THE ‘PEOPLE OF THE SEA’ WHO CHANGED THE PHILOSOPHICAL/POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD WERE PREHISTORIC NIGERIANS/MEGA IGBO
Democracy: government of the people, which negates imperialism and monarchy and upholds leadership through legislation by senators, judges, elders (ndi ichie, umunna) is native to the Igbo. The Greeks were not always democrats. Democracy was imposed on them when their monarchies were sacked by the invasion of the Sea People – the Carians, Achaians and Danians - a people who bore the ichi on their boats, and in some cases their faces, as a mark of their identity! (Plates 18,19,20,21 also show war scenes and village scenes involving the Black/Negro Sea People with plated hair, using household utensils and items of clothing that Igbo people still use, 2nd millennium B.C., Mycenae.)
The Canaanite settlers who at one time were said to have Inhabited most of the Aegean Islands included sea-faring Phoenicians and Carians, the later bore facial scarifications associated with the Igbo. Herodotus, born in 484 B.C. in Caria, reported that the Carians also lived in Egypt and that “they cut their foreheads with knives” … which showed that they “are not Egyptians”. Martin Bernal records that Carians were related to the Phoenicians, which would make them Canaanites, hence Africans. Cretan frescoes (from Knossos, Santorini) show these people as black with wooly hair. Their boats were inscribed with the palm frond-type ichi symbols (plate 18) while their house hold implements and items of clothing included cow-horn drinking cups, woven conical hat with ear flaps which the Igbo call okpu-nwagwara (plate 19), Igbo-type carrying basket called abo/ukpa which their women bore on their heads (Plate 20). Bernal reported that “Carians and Phoenicians inhabited most of the Islands of the Aegean” (p. 101), and this would help to account for “the similarities found among the populations all around the Mediterranean” (.14). We might also reiterate at this point the fact that Canaan was the father of Phoenix, founder of Phoenicia, Europa (who gave her name to Europe) and Kadmos founder of Thebes. Phoenix was the father of Adonis who got his name from the Canaanite word Adon (Lord), which would coincide with Mega Igbo word Idu (Black Lord). This is the root of the Jewish title for Son of God ‘Adonai’ frequently used for Jesus Christ in the Greek and Coptic traditions. Europa, says the Greek tradition, means ‘broad face’. Its cognate in Igbo is Iri opa ‘broad face/moon face’!
As for the other Sea Peoples, the Danaans and Achaians, the Egyptians referred to the Achaians as Ikwsh (which ties them with the Igbo/Kwa Akwa-nshi), for they had also raided Egypt before invading the Aegean (Black Athena 1, p. 52). Achaians were the inhabitants of Anatolia. We have some surviving linguistic evidence that ancient Anatolians (present day Turkey) spoke Igbo language or a hybrid of it - the title of a book authored around the year 1500 by Turkish Admiral and renowned cartographer, Piri Reis in his native language: Bahariye translates into English as ‘Concerning the Sea’. The equivalent Igbo expression of the exact same meaning is ‘Banyere iyi’! This cannot be shear coincidence. The Igbo roots of West Asian and East Asian prehistoric languages obviously account for what Martin Bernal calls the “genetic relationship between Afro-asiatic and Indo-European” the two proto languages of Africa, Europe and Asia. (Black Athena, p. 55) The undeniable presence of Igbo etymons in the formative and most basic words from the European and Asian linguistic environments is further proof Igbo origin of world civilizations. With what we now know it is important for African and Igbo scholars to throw deeper search light into the study of ancient Levantine and Aegean civilizations so as to further establish how ancient Black Africans gave the world the defining elements its civilizations and cultures.
