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The Greatest African King

von Justice am 18.05.2014 12:03

The Battle of Adwa (February 29 to March 1, 1896) is of huge significance for Africa in that the decimation of the continent could not be completed. Ethiopia turned out to be the last man standing. So thorough was the defeat of Italy by Ethiopia, that there were violent riots all over the country, and it resulted in Italy being forced to pay indemnities to Ethiopia and recognise its borders.

It is thus not by chance that Ethiopia hosts the African Union headquarters, and serves as an inspiration to Africans all over the world on how to stand up to bullies.

It all began with the Treaty of Wuchale, a co-operative agreement between Ethiopia and Italy. But the devil was in the interpretation.

Most significantly, Emperor Menelik II, who claims lineage from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, had the good sense to have his own language version of the treaty, in Amharic.

In the Italian version, Rome claimed that Article 17 meant Ethiopia had relinquished its foreign policy to Italy and thus had become a protectorate.

This was disputed by the Amharic version, which clearly stated that Italy and Ethiopia would co-operate on foreign affairs.

Italy then used this as a casus belli to wage war on Ethiopia, which responded ferociously. In a landmark speech made to the nation, Emperor Menelik II made this declaration:

"Enemies have now come upon us to ruin our country and to change our religion. Our enemies have begun the affair by advancing and digging into the country like moles. With the help of God, I will not deliver my country to them. Today, you who are strong give me your strength, and you who are weak, help me by prayer."

Of equal significance is the role played by Menelik's wife, the Empress Taytu Betul, who stood firmly by her husband by telling the Italian envoy, Antonelli: "We have also made it known to the powers that the said article, as it is written in our language, has another meaning. Like you, we also ought to respect our dignity.

"You wish Ethiopia to be represented before the other powers as your protectorate, but this shall never be."

What can be achieved by an Africa United was demonstrated by the Battle of Adwa. Ethiopia as a country was divided, as many ethnic groupings swore allegiance to their own chiefs (or Ras). When things came to a head, Emperor Menelik was able to convince all of them to put aside their differences and contribute 100,000 troops to face down the invaders.

Prominent among them was Ras Mikael of Wollo, Ras Sibhat of Tigray, Ras Wale of Yejju Oromo, and Ras Gebeyehu, who died fighting at Adwa.
Empress Betul was the commander of a cavalry.
Italy was completely humiliated.

The Italians made many tactical errors in the mountains of Adwa, against a determined and valiant Ethiopian force. A key moment in the battle came when Brigadier Dabormida, the Italian commander, under siege from Ethiopian artillery, decided to withdraw.

Dabormida's brigade had moved to support Brigadier Albertone but was unable to reach him in time. Cut off from the remainder of the Italian army, Darbormida began to fight while retreating towards friendly positions.

However, he inadvertently marched his command into a narrow valley where the Oromo cavalry, under Ras Mikael, slaughtered the brigade, shouting Ebalgume! Ebalgume! ("Reap! Reap!)"

Dabormida's remains were never found, although his brother learned from an old woman living in the area that she had given water to a mortally wounded Italian officer, "a chief, a great man with spectacles and a watch, and golden stars".

The remaining two brigades under a Baratieri were outflanked and destroyed piecemeal on the slopes of Mount Belah. Menelik watched as Gojjam forces under the command of Tekle Haymonot made quick work of the last intact Italian brigade. By noon, the survivors of the Italian army were in full retreat and the battle was over.

Italian Defeat

The Italians suffered about 7,000 killed and 1,500 wounded in the battle and subsequent retreat back into Eritrea, with 3,000 taken prisoner; Ethiopian losses have been estimated around 4-5,000 killed and 8,000 wounded.

In their flight to Eritrea, the Italians left behind all of their artillery and 11,000 rifles, as well as most of their transport.

As the historian Paul B. Henze notes: "Baratieri's army had been completely routed while Menelik's was intact as a fighting force and gained thousands of rifles, pistols and a great deal of equipment from the fleeing Italians."

Public opinion in Italy was outraged.

The historian Chris Prout offers a panoramic overview of the response in Italy to the news: "When news of the calamity reached Italy, there were street demonstrations in most major cities. In Rome, to prevent these violent protests, the universities and theatres were closed.

"Police were called out to disperse rock-throwers in front of Prime Minister Crispi's residence. Crispi resigned on March 9. Troops were called out to quell demonstrations in Naples.

"In Pavia, crowds built barricades on the railroad tracks to prevent a troop train from leaving the station.

The Association of women of Rome, Turin, Milan and Pavia called for the return of all military forces in Africa.

Funeral masses were intoned for the known and unknown dead.

