Decolonizing the Curriculum: Who Were the Ancient Europeans?

Introduction

“. . .from an Afrocentric perspective where knowledge can never be produced for the sake of it but always for the sake of our liberation, a ² paradigm must activate our consciousness to be of any use to us” (Mazama, 2003, p. 8, original emphasis).

In the quest for truth telling and the accurate teaching of historical concepts, British geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer (2004) provides an everyday scenario to assist our conceptual understandings of how we are all connected:

“Imagine an airline check-in queue in Chicago or London. Seven people stand there, looking in different directions. One is a solicitor of Afro-Caribbean origin, another a blonde-haired girl whose family come from northern Europe, another a computer expert who was born in India. The fourth, is a Chinese teenager, listening to music on a Walkman. The fifth, sixth, and seventh are all attending a conference on rock art and come respectively from Australia, New Guinea, and South America. All seven are quiet and avoid eye contact because they neither know one another nor feel related in any way. Yet it can be proved that all are related and ultimately all have an African female and male ancestor” (p.xvii, emphasis added). Similarly, the Italian geneticist Cavalli-Sforza (1993) studied human genetics to assist our deeper understandings of human migrations and settlements around the world. In utilizing and synthesizing diverse disciplines such as archeology, linguistics, anthropology and statistics, Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) created the field of genetic geography: “to explain how human populations fanned out over the earth from their original home in Africa” (Grady, 2018, p. 1). Arguably, his most impressive piece of work is a 1,000-page book titled: The History and Geography of Human Genes (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994) in which he states: “The white skin of Northern Europeans evolved in the last 5,000 years” (p. 145). Therefore, is this the reason why the acronym BC (Before Christ) has been adopted and used in the school curriculum uncritically, accepted, and unchallenged as a premature timeline? When, in fact, it can be proven etymologically that the word is placed in a false epistemology when it is used in that Eurocentric distorted construct of “Before Christ” or BC.

BC Equates to Before Colonization

This Later European ³ (LE) socially engineered paradigm limits the time period of the word “Christ” to being 2,000 years old. “The word Christ is over 10,000 years old and is derived from the Egyptian KRST (Karast) and the Sanskrit Khrisna”—“The Great Black” (Bey, 2018, p. 78); “Kamite Karast means anointed mummy and Osirus-Krst was the original Krst, lord of the Perfect Black, the Great Black” (Suzar, 1999, p. 125). If the school curriculum began from this foundation (which it currently does not), then teachers, parents, and above all our children, would understand the role of science, genetics, and geography as it relates to the connectedness of the human family. The text books used for the curricular content taught in the majority of schools are conspicuously lacking in this regard, majoring on a pedagogical model which separates and fragments subject domains. Interestingly, the word “curriculum” is based on a Latin word that means “a race” (as in running) or the “course of a race” (Dove, 2021, p. 53). This disconnected silos mode of teaching isolates bodies of knowledge which in their ancient form and tradition were taught holistically. For example: “In Kemet, rose the focus on Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic as moral disciplines centered in Truth. Mathematics, Geometry, and Astronomy dealt with the knowledge of the destiny of humanity in individuals and societies. Music was viewed as the living practice of philosophy, the route to harmony with the Divinity-the unseen. These seven disciplines were the basis of the Seven Liberal Arts, the foundation of western higher education” (Dove, 2021, p. 11). In a decolonizing curriculum, our children would also understand and appreciate the correct meaning and lineage of “Ancient European” (AE) and to whom that should be applied. Therefore, it is reasonable to state that our sense of chronology and sequencing of events (as, e.g., presented in the school curriculum) has been manipulated to fit into a construct of what came first “the chicken or the egg?” Cavalli-Sforza (1993) argues for the chicken and the egg, that is, “Evidence of genetics suggests that our African ancestors are older than dates confirmed by archaeology” (pp. 104, 105). Hilliard (1995) states: “the migrations scattered Africans all over the world to develop new human societies” (p. 2), and it is in Europe that “the first “Homo sapiens sapiens, as we have already seen the migratory Negroid who was responsible for the Aurignacian industry” (Diop, 1991, p. 40; Winters, 2017, 2021) ⁴ . However, historians such as de Gobineau, (1853); Trevor-Roper (1963/1965), and Weale (1910) propagated strongly racist untruths to advance the primacy of “white” settlement in Europe. In 1853 French aristocrat and novelist Arthur de Gobineau successfully propelled the pseudo-scientific racist theory of the “Aryan master race” in his essay on The Inequality of the Human Races. In a chapter titled: The Superiority of the White Type, he claimed: “The negroid variety is the lowest and stands at the foot of the ladder. . .on the other hand, the immense superiority of the white peoples in the whole field of the intellect is balanced by an inferiority in the intensity of their sensations” (translated by Collins, 1915, pp. 205–207). Whilst the authors recognize the immense damage Gobineau caused with his philosophy and his influence on Nazism and polycentrism, it is also noted that through his use of placing “the negro stand[ing] at the foot of the ladder,” he actually positions Global Majority People ⁵ quite correctly as the trunk of the phylogenetic tree. Was that his original intention? Of course not, but because of the sheer abundance of supporting scientific, genetic, and archeological evidence, that is precisely what Gobineau inadvertently does. In a decolonizing curriculum, in a continuous process, students would be exposed to this information to enable the development of real dialogue and rigorous critical thinking.