Bernal says that Proto Anatolian and Proto Indo-European are both children of Proto Indo-Hittite and that Indo European was already spoken in Southern Anatolia by the makers of the great Neolithic cultures of the 8th and 7th millennia… The language moved into Greece and Crete with spread of Agriculture around 7,000 B.C. (Black Athena 1, p. 13) This coincides with what Bernal refers to as the “hypothetical expansion of Afro-asiatic with African Agriculture in the 9th and 8th millennia B.C.” (p. 14). Also Bernal makes it clear that the Pre-dynastic cultures of Upper Egypt and Nubia from where the first Pharaoh of Egypt emerged, is of an uncontested African origin. With these, we begin to have clear markers of Black African origins of all the great world civilizations, and see the need to seek their aboriginal roots in ancient Nigeria where Agriculture and metallurgy were probably invented without external influence. It would equally be intruiging, in the light of this new knowledge, to research into the actual identity of the ubiquitous Hittites (Ihite is a clan-name in Igbo land) and their obvious ancient Nigerian origin.
The kith and kin of the Achaians, the Danaans derived their name from their ancestor, a decrepit old man who was known by the title Denyen (shortened to Dene), which as Martin Bernal argues, is a cognate of Egyptian dni or dyn which means ‘irrigate’, a pun alluding to the “positive attributes of the man as a colonizer and irrigator” (Black Athena 1, p. 47). Interestingly again Dyn/Denyen are cognates of Igbo Idey/Idenye (irrigation)! Irrigation waters or the rain-waters that follow age-old natural paths (idenye mmiri) is an age-old Igbo metaphor for aboriginality, right of inheritance, and especially for identifying the undisputable founding father of a community or group. This is captured in the proverb Idenye ga-agbako ebe o na-agbako, which means ‘rain water will always follow its natural paths and gather into ponds as it always has and always will.’ An ancestor identified with the paths of rain waters, a colonizer identified as an irrigator is one whose impact is, to say the least, life-giving, at one with mother nature and eternal. The full and undeniable meaning of this Igbo proverb which defines the title of the ancestor of the Danaans is this – that no matter how long it takes, no matter how crooked or multifarious the winding paths that truth may take, it will ultimately get to its final destination; at the end of its journey (in the fullness of time) it will come together into one whole.
Indeed an Age has come full cycle and truths hidden are being revealed! With this obvious Igbo root of the name Dane, there is no doubt that the Danaans were an Igbo clan. Martin Bernal noted that the Biblical tribe of Dan “can be seen as having come originally from the Israelite incorporation of one of the Peoples of the Sea.” (Black Athena 1, p. 48). There has been much speculation among the Igbo that they belong to the Israelite tribe of Dan! The Igbo are not Danaans/Danites, but one can say that the Danaans or Danites of Israel are Igbo. There is a Danaan tribe in Ireland, ancestors of the Danish. Through them, the Danish can claim Igbo ancestry. They and the Irish Druids (Duru Idu ‘Lords of the Idu (Black) clan of god-men’) were instrumental to the spread of Igbo cosmology throughout the British Isles. We have so far identified three clans that belonged to the Sea People who raided Europe and Egypt in the 2nd millennium B.C., sacked all monarchies and installed democracies. Out of these three clans, the Carians bore the ichi facial scarifications (the identity mark of the Igbo) and their customs were close to those of the Igbo; the Achaians were known by the Egyptians as Akwa Nshi (transcribed by Bernal as Ikw-sh), the local name of the Ikom monoliths and its authors; and the Danaans identified their founding ancestor in obvious Igbo terms and cosmology.
There are far too many coincidences for this not to be an obvious proof that the famed People of the Sea were prehistoric Nigerians, people of the Mega Igbo clan whom Adiele Afigbo theorizes about in his works! Most importantly we think we have found here the missing link as to how elements of the monolith writings such as the letters ki and shi were transmitted to Babylon, Igbo philosophies to Greece and to Egypt and Igbo column writing to Crete and to Ireland – it was through the instrumentality of these prehistoric Black African/ Nigerian/ Mega Igbo civilizers, colonizers and primal irrigators of the human psyche! These were the people who first sowed the seed of what is today known as civilization! In fact what is generally known to historians worldwide is that the People of the Sea have always functioned as watch-dogs of civilization, and that throughout the course of history, whenever humanity has tended to derail, the People of the Sea have emerged from nowhere and undertaken acts of military cleansing that brought the world back on track. The best known of the Sea peoples were Phoenicians, and they too were brothers of the Carians and Danaans. All of them were thus Canaanites, children of Ham, hence Africans who had first settled in Palestine (long before Abraham the father of the Israelites was called out of Mesopotamia), and from there reached out into the Aegean.
