The Falsification of King Tut: A Black Philadelphia Proposal

By Hannibal Casanova
A Philadelphia based cultural analysts and activist

Each generation out of relative obscurity must discover its mission fulfill it or betray it.
Fanon

The essential nature of this brief paper is to outline a proposal, giving emphasis to some of the critical questions and concerns facing Black Philadelphia’s activists, organizations, historians, communities and especially educators, in an attempt to mobilize a resistance movement against the local Falsification of King Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, appearing at the Franklin Institute from February 3rd through the end of September of 2007.

In June 2005, the magazine issue of National Geographic featured on its cover “The new face of King Tut.” This was a facial reconstruction done by way of “forensic Science” and a “computerized tomography scanner” (CT scanner) which produced over 1,700 digital x-ray images under the direction of Dr. Zahi Hawass and his ‘Supreme Council of Antiquities.’ While I am for the advancement of science, technology, and computers (only because our antecedents the ancient Egyptians were the creators of science), I am on the other hand, vehemently against “Science and Oppression” as articulated brilliantly by the late African-centered Egyptologist and philosopher Professor Jacob Carruthers Ph.D.

I have a problem with this deliberate reconstructive (one can argue deconstructive) and whitened caricature of the once royal Black African Boy king (Pharaoh Tutankhamen, [?-1328 B.C.E.]) of ancient Egypt (originally called Kemet), who lived approximately 3,300 years ago (18th dynasty), now reduced into a white computerized hybrid (strangely resembling a ‘middle eastern’ Turkish monk). Dr. Hawass laudably brags about his “forensic miracle” and parades his council and exhibition around the country.

The exhibition arrived here at the Franklin Institute in February of this year (Black history month, remember). Among his many installations are three facial bust of king Tutankhamen reconstructed from the boy king’s mummified corpse. There are several problematic implications that should be considered here by our educators and cultural activist in the community (exception, ASCAC and The King Tutankhamen Committee, who are already involved in this battle):
1) the continued attack, onslaught, rape and disrespect for African classical history and civilization;
2) the relentless utilization of revisionist history and science for oppression in the forensic reconstruction of an African Pharaoh Tutankhamen into a Western Arabized white caricature;
3) the delusional reconstructive facial changes from its indigenous African ancestral cultural features;
4) the continued forgeries and thieveries of ancient Egyptian artifacts; and
5) “What is to be done” (V.I. Lenin’s prophetic tract) by us in the Black/African and African-American community?

Moreover, according to historian and Egyptologist, Anthony Browder, author of the seminal and mammoth work Nile Valley Contribution to Civilizations, I have followed Hawass’ career for years and was not surprised by his findings. He has consistently stated that ancient Egypt was not an African Civilization and that indigenous Africans played no role in the history and early development. Hawass is also the driving force behind the King Tut exhibition which is currently touring the United States (personal communication, 2005); In addition, according to scholar activist, Mario Beatty Ph.D., author of the dissertation and magnum opus The Image of Celestial Phenomena in The Book of Coming Forth By Day: An Astronomical and Philological Analysis, and his masterful essay “Maat: The Cultural and Intellectual Allegiance of a Concept.” We must be political astute enough to recognize that we must self-consciously protect and defend the sacredness of African history and culture in the face of enemies who are equally, if not more, committed to preserving the sacredness of something different that has absolutely nothing to do with humanizing the world and who have no problem erasing African tradition in the process.

Professor Chiekh Anta Diop Ph.D., trained physicist, historian, masterful thinker, researcher and Egyptologist, author of the treatise African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, prophetically reminds us about our aim and objective as critical thinking people of the African race (I do understand that race is a social construct):

Ancient Egypt was a Negro [African] Civilization. The history of Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to compare it with the history of Egypt [Kemet]. It will be impossible to build … a body of African human sciences, so long as that relationship does not appear legitimate. The African historian who evades the problem of Egypt is neither modest nor objective, nor unruffled; he [she] is ignorant, cowardly and neurotic…The ancient Egyptians were Negroes [Africans]. The moral fruit of their civilization is to be counted among the assets of the Black world

Instead of presenting itself to history as an insolvent debtor, that Black world is the very initiator of the ‘western’ civilization flaunted before our eyes today. Pythagorean Mathematics, the theory of the four elements of Thales of Miletus, Epicurean materialism, Platonic idealism, Judaism, Islam, and modern science are rooted in Egyptian cosmogony and science. In a word, we must restore the historical consciousness of the African peoples…