In a similar vein, the British writer named Bertram Lenox Simpson (alias Putnam Weale) wrote in his (1910) book: The Conflict of Colour: The Threatened Upheaval of the World: “The black man has given nothing to the world. He has never made a nation - he belongs to nothing. . .he has no architecture of his own, no art, no history. . .” (p. 232). However, Weale’s (1910) statement is an unsubstantiated subjective viewpoint based on a total absence of evidence. On discovering that he lived in China for several decades, one could question his colonial involvement and his political motivations. In a conference presentation by the British Inter-university China Center, Jacqueline Young (2011) discussed “the contradiction between Simpson’s literary awareness of the irrelevance of expatriates in China—a role which she labels as “ghostly onlookers”—and the writer’s own interference in China’s affairs” (p. 23). Young’s (2011) “ghostly onlookers” present the face of Eurocentricity not as passive bystanders, as she suggests in their roles, but as disrupters and imperialists of colonial rule. Indeed, as late as 1963/1965 British historian and Regius Professor of Modern History, Hugh Trevor-Roper at Oxford University, stated in a series of lectures given at the University of Sussex that: “Undergraduates demand that they should be taught the history of black Africa. . . Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none, or very little. There is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. . .It is European techniques, European examples, European ideas which have shaken the non-European world out of its past- out of barbarism in Africa. . . I do not think we need to make any apology if our study of history is Eurocentric.” To include this statement may seem irrelevant and suggestive of a paradigm that no longer exists in current teaching and learning spaces. Perhaps it does not exist so overtly, but the dominant position of the subject European Studies still perpetuates the curriculum. Why should the teaching of history on the origin of humanity begin outside of Africa?

Hugh Trevor-Roper has been included here to enable a deeper analysis of the preservation of “British” values. To be given the title “Regius Professor” is only by royal patronage or appointment and is a unique feature of academia in the United Kingdom and Ireland. “King James IV (fourth) founded the first Regius Professorship at the University of Aberdeen in 1497 in the field of medicine” (University of Aberdeen, 2019, p. 1). However, the university of Aberdeen fails to acknowledge that James IV was Melanated ⁶ . In his book titled: The Negro Rulers of Scotland and the British Isles, J. Johnson (2017) wrote: “The Negro-Moorish Catholic Scottish King James IV Stewart was the elder son of James III. James IV was a brilliant king who spoke Latin, French, German, Flemish, and Spanish. He won many battles before suffering a disastrous defeat at Flodden Field. James IV was the last king of Scotland to be killed in battle” (p. 59).