"Families began sending to the newspapers letters they had received before Adwa in which their menfolk described their poor living conditions and their fears at the size of the army they were going to face. King Umberto declared his birthday (March 14) a day of mourning. Italian communities in St Petersburg, London, New York, Chicago, Buenos Aires and Jerusalem collected money for the families of the dead and for the Italian Red Cross."

Forty years later, in 1935, still stung by this ignominious defeat, Italy's fascist leader Mussolini, who was aligned with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, took advantage of the advent of the Second World War to invade Ethiopia, complete with chemical weapons, bombs, tanks, and aircraft.

Italy threw in 595 aircraft to Ethiopia's 3, as well as 795 tanks to 3. They occupied Ethiopian for five years, and were again flushed out by Emperor Haile Selassie with the help of Allied forces, in the main the British army.

The prominent African-American historian, Professor Molefi Asante, opines on the significance of Adwa: "After the victory over Italy in 1896, Ethiopia acquired a special importance in the eyes of Africans as the only surviving African state.

"After Adwa, Ethiopia became emblematic of African value and resistance, the bastion of prestige and hope to thousands of Africans who were experiencing the full shock of European conquest and were beginning to search for an answer to the myth of African inferiority."

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

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44, Männlich

20 Ways to Create Business Ideas

von Justice am 23.03.2014 09:39

Business and every aspect oflife requires quality thinking and execution of ideas to make it work

Generate lots of ideas. – The more ideas you create, the more likely you are to create an idea worth a million bucks.

Fail a lot. – All of the ideas that don't work are simply stepping stones on your way to the one idea that does. Sometimes you have to fail a thousand times to succeed. No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying

.Consume information consciously. – Some of my think it's wasteful that I spend so much time reading books and blogs. It's not. It's what gives me an edge. I feel engulfed with new ideas and information. And I've actually used what I've learned to launch a few successful websites. When you read things and interact with people, take off your consumer cap and put on your creator cap. There are million dollar ideas (or at least some really good ideas) all around you waiting for discovery

.Focus on topics and ideas with large markets. – A million dollars is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is if you're trying to earn it in a small market with limited opportunities. Even if you put Steve Jobs in the role of CEO for a new venture with a maximum market size of 100 people he wouldn't make more than a few cents. 'Big bucks' result from high demand in a substantial market.

Make sure there's money in your market. – Bank robbers rob banks because that's where the money is. Before you become emotionally attached to an idea, do a little market research. Make sure the idea you're pursuing is where the money is. Who are the clients and consumers? How much disposable income do they have? Etc.

Keep your eyes, ears and mind wide open. – Oftentimes one idea's failure will open a door to a new idea. Don't get so hung up on one failed attempt that you miss the opening for many more.

Test variations of the same idea. – Think about the iPhone and the iPad for a second. One is just a variation of the other. Both are multi-million dollar ideas.

Figure out what works well in one market and tailor it to another. – Find an idea that's already proven and think about how it could be applied in a different context. Take a formula that works in one niche and apply it to a new niche. Or take the best aspects of one product and combine it with another product.

Put the pieces together. – YouTube's creators didn't invent Flash. They didn't invent modern digital cameras that can record computer-ready mpeg video. And they didn't invent broadband Internet connections, cheap web hosting, embedded website content, or one-click website uploading technologies either. What they invented is a technology that takes all of these existing pieces and combines them into an online video sharing portal.

Spin a new twist on a previous breakthrough. – A new twist on an old idea can still be a million dollar idea. Take Facebook for instance, it wasn't the first big social networking site, but Mark Zuckerberg and company added twists and features the others did not grasp. How can you take an existing million dollar idea, or even a common idea, and give it a new twist, a new direction and journey?

Systematize a popular service into a reproducible product. – A service is productized when its ownership can be exchanged. Think about Alienware and Dell back in their infancy. Both companies simply systematized the service of building IBM compatible PCs and then sold them as a packaged product. If you can convert a high demand service into a scalable, systematized, efficient process and sell it as a packaged deal, the million appears.

Play with opposites. – When something becomes extremely popular, the opposite often also becomes popular as people turn away from the mainstream. When Wordpress, Blogger and Movable Type exploded in popularity by giving anyone with an Internet connection the ability to share long, detailed blog posts with the world, Twitter and Tumblr came along and started the micro-blogging revolution – for people grasping to share extremely short content snippets. There are hundreds of other examples. Just remember, the opposite of a million dollar idea can paradoxically give birth to another million dollar idea.

Look for problems and solve them. – There are many real problems in this world. Like a business owner wondering why his profits are sinking. Like a golfer worrying about his slice. Like a young man who is growing bald at 26. Like a mom whose child is suffering with allergies. Like a new dog owner who's unsure what to do about her puppy barking all night. Solving problems like these can make millions.

Design new products that support other successful products. – How much money do you think iPod, iPhone and iPad case manufacturers are making? Millions? Billions? What about companies that jumped into the market of manufacturing LCD and Plasma TV mounting brackets eight years ago? You get the idea.

