, John G. Introduction to African Civilizations. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1990.

James, George G. M. Stolen Legacy: The Greeks were Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, but the
People of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians. San Francisco: Julian Richardson Associates,
1976.

Karenga, Maulana N. “Maat, the Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical African Ethics.” Phd
Thesis. University of Southern California, 1994.

Karenga, Maulana and Jacob H. Carruthers, eds. Kemet and the African Worldview: Research, Rescue,
and Restoration: Selected Papers of the Proceedings of the First and Second Conferences of the
Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, 24-26 February 1984, Los Angeles, and 1-3
March 1985, Chicago. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press, 1986.

King, Lamont Dehaven. Africa and the Nation-State: State Formation and Identity in Ancient Egypt,
Hausaland, and Southern Africa. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006.

Lange, Dierk. Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa: African-Centered and Canaanite-Israelite Perspectives; A
Collection of Published and Unpublished Studies in English and French. Dettelbach, Germany: Roll, 2004.

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Levine, Donald. “The Roots of Ethiopian Nationhood.” Africa Report 1971 16(5): 12-15. Attempts to
dispel the illusion that Ethiopia is a fragmented, fragile country by exploring the ancient African roots of
the Ethiopian nation and people.

Levtzion, Nehemia. Ancient Ghana and Mali. New York, NY: Africana Pub. Co., 1980. Reprint of the 1973
ed. published by Methuen, London, which was issued as no. 7 of Studies in African history; with
additions.

Lewis, Stanford. The Falsification and Fabrication of Ancient Egypt, 3400 BCE to 500 BCE: A Survey of the
Literature. Jackson, MS: Four-G Publishers, 2002.

Lewis-Williams, J. D. “Images of the Spirit World.” Archaeology 52(3): 61-63. Rock paintings by the
ancient San people of Africa depict many of their rituals and reveal much about their spirituality. Some
of the paintings of the San are examined.

Loth, Heinrich. Woman in Ancient Africa. Westport, CT: L. Hill, 1987.

Mcwilliam, Fiona. “African Remains may have been the Queen of Sheba’s Palace.” Geographical, May
1999, p. 9. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a powerful 1,000-year-old kingdom in the
Nigerian rainforest, a site that has proved to be Africa’s largest monument.

Meza, Alicia I. Ancient Egypt before Writing: From Counting to Hieroglyphs. Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance
Publishing Co., 2001

Millar, Siaf. “History: Africa’s Glorious Past: Ancient Ghana: The Richest State on the Face of the
Earth.” West Africa 4302 (November 19-25, 2001): 43.

Monges, Miriam Ma’at Kare. “Kush: An Afrocentric Perspective.” Phd. Thesis, Temple University, 1995.

Nelson, Julie. West African Kingdoms. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 2002.

Noguera, Anthony. How African was Egypt?: A Comparative Study of Ancient Egyptian and Black African
Cultures. New York: Vantage Press, 1976.

Nubia: An Ancient African Civilization. Philadelphia: University Museum of the University of

Obenga, Theophile. Ancient Egypt and Black Africa: A Student’s Handbook for the Study of Ancient Egypt
in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Gender Relations. London: Karnak House, 1992.

Pouwels, Randall L. “Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean to 1800: Reviewing Relations in Historical
Perspective.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 35 (2002): 385-425.

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Rodney, Walter. “African History in the Service of the Black Liberation.” Small Axe 5 (September 2001):
66.

Rybalkina, I. G. “Women in African History.” Africa Quarterly 29(3-4): 83-91. Briefly recalls some of the
notable women who played an active political role in African history since Egypt’s Queen Hatshepsut in
the 18th century B.C.

Shaw, Roberta L and Krzysztof Grzymski. Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum,
1993.

Shinnie, P. L. Meroe: A Civilization of the Sudan. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1967.

Snowden, Frank M., Jr. Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press, 1970.

_____. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1983.

Spaulding, Jay. “The Old Shaiqi Language in Historical Perspective.” History in Africa 17: 283-
292. Despite claims of Arabic origin and their acceptance by some Orientalists, the Old Shaiqi language
was a form of Nubian closely related to Classical Nubian and the modern Nobiin speech found in the
Kerma area of the northern Sudan.

Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of Meroitic Script, (1974: Cairo). The
Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of Meroitic Script: Proceedings of the Symposium Held in
Cairo from 28 January to 3 February 1974. Paris: Unesco, 1978. Series: General History of Africa: Studies
and Documents; Vol. 1.

Tamrat, Taddesse. “Processes of Ethnic Interaction and Integration in Ethiopian History: The Case of the
Agaw.” Journal of African History 29(1): 5-18. Different sections of the Agaw (Agau) seem to have
constituted an important part of the population occupying the highland interior of northern Ethiopia
from ancient times. Establishing the great Zagwe dynasty (to ca. 1270), they transmitted the institutions
and traditions of Axum almost intact to later generations.

Van Sertima, Ivan, ed. Black Women in Antiquity. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books, 1984. Series:
Journal of African Civilizations, vol. 6, no. 1.

_____, ed. Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1983. Series:
Journal of African Civilizations, vol. 5, nos. 1-2.

_____, ed. Egypt: Child of Africa. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Series: Journal of
African Civilizations, vol. 12.

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_____, ed. Nile Valley Civilizations: Proceedings of the Nile Valley Conference, Atlanta, Sept. 26-30. New
Brunswick, NJ: Journal of African Civilizations, 1985. Series: Journal of African Civilizations, vol. 6, no. 2.

Verharen, Charles C. “Philosophy against Empire: An Ancient Egyptian Renaissance.” Journal of Black
Studies 36 (July 2006): 958-973.

Vogel, Joseph O. Great Zimbabwe: The Iron Age in South Central Africa. New York: Garland, 1994.

Wade, Nicholas. “DNA backs a Tribe’s Tradition of Early Descent from the Jews.” New York Times. Late
Edition (East Coast), May 9, 1999, section 1, 9. A team of geneticists has found that many Lemba men
carry in their male chromosome a set of DNA sequences that is distinctive of the cohanim, the Jewish
priests believed to be the descendants of Aaron.

Walker, Robin. Classical Splendor: Roots of Black History. London: Bogle-L’ouverture Pubs., 1999.

Walker, Robin, Siaf Millar, and Anu M’bantu. “History: Africa’s Glorious Past…” [Special Issue] West
Africa 4278-4304 (June-December, 2001): 40-43.