The name “Stewart” has its etymological roots in the Old English word “sweart” which means black or dark; this derives from Proto-Germanic “swarta”; Old Frisian, Old Saxon, and Middle Dutch “swart,” Dutch “zwart” Old Norse “svartr.” German “schwartz,” Gothic “swarts” meaning dark colored—black from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root “swordo” which means dark, black (source of sordid). The true Germanic word surviving in the Continental languages but displaced in English by black of skin color of person from late 14th century—related to “swarthy”—“swartest” (Harper, 2001, p. 1). Furthermore, “the black Europeans that fought to restore the black Stewart Kings to the throne of Britain, Scotland, and Ireland were called the Jacobites” (Cummins, 2017, p. 238). This raises several questions in regard to the Regius Professor of Modern History, Trevor-Roper, and his royal appointment. Trevor-Roper’s inaccurate denigration and distortion of African History serves to falsely justify the way for a “white-washing” of Europe. The reader will note that his unsubstantiated, and biased opinions are by “royal appointment” and represent the orthodoxy of the establishment, that is, white supremacy. Trevor-Roper was also made a life peer in 1979 on the recommendation of the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and became Baron Dacre of Glanton (Wikipedia, 2020, p. 10). Trevor-Roper remains through the legacy of his writing, still a representative of the system’s maintenance of a false history of Primordial cultures as First Nation People (FNP) or Foundational Black Britons (FBB) by a Regius Professor (Dass, 2018). Is it reasonable to suggest that Britain’s historians (some of whom remain sacrosanct and reputationally intact) including Trevor-Roper, established and maintained the enduring prioritization of Eurocentric history teaching (to the exclusion of any other model or conceptualization) in this country’s education system? It seems clear that to decolonize the curriculum and to challenge the true origin, for example, of the title Regius Professor as one created by the Black James IV, could open up a contentious, possibly calamitous, “can of worms.” This explains why the lid has been, and must continue to be, kept on and tightly secured at all costs because the true history of Black Britain would inevitably be revealed (Figure 1).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

James IV, the last king of Scotland.

Black Matter Lives? ⁷

In 2020 the national and international outcry at the murder of George Floyd in the United States by a “white” police officer sparked mass demonstrations across the globe and signaled the prospect of change on the horizon. But, after almost 4 weeks of mass protest during May and June (of that year), two fundamental first layer questions emerge: Did this produce any legislative action on (reconceptualizing and then) decolonizing the curriculum? Was there any substantive systemic change in the miseducation of our children? The answer to both is an emphatic “no,” as the outcry produced only symbolic emotional gestures, such as the tearing down of statues in both the USA and UK and the removal of Black faces from Aunt Jemima pancakes and Uncle Ben’s rice. These are distractions in which U. Johnson (2020) argues “I don’t have a problem with the above but will the taking down of a statue or flag stop the killing of blacks by police? Will the removal of a racist slogan on a food item give blacks equal access to capital in their country? Will this stop black children being psychologically medicated and expelled in schools?” U. Johnson (2020) adds that “priorities, demands and concerns were not expressed or articulated and only when they are identified will the desired potency of political change be effective.”

In 2013, the UK government’s Department For Education (DFE, 2013) stated and defended the fact that the earliest point in its national curriculum history syllabus teaching on a timeline starts from the “Stone Age to the Bronze Age.” In this instance, effective political change in education would clarify the ambiguous appellation: “Stone Age” to a more precise naming and study of the Aurignacian Industry for example. However, if introduced, this would shake and disrupt the very foundation of Later European identities (i.e., who are the ancient Britons?) and the creation of the first settlements. Marimba Ani (2019) perceptively states: “Education is not neutral. . .everything is political, the idea of the “universality” and “objectivity” of an educational process is absurd. The purpose of any educational system and process is to support, maintain and advance the culture in and for which it was created” (in Bomani-Baruti, 2019, pp. 6, 7 emphasis added).

Diop (1991) reminds us that “The migratory Negroid was responsible for the Aurignacian Industry” (p. 40). This Upper Paleolithic industry according to the Ninth International Union of Prehistoric and Proto Historic Sciences (UISPP) Congress in Nice spanned the entire Upper Danube basin of Austria, France, 19 indexed sites such as the famous villages of Willendorf in Austria; Slovakia; Romania; Poland; Moravia; the Balkans in eastern Europe; Belgium and the Near East”. These modern humans “dispersed out of Africa into western Eurasia at least 50,000 calendar years ago B.P” (Nigst et al., 2014, emphasis added, p. 14395). Several reports in 2001, 2002, 2014 issued by the UISPP reveal a startling pattern of omissions in their findings. Several of these reports range from 200 to 380 pages in content with contributions from up to 20 experts in the field. In the UISPP (2002) publication, it almost exclusively discusses the lithic and bone industries with no mention of the human beings responsible. In another of the UISSP publications a tone of resistance, reluctance, and evasion is noted by the author in relation to location and naming in the (2002) UISPP document reporting on: The Chronology of the Aurignacian and the Transitional Technocomplexes. Straus argues:

“The search for “Aurignacian origins” has led prehistorians to investigate the Near East, north and sub-Saharan Africa, central Asia, and even Siberia. . .It is now clear that there were litho-technological and typological developments afoot around 40 kyr BP, from Haua Fteah (Libya) to Boker Tachtit (Israel), to Kara-Bom (Siberia). Flaunting common sense. . .one could seek the origins of the Upper Magdalenian with the barbed osseous harpoons in the MSA of eastern Congo if the associations and 90 kyr BP dates from the Semliki valley are correct” (p. 15).

Straus (2001) begins his statement by placing the term “Aurignacian origins” within inverted quotation marks to signal an uncertainty of location and by implication phenotype; but as the map below demonstrates, the out of Africa dispersals were from African people. Straus’s lack of specificity only leads to obfuscation in the mind of the reader, as to who actually settled these ancient regions some of which Straus actually lists. More pointedly: “Fossil remains show anatomically modern humans dispersed out of Africa into the Near East-100 to 130 ka” (Soares et al., 2012, p. 915; Figure 2).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Map out of Africa migrations.

Straus (2001) then continues to cast doubt on the veracity of the osseous (consisting of or turned into bone) harpoons found in the Congo through his use of the conjunction “if” and his conclusive phrase “flaunting common sense.” All these regions were settled by the Original People—that is, dark-skinned or Melanated human beings (Campbell-Dunn, 2008; Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Hansberry,1981; List, 1999; Poe, 1999; Rashidi, 2015; Soares, et al, 2012). The UISPP experts are associated with the long running historical traditional of anthropology and archeology. This organization meets annually in various countries around the world and states on its own web site that we: “group together all the sciences: paleontology, geology, zoology, botany, environmental, physics, chemistry, geography, numismatics, mathematics and other” (UISPP, 2020, p. 1). However, within this rich multidisciplinary field are they “flouting their own common sense” when UISPP ignores its own heritage and legacy from its starting point in 1865 through to its official foundation in 1931? Have they lost all historical memory of the scientists such as Boule and Vallois (1957), Verneau (1906) who declared a “Negroid” origin of ancient Europe?

Institutions such as mainstream universities, schools, libraries, colleges, and governmental organizations continue to teach a false phenotype of ancient Europe. In 2009, Britain’s leading forensic scientist Richard Neave reconstructed the original face of an ancient European using fossilized fragments of a skull and jawbone discovered in the south-west region of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. How many current classrooms in the United Kingdom teach or are even aware of the research evidence that this is the ancient face of the European Stone Age? We can observe the same perceived dangers of teaching the true history and origin of the title Regius Professor by the Black James IV, would be present in the same way if the true history of the stone age settlers as Black were revealed.

This information within the current debate (2022) has been in the public domain for over 13 years and the UK government and its successive Secretaries of State for Education, across both political parties, have deemed this an unimportant and irrelevant fact. However, it falls into the exclusive paradigm as cited by the Royal Historical Society (2018):

“The taught curriculum for secondary pupils and university undergraduate and postgraduate students fails to fully incorporate the new, diverse histories produced by UK and international researchers” (p. 7, emphasis added).

The continued failure to revise the history and English national curriculum was recently observed in July (2020) by Nick Gibb, the UK government’s School’s Minister. He stated that “there were no plans to hold a review of the syllabus” (Proctor, 2020, p. 1), as a response to 30 cross-party politicians who wrote a letter demanding that Black historians and leaders be asked to offer revisions to what is taught, as well as supplying new topic ideas (Proctor, 2020). Interestingly, the Welsh ⁸ government is currently reviewing how Black history is taught and is planning a new curriculum in September 2022. How many more “reviews” are needed to state the obvious, already laid out and evidenced in copious reports, findings, and evidence? (Charles, 2019; Macpherson of Cluny Sir William, 1999; Swann Report, 1985). Psychologist and historian Amos Wilson (1993) stated that: “Apparently, the re-writing, the destruction and the stealing of our history must serve vital economic, political, and social functions for the [later] European, or else he/she would not bother and try so hard to keep our history away from us, and to distort it in our minds” (p. 15 emphasis added). The reconstructed face (Figure 3) of the first European by Neave (2009, in Derbyshire) is a positive move in the right direction, particularly, as set against an education culture which is framed within a “white” elitist socio-political climate. However, according to the comprehensively researched and well evidenced historical site: realhistoryww.com: the bones were carbon-dated to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago and erroneously declared to be the first European—Grimaldi is the first European. Realhistoryww.com reveal:

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 3.