Keep it simple. – Don't over complicate a good idea. Business marketing studies have shown that the more product choices offered, the less products consumers typically buy. After all, narrowing down the best product from a pool of three choices is certainly easier than narrowing down the best product from a pool of three hundred choices. If the purchasing decision is tough to make, most people will just give up. So if you're designing a product line, keep it simple.

Exploit the resources and skills you already have. – It's not as much about having the right resources as it is about exploiting your resources right now. Stevie Wonder couldn't see, so he exploited his sense of hearing into a passion for music, and he now has 25 Grammy Awards to prove it. If you pursue a new venture that involves leveraging your resources and skills, you're ahead of the game.

Surround yourself with other thinkers. – You are the sum of the people you spend the most time with. If you hang with the wrong people, they will affect you negatively. But if you hang with the right people, you will be more capable and powerful than you ever could have been alone. Find your tribe and collaborate to make a difference in all your lives. Bounce ideas off each other, etc.

Be enthusiastic about what you're doing. – Enthusiasm is the lifeblood of creativity. Big ideas blossom when you're passionate and enthusiastic about what you're doing. It's nearly impossible to pioneer ground breaking solutions in a domain where there is not passionate intensity. But when your mind is stimulated by a fundamental curiosity and interest in the subject matter, your creativity will run rampant and your motivation will skyrocket.

Accept constructive criticism, but ignore naysayers. – When someone spews negativity about your idea or product, remember, it doesn't matter how many people don't get it, it matters how many do. No matter how much progress you make there will always be the people who insist that whatever you're trying to do is impossible. Or they may jealously suggest that the idea or concept as a whole is utterly ridiculous because nobody really cares. When you come across these people, don't try to reason with them. Instead, forget that they exist. They will only waste your time and energy.

Actually do something with your ideas! – A million dollar idea is simply a good idea given the chance to grow. On paper, Google and Facebook sprung from fairly ordinary ideas: 'a search engine that's accurate' and 'a website where connect with each other.' Remember, neither of these companies were the first ones in their market. Their ideas weren't groundbreaking at the time. Many people had the same ideas even before Google and Facebook existed. But Google's and Facebook's creators did something with their ideas. They worked hard and one-upped the competition. Their initial success was in their execution. Remember, it's not the ideas themselves that count, it's what you do with them. With the right execution, a simple idea can evolve into a million dollar idea.

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

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36, Männlich

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The Black Shakespeare

von kingjohn am 05.03.2014 01:03

From the most remote times there has existed in Russia people of African descent. By far the most famous of all the Blacks in Russian history, however, was Alexander Sergeievich Pushkin–patriarch of Russian literature. Born in Moscow on May 26, 1799, Pushkin was descended on his mother's side from Major-General Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal–an Ethiopian prince who became a favorite of Tsar Peter I (1682-1725). Hannibal impressed Czar Peter "so well that he became a confidant and favorite, was revered at the court, and began the aristocratic Pushkin lineage. In an unfinished work, The Negro of Peter the Great, Alexander Pushkin pays homage to his illustrious ancestor

Pushkin has been positively identified as the father of Russian literature, and composed in the Russian language at a time when most Russian intellectuals were writing in French. Of Pushkin, Feodor Dostoevsky wrote that, "No Russian writer was ever so intimately at one with the Russian people as Pushkin." Maxim Gorky wrote that, "Pushkin is the greatest master in the world. Pushkin, in our country, is the beginning of all beginnings. He most beautifully expressed the spirit of our people." According to N.A. Dobrolyubuv, "Pushkin is of immense importance not only in the history of Russian literature, but also in the history of Russian enlightenment. He was the first to teach the Russian public to read." I. Turgeniev wrote that "Pushkin alone had to perform two tasks which took whole centuries and more to accomplish in other countries, namely to establish a language and to create a literature." Czar Nicholas I, who hated and feared Pushkin, referred to him as "the most intelligent man in Russia."

Pushkin died prematurely, defending his honor in a duel, in January 1837. At the time of his death, Pushkin was working on a novel on the life of his beloved ancestor, Ibrahim Hannibal–The Negro of Peter the Great. Among Pushkin's most significant works translated into English are: Eugene Onegin, The Ode to Liberty, The Captain's Daughter and Boris Godunof.

A bronze statue of Pushkin was erected in Moscow's Red Square. Today, his name is loftily born by twenty museums. African-American scholar Allison Blakely has written that, "Pushkin was truly the Russian counterpoint to Shakespeare."

