Dr Werner Daum presents ‘Egypt in Africa’

Dr Werner Daum, Germany’s ambassador to (South) Yemen, Albania, Sudan, and Kuwait, has authored or edited more than ten books on the cultural history of Yemen, Sudan, and Ethiopia. He curated several major exhibitions, including “Yemen 3000 Years of History and Civilisation” which attracted 330.000 visitors and was professor at the University of Pavia (where he taught early Islamic history).

Last Monday (6 March 2017), he presented his lecture entitled “Egypt in Africa”. His presentation signified the fact that Ancient Egypt was not born in the Nile Valley, but in the desert. The driver of these developments was climate change, and the ensuing population movements. During the period of the “Green Sahara”, the Nile was a wild, torrential stream, with practically no human settlements. With the aridisation of the Sahara (completed by app. 5300 BCE), some people moved towards the river, others moved southwards, into deeper Africa.

Two of the world’s major language phyla thus emerged in the same region to the West of Northern Sudan and Upper Egypt. It is obvious that their close neighborhood and the shared economic and environmental conditions are reflected in their intellectual environment, especially in how they understood rulership, and in their religion. In Egypt, these elements have undergone considerable development. In the Nilotic world, they have however been preserved in their original form. Anthropological observation of the Dinka (the largest Nilotic tribe) can thus provide us with unique insight into the origins of the intellectual and religious universe that shaped the splendor of ancient Egypt.