Ancient European face photo credit.

“One of the first evidences of this historic journey of Grimaldi was found at the caverns of Grimaldi (Baousse-Rousse) between Menton and Ventimiglia on the Italian side of the international boundary. These caverns form one of the most compact groups of paleolithic caverns in all of Europe. Counting two small rock-shelters, the group includes nine stations, the most being the Grotte des Enfants, La Barma Grande, Grotte du Cavillion, and the Grotte du Prince. General attention was first called to this region many years ago by Dr Paul Riviere’s discovery of a human skeleton in the Grotte du Cavillon, the so-called homme de Menton, now in the Natural History Museum, Paris. Here, Riviere demonstrated the presence of deliberate burials and ornamented clothing in 1872. Later, five skeletons in all were found at La Barma Grande, and two children in the Grotte des Enfants, hence its name. Interest in archeology and ownership of one of the caverns (Grotte du Prince) led the Prince of Monaco, Prince Albert I Grimaldi (1848–1922) to provide for a systematic exploration of the caverns: therefore, the fossils became known as “Grimaldi” in his honor. Fossil remains of these ancient Africans have also been found in France, Switzerland, Central Europe, Bulgaria, Britain, Russia, and Siberia” The African Khoisan nature of the fossils was first documented by Boule & Vallois in their book: Fossil Men: A Textbook on Human Palaeontology (1957).

Professor Boule and Vallois (1957) described the “Negroid” of great antiquity: “The first is that of an old woman, the second that of a young man of 15 to 17 years of age. They lay side by side, their bodies drawn up and their lower limbs bent. Also found were the remains of a headdress, bracelets of shell work, and bones coloured red. . .here we have one of the chief reasons for regarding these fossils as Negroid. The Negroid affinities are likewise indicated by the characteristics of the skull. These are large; the crania are very elongated, hyper-dolichocephalic” (p. 285, emphasis added). It is important to note the significance of the “bones colored red” as this signifies several important observations. This cultural burial ritual is deep with ancient meaning and relevance as Hodgskiss (2015) states: “The use of red ochre dates to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Middle Paleolithic, the earliest evidence of its use in Africa dates: 285,000 years” (p. 1). Similarly, “Red ochre symbolizes life blood and life essence: “blood of earth” or menstrual blood. It has been used in Africa as a ritual substance relating to birth, death, and other luminal states” (Graham, 2013, p. 32; Figure 4).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 4.

Grimaldi skeletons.

The Grimaldi skeletons (above) provide anthropological and archeological evidence that the first settlers in Europe were Black (Olalde et al, 2018; Winters, 2010). The Khoisan migrations and later successive Black settlements present a coherent and historical teaching narrative, which is being denied its proper curriculum place.

Further linking with cultural continuity, the skeleton found in Goat’s Hole, Paviland, on the Gower peninsula in Wales, was stained with red ochre and decorated with “seashell necklaces that were identical to the 75,000 years-old shells discovered at the Blombos site in South Africa” (The Bradshaw Foundation, 2017, p. 1) . The Paviland skeleton is dated to 33,000 years old. Here, we note the cultural continuity of both the Grimaldi skeletons and the Paviland, as they were ritually prepared and returned to earth as in the cycle of life (Charles & Boyle, 2020, p. 96). Professor Breuil in 1912 dated the “Red Lady” (Paviland male skeleton) to the Aurignacian period (43,000–37,000 years) and reported on the Aurignacian painting found in Bacon’s Hole, west of the Mumbles, on the coast of Gower. “On entering one of the investigators cried “Les voila!” and the other “there they are!” On the right-hand wall, at about the level of the eyes, may be seen, not a picture. . .but a number (ten) of horizontal bands, a vivid red, arranged in a vertical series about one yard in height. Similar bands such as these, have been described from the walls of Font de Gaume in Dorgone” in Bahn and Pettitt (2009, p. 2). However, there is some controversy surrounding the origin of the red vertical bands that were found in the Paviland cave in Wales, and it is suggested that they are naturally occurring oxidized mineral formations. In 2010, several rock carvings were discovered in this famous Welsh cave and dated to the Pleistocene Age. One of the carvings is a cervid (a mammal of the deer family) and has been interpreted by The Bradshaw Foundation (2010) as a small reindeer (Figure 5).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