When you dreams dream big as big as the occean

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36, Männlich

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5 Women Who Changed the World

von kingjohn am 05.03.2014 12:47

A very wise person stated, "Behind every successful man, there's a woman." But, an even wiser thought will acknowledge that behind a ever-evolving world, there are several women. MensXP takes a look at some of these women who make dynamite seem weak
!1. Joan Of Arc

A patron saint of France and a revolutionary, Joan Of Arc is a heroic figure from our history. Born as a peasant girl, she claimed to receive spiritual intervention at a very early age and soon after she led the French to several victories in the Hundred Years' War in her teens! Unfortunately fate had a different tale carved for her when she was captured and given away to Englishmen for money. The pro-English Bishop of Beauvais found her guilty on the charges of "insubordination and heterodoxy" and was burned at the stake for being a heretic when she was only 19 years old!

2. Mother Teresa

A Nobel Peace Prize winner, a philanthropist, and arguably the one sole person to have brought about a change in the world as of today, Mother Teresa was a heaven-sent being for mankind. A Roman Catholic nun, Mother Teresa dedicated her whole life in serving the betterment of the poor and going to extreme lengths to eradicate poverty. So much so that she ended up establishing charitable trusts in more than 133 countries! Her motto of "Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor" surely did its trick as she proved to be the most inspirational being of the 20th century!

3. Susan Anthony

The most prominent woman of the American Civil Rights movement, Susan Anthony rewrote history with her work for humanitarianism and human rights. To put things in place, she was the sole person to raise her voice for women's right to vote at the election, bringing the power of authority of women in accordance to the men. She extensively toured the country delivering speeches to huge masses and spreading the word of gender-equality, fighting for equal rights, social and political. Unfortunately she did not live long enough to see it through as the law was passed in 1920, 14 years after her death.

4. Harriet Beecher Stowe

An abolitionist and an author, Harriet Beecher Stowe fought against the slavery of the African-Americans that was a trend in the 18t century. Her writings revolved around the hardships and ill-treatments that she witnessed first-hand all across the United States. Harriet's work and exploits influenced millions and fuelled the fire that eventually helped in abolishing slavery all across United States and United Kingdom!

5. Marie Curie

A scientist and a chemist, Marie Curie is a household name when it comes to science, and even more so radioactivity. Marie Curie established herself in the field that was solely dominated by men, and paved way for new techniques in the study of radioactivity. It doesn't end there, for she has been the first in many roles; She was the first ever woman to win the Nobel Prize for her contribution to science and to be the first ever female professor at the University Of Paris. Her valuable contribution in the field of science, and yet unfortunately so she ended up dying while doing what she d the most while working on radioactivity and eventually dying due to radiation.

When you dreams dream big as big as the occean

Antworten Zuletzt bearbeitet am 05.03.2014 12:50 .

36, Männlich

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Qualities of Entreprenuers

von kingjohn am 05.03.2014 11:56

What does it take to create and build a company? This is usually the first question that most people get to ask before starting up a business. Getting the most factual answers and applying same go a long way in determining the success of the business. I once asked this question in a meeting of successful entrepreneurs. What emerged from that conversation was a set of behaviors that all great entrepreneurs have in common:

1. Believe If athletes, artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs actually examined the success rate of people in their field, they would talk themselves out of even trying. They would take the path of least resistance. They would go out and get a "real" job. Belief provides the motivation to attempt things that, if you were entirely rational about them, you would never attempt. With belief, the "odds of success" become irrelevant. You continue to push forward until you achieve your dreams.

2. Empathize Believing in yourself and what you're doing has a downside: It can make you blind to what other people believe and why they believe it. As a result, you become convinced that everybody sees the world the unique way that you see it. Great entrepreneurs have the uncanny ability to see the world from the perspective of their customers. Steve Jobs was a case in point. He certainly believed in Apple's products, but he presented them as something that customers could believe in.

3. Observe Great entrepreneurs are observers of human nature and human behavior. They're profoundly curious about the patterns that guide people's lives and the activities that bring them pleasure and (especially) pain. Therefore, if you want to create a product or service that people will , keep your eyes and ears open. When you hear somebody curse or swear because an existing product or service sucks, that's where there's money to be made.

4. Obsess Great entrepreneurs are fanatical about improving their products and services. They never rest on their laurels or think merely in terms of incremental improvement. They'll spend extraordinary time and effort simply to get things right. Thus, if you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you must pay attention to every element, every process, and every stage of your product or service. There must be no detail so small that it escapes your notice.

5. Win Do I need to say more? They win in their minds they believe that everything is possible, they aare enthusisatic about their goal

When you dreams dream big as big as the occean

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44, Männlich

The Black Pharaohs of Egypt

von Justice am 01.03.2014 09:28

In the year 730 B.C., a man by the name of Piye decided the only way to save Egypt from itself was to invade it. Things would get bloody before the salvation came.

