"At the end of the ascending passage, 8 inches square, leading from inside the Great Pyramid's 'Queen's Chamber' is a small 'door' with two metal 'handles.' On October 20, 1996, Dr. El Bas and two assistants sent a fiber optic camera lens through a flaw in this door. What was allegedly found was a 2 meter by 1.5 meter chamber inside of which was a statue. The statue seemed to be in the image of a black male, holding an ankh in one hand. On the opposing wall of this chamber was a round shaped passage leading out."²
(Emphasis added)

While citing three reliable sources for this report, Hancock nonetheless cautions that it has not been completely verified. Less restrained is American author and astronomer Richard Hoagland. Speaking on Art Bell's early morning nationwide talk show (KABC radio) on December 20, 1996, Hoagland devoted a considerable amount of time to a discussion of the same report and defended it with confidence. He also noted that, after the information leaked out, one of the sources was immediately fired and subjected to other severe discipline.³

We cite this report because, if true, it is an example, among many, of a revolutionary discovery made in secrecy by a group of specialists who may or may not reveal the total truth about what they have found. Fortunately, because a number of laymen, academicians and scientists have been closely following developments on the Giza plateau for several years, it was difficult for officials to suppress this experiment. Nevertheless, as of this writing no major media have published information on this discovery.

As Afrocentrists we stand in awe wondering how many other statues of Black males, and females for that matter, have been found in Egyptian archaeological sites and then hidden from public view?

This recent discovery serves as a perfect segue into our topic for February, Black History Month: "The 'racial' origin of the Ancient Egyptian people." As we noted in the December issue of MAAT, every major newspaper and magazine in the nation and much of academe have attacked Africentrists as pseudoscientists. Especially scorned have been those scholars who claim that the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans.

Since the overwhelming majority of the critics of Africentrism have engaged in nothing more than shadow boxing (never providing their opponents with an opportunity to respond to their assaults), we think a true debate is long overdue. Therefore this issue of MAAT has been exclusively devoted to a reprinting of an article written by the late Senegalese nuclear physicist, anthropologist, Egyptologist, linguist and historian, Cheikh Anta Diop. Entitled "Origin of The Ancient Egyptians," the article was first published in UNESCO, General History of Africa, vol 2, Ancient Civilizations of Africa. Edited/translated by G. Mokhtar. Copyright (c) 1980 UNESCO.⁴ This article provides a comprehensive summary of the Africentric position on the race of the Ancient Egyptians.

While the MAAT newsletter invites a full spectrum of responses to this subject, we are nevertheless setting two ground rules as fundamental requirements for a serious, civil and objective discussion or debate:

1. It must be recognized that Egypt is and always has been on the continent of Africa. References to this country as a part of the Middle East, Near East, Mediterranean or even the Fertile Crescent, to the exclusion of its location in Africa, is a blatant, racist distortion.
   
2. The color black cannot be defined as white. The only reasonable definition of the Black race is the following provided by Diop: "There are two variants of the black race: (a) straight-haired, represented in Asia by the Dravidians and in Africa by the Nubians and the Tubbou or Tedda, all three with jet- black skins; (b) the kinky-haired blacks of the Equatorial regions."⁵

We flatly reject the specious reasoning of the early Egyptologist J. J. Champollion-Figeac and modern anthropologists, who insist that "[t]he two physical traits of black skin and kinky hair are not enough to stamp a race as negro. . ."⁶ They then proceed to transfer some of the blackest people in the world to the white race, if the blacks in question are the progenitors of an advanced civilization. If black skin is insufficient to qualify one for inclusion in the black race, then, what on earth is!?

The brilliant African American historian W.E.B. DuBois, recognized the contempt that the Western academic establishment has had for Black people and addressed it nearly 60 years ago:

"The Negro has long been the clown of history; the football of anthropology; and the slave of industry. I am trying to show here why these attitudes can no longer be maintained. I realize that the truth of history lies not in the mouths of partisans but rather in the calm Science that sits between. Her cause I seek t serve, and wherever I fail, I am at least paying Truth the respect of earnest effort."⁷

We welcome you to join us as truth seekers.

The feature article in the March issue of MAAT will be "New Discoveries On The Giza Plateau: What are the Implications For Black People?"

*Legrand H. Clegg II is an attorney, historian and producer of the award-winning videotape, "When Black Men Ruled The World: Egypt During The Golden Age."

(To order the videotape, please call 1-800-788-CLEGG)

Footnotes

1. Rudolf Gantenbrink, a German robotics engineer, built a robot to climb the southern shaft of the "Queen's Chamber." Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of The Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1995, p. 321.
2. Graham Hancock, "Newsflash from Giza as of December 1, 1996," http://www.anw.com/hancock/updates.htm.
3. http://www.artbell.com
4. Permission for reprinting the article was granted by the University of California Press.
5. Quoted in "Origin of The Ancient Egyptians," MAAT Newsletter, February, 1977, p. 12.
6. Ibid,p. 18.
7. W.E.B. DuBois, Black Folk: Then and Now, New York [First edition, 1939] Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, Millwood, N,Y. 1975, p. IX.