Paviland ivory pendant, 33,000 years old.

One final, but very important observation, in relation to the Paviland skeleton is that of a tiny ivory pendant found near the body. Upon closer analysis of the object, it reveals a startling element of measurement and numerical accuracy. The width of the pendant is 41 mm (1.6141″) and the length is 87 mm (3.4252″; Aldhouse-Green, 2000, p. 117). Why the need for such accuracy? “The Ivory pendant is egg-shaped, partly polished, and with a biconical perforation at its narrower end” (Jacobi & Higham, 2008, p. 901). To answer the question above about accuracy, the pendant must be placed in its correct cultural context as it relates to geometry, mathematics, and science in ancient Kemet. Richard Bruce Wallace (2012, Aka Ptah Skr Asar) observes: “The Cosmic Egg is a geometrically shaped anomaly in which the very ancient Egyptians envisioned the great mystery. It is a story that involves “the everything of matter” (p. xiii). In 1885, Heinrich Karl Brugsch, a German Egyptologist stated: “The primeval spirit (Urgiest) felt the desire for creative activity and that his words awoke the world to life in a form in which it had been mirrored in his mind. And that the first act of creation began with the formation out of the primeval watery mass of an Egg” (Wallace, 2012, p. xv; Figure 6).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 6.

Wallace’s front cover shows NASA-Universe as cosmic egg.

The front cover of Wallace’s (2012) book explains the image: “This map of the universe was produced with data from a NASA satellite. Patchy areas top and bottom represent ripples of wispy matter left over from the “big bang” (p. xii). In 1965 two researchers with Bell Telephone Laboratories, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered whilst creating a radio receiver, a strange noise that it was picking up. They soon discovered that “the noise came uniformly from all over the sky. In parallel, a team from Princeton University were researching Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and realized that the CMB had been found” (Howell, 2018, p. 3). We also find the Kemetic (Egyptian) image of Ptah (energy, animating Cosmic spirit), moulding the Cosmic egg on the potter’s wheel; Barashango (1998) notes that Ptah is the “spark” that activates the female egg. If the universe is egg-shaped as denoted by the leading government agency for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) then why is it that the traditional spherical shapes of the earth and the sun dominate our psyches? The ancient Kemites preserved the names of their Nesut Bity (rulers) in an oval shaped shen, often misnomered as a cartouche. Each shen was traditionally inscribed with each ruler’s six names as he or she was returned to the ancestors (Figure 7).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 7.

Ptah moulding cosmic egg.

The Geo-Spatial Origin of Geometric Truths

The signification of life and its unending, cyclical processes “involved the Cosmic Egg, also known as the Primeval Germ. It existed then, now, and always. They [Kemites] believed it to be the source of all things that are found in the universe” (Wallace, 2012, p. 1). On returning to the Paviland pendant, the reader observes an obvious visual similarity to the universe with its oval/egg shape and a cultural relationship to the ancient Egyptians. Remarkably, the pendant upon closer analysis reveals the mapping of sacred triangles. These were respected and treated with the highest honor by the Kemites. As observed by Plutarch, the Greco-Roman essayist (AD 46–AD 120), “The Egyptians appeared to have figured out the world in the form of the most beautiful triangles. . .” in Walker (2016, p. 14; Figure 8).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 8.

Paviland pendant showing mapped out triangles by author.