“Harness the best steeds of your stable,” he ordered his commanders. The magnificent civilization that had built the great pyramids had lost its way, torn apart by petty warlords. For two decades Piye had ruled over his own kingdom in Nubia, a swath of Africa located mostly in present-day Sudan. But he considered himself the true ruler of Egypt as well, the rightful heir to the spiritual traditions practiced by pharaohs such as Ramses II and Thutmose III. Since Piye had probably never actually visited Lower Egypt, some did not take his boast seriously. Now Piye would witness the subjugation of decadent Egypt firsthand—“I shall let Lower Egypt taste the taste of my fingers,” he would later write.

North on the Nile River his soldiers sailed. At Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they disembarked. Believing there was a proper way to wage holy wars, Piye instructed his soldiers to purify themselves before combat by bathing in the Nile, dressing themselves in fine linen, and sprinkling their bodies with water from the temple at Karnak, a site holy to the ram-headed sun god Amun, whom Piye identified as his own personal deity. Piye himself feasted and offered sacrifices to Amun. Thus sanctified, the commander and his men commenced to do battle with every army in their path.

By the end of a yearlong campaign, every leader in Egypt had capitulated—including the powerful delta warlord Tefnakht, who sent a messenger to tell Piye, “Be gracious! I cannot see your face in the days of shame; I cannot stand before your flame, I dread your grandeur.” In exchange for their lives, the vanquished urged Piye to worship at their temples, pocket their finest jewels, and claim their best horses. He obliged them. And then, with his vassals trembling before him, the newly anointed Lord of the Two Lands did something extraordinary: He loaded up his army and his war booty, and sailed southward to his home in Nubia, never to return to Egypt again.

When Piye died at the end of his 35-year reign in 715 B.C., his subjects honored his wishes by burying him in an Egyptian-style pyramid, with four of his beloved horses nearby. He was the first pharaoh to receive such entombment in more than 500 years. A pity, then, that the great Nubian who accomplished these feats is literally faceless to us. Images of Piye on the elaborate granite slabs, or stelae, memorializing his conquest of Egypt have long since been chiseled away. On a relief in the temple at the Nubian capital of Napata, only Piye’s legs remain. We are left with a single physical detail of the man—namely, that his skin was dark.

Piye was the first of the so-called black pharaohs—a series of Nubian kings who ruled over all of Egypt for three-quarters of a century as that country’s 25th dynasty. Through inscriptions carved on stelae by both the Nubians and their enemies, it is possible to map out these rulers’ vast footprint on the continent. The black pharaohs reunified a tattered Egypt and filled its landscape with glorious monuments, creating an empire that stretched from the southern border at present-day Khartoum all the way north to the Mediterranean Sea. They stood up to the bloodthirsty Assyrians, perhaps saving Jerusalem in the process.

Until recently, theirs was a chapter of history that largely went untold. Only in the past four decades have archaeologists resurrected their story—and come to recognize that the black pharaohs didn’t appear out of nowhere. They sprang from a robust African civilization that had flourished on the southern banks of the Nile for 2,500 years, going back at least as far as the first Egyptian dynasty.

Today Sudan’s pyramids—greater in number than all of Egypt’s—are haunting spectacles in the Nubian Desert. It is possible to wander among them unharassed, even alone, a world away from Sudan’s genocide and refugee crisis in Darfur or the aftermath of civil war in the south. While hundreds of miles north, at Cairo or Luxor, curiosity seekers arrive by the busload to jostle and crane for views of the Egyptian wonders, Sudan’s seldom-visited pyramids at El Kurru, Nuri, and Meroë stand serenely amid an arid landscape that scarcely hints of the thriving culture of ancient Nubia.

Now our understanding of this civilization is once again threatened with obscurity. The Sudanese government is building a hydroelectric dam along the Nile, 600 miles upstream from the Aswan High Dam, which Egypt constructed in the 1960s, consigning much of lower Nubia to the bottom of Lake Nasser (called Lake Nubia in Sudan). By 2009, the massive Merowe Dam should be complete, and a 106-mile-long lake will flood the terrain abutting the Nile’s Fourth Cataract, or rapid, including thousands of unexplored sites. For the past nine years, archaeologists have flocked to the region, furiously digging before another repository of Nubian history goes the way of Atlantis.

The ancient world was devoid of racism. At the time of Piye’s historic conquest, the fact that his skin was dark was irrelevant. Artwork from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome shows a clear awareness of racial features and skin tone, but there is little evidence that darker skin was seen as a sign of inferiority. Only after the European powers colonized Africa in the 19th century did Western scholars pay attention to the color of the Nubians’ skin, to uncharitable effect.