Also, we must be intellectually and politically brave enough, to ask and answer these following critical and pressing questions: What are the implications when a historical wrong is allowed to tour our nation unchecked? Why should we as a Philadelphia African-American conscious thinking community allow this historical bamboozlement to come into our city unchallenged? What weak rationalizations would we skillfully tell our children about our inability or unwillingness to speak truth to power? What responsibility does the School District of Philadelphia have in allowing this miss-educational forgery to go unquestioned (specifically because this was the first city to implement African & African-American history into its school curriculum as a requirement)? And lastly, in the spirit of the Millions Man March, now the Millions More Movement, are we not in complicity with this historical blunder if we allow this fabricated exhibition to pass through our backyard critically unaddressed?

Clearly, many Africans, African-American scholars, and African/Black Egyptologists have raised these critical questions and concerns about this falsification of (Tut) African history and tradition. Therefore, the task confronting our communal “organic intellectuals” (Antonio Gramsci’s famous revolutionary conception) and people (in Philadelphia) is to rediscover, reclaim and recapitulate ourselves towards our African and African-American worldview. As a result, of this historical and ancient thievery (invasion and plunderous act of King Tutankhamen’s sacred and historical tomb), I am proposing the following action plans for a tentative initiation:
• Accepting the brave and conscious task of exposing, defending, and protecting the recent corruptive image of King Tutankhamen as an organizational agenda item for critical investigation in your group’s mission statement of this new 2007 year.
• Developing a committee that will put together tactics, strategies, and propaganda outreach activities for the development of a communal thrust against the Franklin Institute’s distorted exhibition. Also, our initiation must be well organized and planned to produce an effective protest resistance against the Institute’s falsified exhibition of this computerized and manufactured King Tutankhamen.
• Developing a nationwide (and local) calls for our African and African-American historians and Egyptologists to lead the debate (via T.V., radio, museum panel, communal colloquium, churches, etc.) over the historical and continued distortion of our ancient Nile Valley civilization.
• Developing a well defined Coalition/Alliance with local and nationwide groups that are already involved in this intellectual warfare of history such as the study groups, ASCAC and King Tutankhamen committee, for the purpose of collaborating to forge a community movement against this falsification of our historiography.
• Encouraging Black (local and international) writers to produce essays, articles, and protest letters to be infused into the local papers in our communities (local and international) that will uncover historical facts and give intellectual emphasis/clarity to the historical authenticity of the African/Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen.
• Calling the National Geographic magazine and insisting that they stop their subjective and false propaganda that places Egypt in the mythical “Middle East” or “Mediterranean” and begin publishing the facts that Egypt belongs to the physical African continent.
• Developing a proposal that will call on the Millions More Movement’s Educational Committee to begin monitoring the School District of Philadelphia (and the School Reform Commission) for a progress report on authenticating the practical application of the African and African-American history course, specifically the history of Egypt (originally called Kemet), which was already infused into the Public School curriculum framework of 2005.

The aforementioned action steps are just the preliminary and tentative stages which are recommended action plans to activate a practical application. Furthermore, the author is open to change or modification according to the philosophy and ideology of the group’s methodological and cultural aims and objectives. In other words, nothing is written in cement or stone (plus, this proposal belongs to the Black/African people of Philadelphia who believe in factual historical congruency). Again, the aim and objective of the author of this proposal is to alert the various organizations and Black communities to prepare/include in their organizational meetings strategies to hopefully defend and protect our sacred Egyptian (Kemetic) historiography from being white washed right under and in our owned backyard.

Finally, and most importantly, we as a people need to recast, rebuke, and debunk, this Western terrorist invasion of our African ancestral consciousness. In the final analysis, only when we can excoriate from our African minds this Eurocentric epistemological conception of knowledge and information (Descartes’ I am because I think and because I think, therefore, I am, rather than Mbiti’s I am because we are and because we are, therefore, I am) can we really become a free and independent thinking people, and therefore, radically abandon this anti-intellectual vexation of self. Let us stop being isolated sideline lurkers of African (negro-centered) consciousness, wallowing in our self inflicted servility, and get (organically) involved in the African struggle to liberate our minds from our Western incarcerated conceptualizations. It is only then, that victory will be ours!

African Power!

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