The Canaanite settlers who at one time were said to have Inhabited most of the Aegean Islands included sea-faring Phoenicians and Carians, the later bore facial scarifications associated with the Igbo. Herodotus, born in 484 B.C. in Caria, reported that the Carians also lived in Egypt and that “they cut their foreheads with knives” … which showed that they “are not Egyptians”. Martin Bernal records that Carians were related to the Phoenicians, which would make them Canaanites, hence Africans. Cretan frescoes (from Knossos, Santorini) show these people as black with wooly hair. Their boats were inscribed with the palm frond-type ichi symbols (plate 18) while their house hold implements and items of clothing included cow-horn drinking cups, woven conical hat with ear flaps which the Igbo call okpu-nwagwara (plate 19), Igbo-type carrying basket called abo/ukpa which their women bore on their heads (Plate 20). Bernal reported that “Carians and Phoenicians inhabited most of the Islands of the Aegean” (p. 101), and this would help to account for “the similarities found among the populations all around the Mediterranean” (.14). We might also reiterate at this point the fact that Canaan was the father of Phoenix, founder of Phoenicia, Europa (who gave her name to Europe) and Kadmos founder of Thebes. Phoenix was the father of Adonis who got his name from the Canaanite word Adon (Lord), which would coincide with Mega Igbo word Idu (Black Lord). This is the root of the Jewish title for Son of God ‘Adonai’ frequently used for Jesus Christ in the Greek and Coptic traditions. Europa, says the Greek tradition, means ‘broad face’. Its cognate in Igbo is Iri opa ‘broad face/moon face’!
As for the other Sea Peoples, the Danaans and Achaians, the Egyptians referred to the Achaians as Ikwsh (which ties them with the Igbo/Kwa Akwa-nshi), for they had also raided Egypt before invading the Aegean (Black Athena 1, p. 52). Achaians were the inhabitants of Anatolia. We have some surviving linguistic evidence that ancient Anatolians (present day Turkey) spoke Igbo language or a hybrid of it - the title of a book authored around the year 1500 by Turkish Admiral and renowned cartographer, Piri Reis in his native language: Bahariye translates into English as ‘Concerning the Sea’. The equivalent Igbo expression of the exact same meaning is ‘Banyere iyi’! This cannot be shear coincidence. The Igbo roots of West Asian and East Asian prehistoric languages obviously account for what Martin Bernal calls the “genetic relationship between Afro-asiatic and Indo-European” the two proto languages of Africa, Europe and Asia. (Black Athena, p. 55) The undeniable presence of Igbo etymons in the formative and most basic words from the European and Asian linguistic environments is further proof Igbo origin of world civilizations. With what we now know it is important for African and Igbo scholars to throw deeper search light into the study of ancient Levantine and Aegean civilizations so as to further establish how ancient Black Africans gave the world the defining elements its civilizations and cultures.
Bernal says that Proto Anatolian and Proto Indo-European are both children of Proto Indo-Hittite and that Indo European was already spoken in Southern Anatolia by the makers of the great Neolithic cultures of the 8th and 7th millennia… The language moved into Greece and Crete with spread of Agriculture around 7,000 B.C. (Black Athena 1, p. 13) This coincides with what Bernal refers to as the “hypothetical expansion of Afro-asiatic with African Agriculture in the 9th and 8th millennia B.C.” (p. 14). Also Bernal makes it clear that the Pre-dynastic cultures of Upper Egypt and Nubia from where the first Pharaoh of Egypt emerged, is of an uncontested African origin. With these, we begin to have clear markers of Black African origins of all the great world civilizations, and see the need to seek their aboriginal roots in ancient Nigeria where Agriculture and metallurgy were probably invented without external influence. It would equally be intruiging, in the light of this new knowledge, to research into the actual identity of the ubiquitous Hittites (Ihite is a clan-name in Igbo land) and their obvious ancient Nigerian origin.