Explorers who arrived at the central stretch of the Nile River excitedly reported the discovery of elegant temples and pyramids—the ruins of an ancient civilization called Kush. Some, like the Italian doctor Giuseppe Ferlini—who lopped off the top of at least one Nubian pyramid, inspiring others to do the same—hoped to find treasure beneath. The Prussian archaeologist Richard Lepsius had more studious intentions, but he ended up doing damage of his own by concluding that the Kushites surely “belonged to the Caucasian race.”

Even famed Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner—whose discoveries between 1916 and 1919 offered the first archaeological evidence of Nubian kings who ruled over Egypt—besmirched his own findings by insisting that black Africans could not possibly have constructed the monuments he was excavating. He believed that Nubia’s leaders, including Piye, were light-skinned Egypto-Libyans who ruled over the primitive Africans. That their moment of greatness was so fleeting, he suggested, must be a consequence of the same leaders intermarrying with the “negroid elements.”

For decades, many historians flip-flopped: Either the Kushite pharaohs were actually “white,” or they were bumblers, their civilization a derivative offshoot of true Egyptian culture. In their 1942 history, When Egypt Ruled the East, highly regarded Egyptologists Keith Seele and George Steindorff summarized the Nubian pharaonic dynasty and Piye’s triumphs in all of three sentences—the last one reading: “But his dominion was not for long.”

The neglect of Nubian history reflected not only the bigoted worldview of the times, but also a cult-like fascination with Egypt’s achievements—and a complete ignorance of Africa’s past. “The first time I came to Sudan,” recalls Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet, “people said: ‘You’re mad! There’s no history there! It’s all in
Egypt!’ ”

That was a mere 44 years ago. Artifacts uncovered during the archaeological salvage campaigns as the waters rose at Aswan in the 1960s began changing that view. In 2003, Charles Bonnet’s decades of digging near the Nile’s Third Cataract at the abandoned settlement of Kerma gained international recognition with the discovery of seven large stone statues of Nubian pharaohs. Well before then, however, Bonnet’s labors had revealed an older, densely occupied urban center that commanded rich fields and extensive herds, and had long profited from trade in gold, ebony, and ivory. “It was a kingdom completely free of Egypt and original, with its own construction and burial customs,” Bonnet says. This powerful dynasty rose just as Egypt’s Middle Kingdom declined around 1785 B.C. By 1500 B.C. the Nubian empire stretched between the Second and Fifth Cataracts.

Revisiting that golden age in the African desert does little to advance the case of Afrocentric Egyptologists, who argue that all ancient Egyptians, from King Tut to Cleopatra, were black Africans. Nonetheless, the saga of the Nubians proves that a civilization from deep in Africa not only thrived but briefly dominated in ancient times, intermingling and sometimes intermarrying with their Egyptian neighbors to the north. (King Tut’s own grandmother, the 18th-dynasty Queen Tiye, is claimed by some to be of Nubian heritage.)

The Egyptians didn’t like having such a powerful neighbor to the south, especially since they depended on Nubia’s gold mines to bankroll their dominance of western Asia. So the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty (1539-1292 B.C.) sent armies to conquer Nubia and built garrisons along the Nile. They installed Nubian chiefs as administrators and schooled the children of favored Nubians at Thebes. Subjugated, the elite Nubians began to embrace the cultural and spiritual customs of Egypt—venerating Egyptian gods, particularly Amun, using the Egyptian language, adopting Egyptian burial styles and, later, pyramid building. The Nubians were arguably the first people to be struck by “Egyptomania.”

Egyptologists of the latter 19th and early 20th centuries would interpret this as a sign of weakness. But they had it wrong: The Nubians had a gift for reading the geopolitical tea leaves. By the eighth century B.C., Egypt was riven by factions, the north ruled by Libyan chiefs who put on the trappings of pharaonic traditions to gain legitimacy. Once firmly in power, they toned down the theocratic devotion to Amun, and the priests at Karnak feared a godless outcome. Who was in a position to return Egypt to its former state of might and sanctity?

The Egyptian priests looked south and found their answer—a people who, without setting foot inside Egypt, had preserved Egypt’s spiritual traditions. As archaeologist Timothy Kendall of Northeastern University puts it, the Nubians “had become more Catholic than the pope.”

Under Nubian rule, Egypt became Egypt again. When Piye died in 715 B.C., his brother Shabaka solidified the 25th dynasty by taking up residence in the Egyptian capital of Memphis. Like his brother, Shabaka wed himself to the old pharaonic ways, adopting the throne name of the 6th-dynasty ruler Pepi II, just as Piye had claimed the old throne name of Thutmose III. Rather than execute his foes, Shabaka put them to work building dikes to seal off Egyptian villages from Nile floods.

Shabaka lavished Thebes and the Temple of Luxor with building projects. At Karnak he erected a pink granite statue depicting himself wearing the Kushite crown of the double uraeus—the two cobras signifying his legitimacy as Lord of the Two Lands. Through architecture as well as military might, Shabaka signaled to Egypt that the Nubians were here to stay.