The precise mathematical creation and shaping of this ancient Welsh art-fact was a conscious deliberate act of high science, culture, and spiritual tradition by an ancestor. Molefi Asante (1998) argues that a new historiography of experience must take place to restore our agency; in so doing, our epistemological lens of Afrocentricity ⁹ restores our first sight consciousness (Du Bois, 1902/1965). In this process of restoration, our worldview is inevitably changed as observed by Mazama (2003) as a paradigm shift, so that knowledge is not just produced for the sake of it but must activate our consciousness to be any use to us” (p. 8). This decolonizing knowledge provides a deep psychological re-positioning of self both within and toward the world. The exquisite mapping of triangles across the oval egg-shaped pendant was found next to the Paviland skeleton, which was placed in a triangular open cave, bathed in red ochre, and draped with African shell beads as a symbolic return to the primeval cosmic beginning. The founder of Indigenous Land-centered education, Styres (2019) focuses on the importance of “literacies of Land (capital L) which are rooted in and informed by understandings of Land and self-in-relationship that open opportunities for decolonizing frameworks and praxis that critically trouble and disrupt colonial myths” (p. 24). In short, to decolonize is to seize this opportune time, to reclaim our material culture and our-story as ancient Europeans based on historical evidence as opposed to his-story based on reconstructions. The figures in this paper reveal and unfold examples of the African migrations and spiritual traditions held by the original people as they settled their lands. A decolonized curriculum would inevitably empower our Black children, students, and communities through the reclamation of self and culture (Figure 9).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 9.

Triangles and tangents mapped out on egg.

In his paper titled: A Euclidian Approach to Egg and Polycentric Curves, Mazzotti (2014) attributes the study of geometry, specifically, arcs and spherical measurements and architecture to the Greeks. However, linguist, mathematician, and historian Theophile Obenga (2002) states through primary sources: “The science of geometry was invented in Egypt. This fact is recorded in Eudemus’s History of Geometry and Mathematics. There were no methods of intellectual inquiry such as geometry in Greece. . .” (p. 168). Furthermore, Finch (1997) in response to the book “Not Out of Africa” by Lefkowitz (1997) argued:

“The number of Greeks who lived and learned in Egypt reads like a “Who’s Who” of Greek philosophy, Solon, Thales. Pythagoras, Eudoxus, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Plato, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Herophilus, Galen and others too numerous to mention pursued their higher studies in the Nile valley. The Greeks themselves recorded them” (p. 3). Zulu (2012) contends that the Greeks were the most populous international students: “Referred to by the priests of Sais as “the children of the Mysteries” (James, 1954, pp. 39, 40). Plato, Thales, and Pythagoras, who according to Plutarch “greatly admired the Egyptian priests” and used their “symbolism and occult teachings to incorporate. . .them in their doctrines” (Babbitt, 1969, p. 161). Finally, Diop (1991) asks the reader/researcher a rhetorical question:

“Can one establish a mathematical formula, even through empirical means, without having invented beforehand a mathematical logic? Yet, the Egyptians were the sole inventors of elementary geometry” (p. 327). Even when there is the concrete observable evidence available to demonstrate where the ancients incorporated the ovum/elliptical egg in their architecture, writers such as Mazzotti (2014) continue the legacy of Eurocentrism.

Additionally, we note that the landscape of the ancient British Isles was geometrically mapped utilizing the cosmic egg. Professor Alexander Thom was a Scottish Engineer of Science who studied the megalithic stone circles of ancient Britain, he discovered the cosmic egg in one of the stone circles of the ancient county of Roxburghshire in Scotland. Professor Thom did not attribute this geometry to Foundational Black Britons ¹⁰ (FBB) or aboriginal/indigenous settlers of melanation (Figure 10).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 10.

Ancient stones circle found in Scotland, mapped out in egg-shape.

The evidence presented here, strongly supports a consanguinity of concepts, that is, a blood line of continued ideas across the globe. The cosmic egg is observed encased within a series of sacred triangles conveying a deep spiritual reverence to the cosmos. These egg- shaped stone structures according to Ivimy (1976) total to 10 around the British Isles. Interestingly, it is also noted that the Albermeno stone “Goddess,” in Forfar, Angus (see Authors, 2020, p. 108), is geometrically replete with intersecting triangles and is approximately 125 miles from Roxburghshire in traveling distance. Is it coincidental that these geometrical commonalities and consistencies repeatedly appear across the landscape? To find the answer to this curious and self-evident question, we must first travel to the location of origin in ancient Africa, and in the tomb of Ramses VI Kemet (Egypt). The French archeologist Daressy (1907) “attributed an elliptical form to a drawing of the profile of an arch corresponding to the vaults of one of the tombs of Ramses VI” in Huerta (2007, p. 215). The oval dome (from Latin Ovum = egg) was used throughout Kemet as a symbol of birth, death, and rebirth in the cycle of life and it is very significant that the Paviland pendant was found next to the skeleton in a cave whose entrance is V shaped. Here, the strong symbolism is synergistically tied to the return to the earth and the cosmos (“as above, so below”; Figures 11 and 12).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 11.