The kith and kin of the Achaians, the Danaans derived their name from their ancestor, a decrepit old man who was known by the title Denyen (shortened to Dene), which as Martin Bernal argues, is a cognate of Egyptian dni or dyn which means ‘irrigate’, a pun alluding to the “positive attributes of the man as a colonizer and irrigator” (Black Athena 1, p. 47). Interestingly again Dyn/Denyen are cognates of Igbo Idey/Idenye (irrigation)! Irrigation waters or the rain-waters that follow age-old natural paths (idenye mmiri) is an age-old Igbo metaphor for aboriginality, right of inheritance, and especially for identifying the undisputable founding father of a community or group. This is captured in the proverb Idenye ga-agbako ebe o na-agbako, which means ‘rain water will always follow its natural paths and gather into ponds as it always has and always will.’ An ancestor identified with the paths of rain waters, a colonizer identified as an irrigator is one whose impact is, to say the least, life-giving, at one with mother nature and eternal. The full and undeniable meaning of this Igbo proverb which defines the title of the ancestor of the Danaans is this – that no matter how long it takes, no matter how crooked or multifarious the winding paths that truth may take, it will ultimately get to its final destination; at the end of its journey (in the fullness of time) it will come together into one whole.
Indeed an Age has come full cycle and truths hidden are being revealed! With this obvious Igbo root of the name Dane, there is no doubt that the Danaans were an Igbo clan. Martin Bernal noted that the Biblical tribe of Dan “can be seen as having come originally from the Israelite incorporation of one of the Peoples of the Sea.” (Black Athena 1, p. 48). There has been much speculation among the Igbo that they belong to the Israelite tribe of Dan! The Igbo are not Danaans/Danites, but one can say that the Danaans or Danites of Israel are Igbo. There is a Danaan tribe in Ireland, ancestors of the Danish. Through them, the Danish can claim Igbo ancestry. They and the Irish Druids (Duru Idu ‘Lords of the Idu (Black) clan of god-men’) were instrumental to the spread of Igbo cosmology throughout the British Isles. We have so far identified three clans that belonged to the Sea People who raided Europe and Egypt in the 2nd millennium B.C., sacked all monarchies and installed democracies. Out of these three clans, the Carians bore the ichi facial scarifications (the identity mark of the Igbo) and their customs were close to those of the Igbo; the Achaians were known by the Egyptians as Akwa Nshi (transcribed by Bernal as Ikw-sh), the local name of the Ikom monoliths and its authors; and the Danaans identified their founding ancestor in obvious Igbo terms and cosmology.
There are far too many coincidences for this not to be an obvious proof that the famed People of the Sea were prehistoric Nigerians, people of the Mega Igbo clan whom Adiele Afigbo theorizes about in his works! Most importantly we think we have found here the missing link as to how elements of the monolith writings such as the letters ki and shi were transmitted to Babylon, Igbo philosophies to Greece and to Egypt and Igbo column writing to Crete and to Ireland – it was through the instrumentality of these prehistoric Black African/ Nigerian/ Mega Igbo civilizers, colonizers and primal irrigators of the human psyche! These were the people who first sowed the seed of what is today known as civilization! In fact what is generally known to historians worldwide is that the People of the Sea have always functioned as watch-dogs of civilization, and that throughout the course of history, whenever humanity has tended to derail, the People of the Sea have emerged from nowhere and undertaken acts of military cleansing that brought the world back on track. The best known of the Sea peoples were Phoenicians, and they too were brothers of the Carians and Danaans. All of them were thus Canaanites, children of Ham, hence Africans who had first settled in Palestine (long before Abraham the father of the Israelites was called out of Mesopotamia), and from there reached out into the Aegean.