To the east, the Assyrians were fast building their own empire. In 701 B.C., when they marched into Judah in present-day Israel, the Nubians decided to act. At the city of Eltekeh, the two armies met. And although the Assyrian emperor, Sennacherib, would brag lustily that he “inflicted defeat upon them,” a young Nubian prince, perhaps 20, son of the great pharaoh Piye, managed to survive. That the Assyrians, whose tastes ran to wholesale slaughter, failed to kill the prince suggests their victory was anything but total.

In any event, when the Assyrians left town and massed against the gates of Jerusalem, that city’s embattled leader, Hezekiah, hoped his Egyptian allies would come to the rescue. The Assyrians issued a taunting reply, immortalized in the Old Testament’s Book of II Kings: “Thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed [of] Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.”

Then, according to the Scriptures and other accounts, a miracle occurred: The Assyrian army retreated. Were they struck by a plague? Or, as Henry Aubin’s provocative book, The Rescue of Jerusalem, suggests, was it actually the alarming news that the aforementioned Nubian prince was advancing on Jerusalem? All we know for sure is that Sennacherib abandoned the siege and galloped back in disgrace to his kingdom, where he was murdered 18 years later, apparently by his own sons.

The deliverance of Jerusalem is not just another of ancient history’s sidelights, Aubin asserts, but one of its pivotal events. It allowed Hebrew society and Judaism to strengthen for another crucial century—by which time the Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar could banish the Hebrew people but not obliterate them or their faith. From Judaism, of course, would spring Christianity and Islam. Jerusalem would come to be recast, in all three major monotheistic religions, as a city of a godly significance.

It has been easy to overlook, amid these towering historical events, the dark-skinned figure at the edge of the landscape—the survivor of Eltekeh, the hard-charging prince later referred to by the Assyrians as “the one accursed by all the great gods”: Piye’s son Taharqa.

So sweeping was Taharqa’s influence on Egypt that even his enemies could not eradicate his imprint. During his rule, to travel down the Nile from Napata to Thebes was to navigate a panorama of architectural wonderment. All over Egypt, he built monuments with busts, statues, and cartouches bearing his image or name, many of which now sit in museums around the world. He is depicted as a supplicant to gods, or in the protective presence of the ram deity Amun, or as a sphinx himself, or in a warrior’s posture. Most statues were defaced by his rivals. His nose is often broken off, to foreclose him returning from the dead. Shattered as well is the uraeus on his forehead, to repudiate his claim as Lord of the Two Lands. But in each remaining image, the serene self-certainty in his eyes remains for all to see.

His father, Piye, had returned the true pharaonic customs to Egypt. His uncle Shabaka had established a Nubian presence in Memphis and Thebes. But their ambitions paled before those of the 31-year-old military commander who received the crown in Memphis in 690 B.C. and presided over the combined empires of Egypt and Nubia for the next 26 years.

Taharqa had ascended at a favorable moment for the 25th dynasty. The delta warlords had been laid low. The Assyrians, after failing to best him at Jerusalem, wanted no part of the Nubian ruler. Egypt was his and his alone. The gods granted him prosperity to go with the peace. During his sixth year on the throne, the Nile swelled from rains, inundating the valleys and yielding a spectacular harvest of grain without sweeping away any villages. As Taharqa would record in four separate stelae, the high waters even exterminated all rats and snakes. Clearly the revered Amun was smiling on his chosen one.

Taharqa did not intend to sit on his profits. He believed in spending his political capital. Thus he launched the most audacious building campaign of any pharaoh since the New Kingdom (around 1500 B.C.), when Egypt had been in a period of expansion. Inevitably the two holy capitals of Thebes and Napata received the bulk of Taharqa’s attention. Standing today amid the hallowed clutter of the Karnak temple complex near Thebes is a lone 62-foot-high column. That pillar had been one of ten, forming a gigantic kiosk that the Nubian pharaoh added to the Temple of Amun. He also constructed a number of chapels around the temple and erected massive statues of himself and of his beloved mother, Abar. Without defacing a single preexisting monument, Taharqa made Thebes his.

He did the same hundreds of miles upriver, in the Nubian city of Napata. Its holy mountain Jebel Barkal—known for its striking rock-face pinnacle that calls to mind a phallic symbol of fertility—had captivated even the Egyptian pharaohs of the New Kingdom, who believed the site to be the birthplace of Amun. Seeking to present himself as heir to the New Kingdom pharaohs, Taharqa erected two temples, set into the base of the mountain, honoring the goddess consorts of Amun. On Jebel Barkal’s pinnacle—partially covered in gold leaf to bedazzle wayfarers—the black pharaoh ordered his name inscribed.