Elliptical ovum shaped tomb of Ramses in ancient Kemet (Egypt).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 12.

Elliptical oval temple in Zimbabwe.

Elliptical interior wall of Great Zimbabwe. Notice the precision of the arc in relation to the small figure standing to the right (Figure 13). Great Zimbabwe, Hall (1905).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 13.

Elliptical great wall of Zimbabwe.

When a series of expressions and terms such as “Oh, I don’t see color,” “Let’s adopt a color-blind approach” and “Stop focusing on color” begin to be inserted systematically and become commonplace into the consciousness and conversation of a public, then bland “multiculturalism” is propagated. This suggests that something more insidious is at work. Valentine (2018) argues that our story has been “bleached” out and it is our job to put the color back into our history. The evidence clearly shows that from the African continent through to Europe and the British Isles exemplified in Wales, the same cultural practices and emblems of the Creator and the Cosmos were held in high esteem and honor. But when your culture, language, history, mores, spirituality, and knowledge of self have been stolen and suppressed, it is inevitable that these evidenced facts will be refuted and then rejected because they are interpreted through a Eurocentric worldview.

Conclusion

The dual intentions of this paper are clearly ambitious but, the authors felt, necessary to put some analysis-based “flesh” on the bones of the “decolonizing education” debate. Our evidenced research, as outlined in the paper, to address the two focal points: firstly, the European (white ¹¹ ) socially engineered paradigm which still dominates global education conceptualization, curriculum content, and teaching and learning models, and secondly, evidence of the natural migrations of Melanated populations out of Africa into Europe, including the United Kingdom; is only the tip of a resource mountain which can be, and should be, mined by those concerned with decolonizing the school curriculum to enable learner-engagement and multimodal access. Until the Eurocentric paradigm, still dominant in global education curriculum content and teaching and learning models, is challenged, and replaced by an Afrocentric model, Black children/students will remain as objects of analysis rather than transformative leaders and innovators for education and society.

The acts of rescuing, restoring, and reclaiming our material culture provide a necessary umbilical cord from the indigenous people of ancient Britain with their cultural kinfolk in Africa and around the globe. This episteme is not only suppressed and hidden but, according to psychologist Nobles (2021): “Colonialism has re-arranged our minds and re-arranged our physical space and time.” Clinical psychologist Bobby Wright (1984) called the effects of this as menticide: “As the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group’s mind with the ultimate objective being the expiration of the group. . .and is a worldwide phenomenon implemented against the entire Black race” (p. 19). Portuguese legal scholar De Sousa Santos (2014) argues: “The historical record of global capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy is full of institutionalized, harmful lies” (p. 8). De Sousa Santos developed Wright’s (1984) menticide concept into his nomenclature: epistemicide which is the murder or “massive destruction of ways of knowing that did not fit the dominant epistemological canon” (p. 239). Nobles (2021) asks a seminal question: “If we have been re-arranged by enslavement and colonization, what was our arrangement before the re-arrangement?” The answer in part, has been addressed in the preceding pages of this paper. Decolonization needs to be understood through the lens of first sight consciousness. This includes the missing episteme of the deep process of continuing to re-map the mental and physical terrain of African consciousness, and Black identities through literacies of Land (Styres, 2019) and the reclamation of our material culture through a change in worldview (Mazama, 2003). This necessary change in worldview can only come about through the “rejection of Eurocentrism [as the] conceptual framework used in the majority of the world which places Europe at the center of human civilization and world history” (Dove, 2021, p. xvi). Therefore, archeologically and anthropologically speaking, how is it that the children are telling the parents how to behave, develop, and think? This we must do for ourselves as a decolonizing tool.