Around the 15th year of his rule, amid the grandiosity of his empire-building, a touch of hubris was perhaps overtaking the Nubian ruler. “Taharqa had a very strong army and was one of the main international powers of this period,” says Charles Bonnet. “I think he thought he was the king of the world. He became a bit of a megalomaniac.”

The timber merchants along the coast of Lebanon had been feeding Taharqa’s architectural appetite with a steady supply of juniper and cedar. When the Assyrian king Esarhaddon sought to clamp down on this trade artery, Taharqa sent troops to the southern Levant to support a revolt against the Assyrian. Esarhaddon quashed the move and retaliated by crossing into Egypt in 674 B.C. But Taharqa’s army beat back its foes.

The victory clearly went to the Nubian’s head. Rebel states along the Mediterranean shared his giddiness and entered into an alliance against Esarhaddon. In 671 B.C. the Assyrians marched with their camels into the Sinai desert to quell the rebellion. Success was instant; now it was Esarhaddon who brimmed with bloodlust. He directed his troops toward the Nile Delta.

Taharqa and his army squared off against the Assyrians. For 15 days they fought pitched battles—“very bloody,” by Esarhaddon’s grudging admission. But the Nubians were pushed back all the way to Memphis. Wounded five times, Taharqa escaped with his life and abandoned Memphis. In typical Assyrian fashion, Esarhaddon slaughtered the villagers and “erected piles of their heads.” Then, as the Assyrian would later write, “His queen, his harem, Ushankhuru his heir, and the rest of his sons and daughters, his property and his goods, his horses, his cattle, his sheep, in countless numbers, I carried off to Assyria. The root of Kush I tore up out of Egypt.” To commemorate Taharqa’s humiliation, Esarhaddon commissioned a stela showing Taharqa’s son, Ushankhuru, kneeling before the Assyrian with a rope tied around his neck.

As it happened, Taharqa outlasted the victor. In 669 B.C. Esarhaddon died en route to Egypt, after learning that the Nubian had managed to retake Memphis. Under a new king, the Assyrians once again assaulted the city, this time with an army swollen with captured rebel troops. Taharqa stood no chance. He fled south to Napata and never saw Egypt again.

A measure of Taharqa’s status in Nubia is that he remained in power after being routed twice from Memphis. How he spent his final years is a mystery—with the exception of one final innovative act. Like his father, Piye, Taharqa chose to be buried in a pyramid. But he eschewed the royal cemetery at El Kurru, where all previous Kushite pharaohs had been laid to rest. Instead, he chose a site at Nuri, on the opposite bank of the Nile. Perhaps, as archaeologist Timothy Kendall has theorized, Taharqa selected the location because, from the vista of Jebel Barkal, his pyramid precisely aligns with the sunrise on ancient Egypt’s New Year’s Day, linking him in perpetuity with the Egypt

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

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44, Männlich

7 Habits you need to Be Highly Efficient

von Justice am 01.03.2014 09:06

1) Be proactive - We always have the freedom to choose our reactions to stimuli, even if everything else is taken away. With that ability also comes the knowledge we do not have to live by the scripts that family or society has given us. Instead of 'being lived', we accept full responsibility for our life the way conscience tells us it was meant to be lived. We are no longer a reactive machine but a proactive person.

2) Begin with the end in mind - What do I want people to say about me at my funeral? By writing our own eulogy or creating a personal mission statement, we create the ultimate objective or person first, and work backward from there. We have a self-guidance system that gives the wisdom to choose rightly, so that whatever we do today is in line with the image created of ourselves at the end.

3) Put first things first - Habit 3 puts into daily action the far-sightedness of habit 2. Having that ultimate picture in our mind, we can plan our days for maximum effectiveness and enjoyment. Our time is spent with the people and the things that really matter.

4) Think Win/Win - One person's success doesn't need to be achieved at the expense of the success of others. In seeking Win/Win, we never endanger our own principles; the result is a better relationship - 'not your way or my way, a better way' - created by truly seeing from the other person's perspective.

5) Seek to understand, then to be understood - Without empathy, there is no influence. Without deposits in the emotional bank account of relationships, there is no trust. Genuine listening gives precious psychological air to the other person, and opens a window onto their soul.

6) Synergize - Synergy results from the exercise of all the other habits. It brings forth 'third alternatives' or perfect outcomes which cannot be predicted from adding up the sum of the parts.

7) Sharpen the saw - We need to balance the physical, spiritual, mental and social dimensions of life. 'Sharpening the saw' to increase productivity involves taking the time for regular renewal of ourselves in these areas

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

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44, Männlich

Re: 5 Laws Against slaves in 1681- 1683

von Justice am 25.02.2014 06:13

Today we still have some similar conditions like this for Africans
Sanctions, Invasions and Aids all in the neo colonialism era and spirit of inequality

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

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36, Männlich

BRONZE