Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies

UCLA

Peer Reviewed
Title:
The Kushite Origins of Sumer and Elam
Journal Issue:
Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 12(3)
Author:
Rashidi, Runoko
Publication Date:
1983
Permalink:
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6331d10p
Local Identifier:
international_asc_ufahamu_17146
Abstract:
No abstract
Copyright Information:
All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the author or original publisher for any
necessary permissions. eScholarship is not the copyright owner for deposited works. Learn more
at http://www.escholarship.org/help_copyright.html#reuse

eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing

services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic
research platform to scholars worldwide.

THE KUSHITE ORIGINS OF

SU~iER

AND ELAM

By
Runoko Rashidi
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a
mighty one in the earth.
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord:
wherefore i t is said, even as Nimrod the
mighty hunter before the Lord.
And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel .
in the land of Shinar. 1

Ancient Sumer, the biblical land of Shinar, modern lower

Mesopotamia, flourished in the third millenium B.C. covering
the territorial expanse of the Tigris/Euphrates River Valley.
Embracing the shores of the Persian Gulf, Sumer extended north
to Akkad, a distance of about 320 miles, thus constituting
Southern Babylonia. The appellation Chaldea, frequently applied
to the region, appears to have been introduced by the Assyrians
in the ninth century B.c.2 The designations Babylon, Babylonia
and Chaldea have been used extensively, particularly by nineteenth century scholars, in reference to the area now almost
exclusively known as Sumer.
Sumer appears to be the first major high-culture of
western Asia. She bequeathed to her successor states a tradition of great achievement. Her many contributions to civilization are well known. Brilliant agriculturalists, the
Sumerians built very sophisticated canals and reservoirs to
irrigate their fields. They possessed both an advanced legal
system and a well developed knowledge of medicine and were
perhaps the ancient world's greatest astronomers.3
While these salient facts regarding Sumer's obvious
cultural genius are well known, the important question of the
racial composition of its population is generally glossed over.
This apparent cloud concerning race, however, is very thin and
there is a substantial body of evidence in support of the
position that the civilization of Sumer was the product of
Black migrations from Africa's Nile Valley. This is not to
argue that ancient Sumer was exclusively peopled by Blacks or
that the Africans were the only early ethnic entity in the area.
Sumer was at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and
over the millenia there was a great deal of foreign intrusions
and racial intermingling. In respect to Sumerian civilization,
however, the Black contribution was decisive, and far overshadowed
that of the 1ater invaders.
215

The Sumerians called themselves the Black-headed people and

they must have been only one of the many Nilotic Kushite colonies
established in early Asia. In addition to the biblical reference
to Nimrod as a son of Kush, the mighty hunter has been identified
with Osiris of the Nile Valley.4 Diodorus Siculus of Sicily,
in the section of his work devoted to Kush, reported that O~iris
was the leader of the Kushite colony that settled in Egypt.
The distinguished nineteenth century British antiquarian and
Egyptologist, Gerald Massey, concurs with Diodorus adding that,
"In Kam or Kush, the Black race of the Aethiopic centre, was the
primeval parentage. The name was continued by Kam in Egypt, Kush,
Mizraim, Phut and Kanaan represent the four branches in four
different directions; and Nimrod is the typical leader into
Sumeri -Nimrod the son of Kush, of the Black race. "6
The Greeks and Romans called the Kushites "Ethiopians" and
were at least somewhat cognizant of their vast domains. Early
observers, such as Ephorus, expres~ly stated that, "The Ethiop'i ans
occupied all the southern coasts of both Asia and Africa ."7 Homer
describes the Ethiopians as "divided," and dwell in~ at the ends
of the earth, towards the setting and rising sun." Stabo adds
that Greeks ... designated the whole southern countries towards
the ocean ... on the coasts of both Asia and Africa, as Ethiopia ."9
According to John D. Baldwin, author of Pre-Historic Nations,
and one of the .leading exponents of an early diffusion of Ethiopians or Kushites:
It is now admitted that a people of the Cushite or
Ethiopian race, sometimes called Hamites, were the
first civilizers and builders throughout Western Asia,
and they are traced, by the remains of their language,
their architecture, and the influence of their
civilization, on both shores of the Mediterranean,
in eastern Africa and the Nile valley, in Hindustan,
and in the islands of the Indian Seas.lO

In a direct reference to Lower Mesopotamia itself, pioneer

historian Drusilla Dunjee Houston quotes
Diodorus as commenting that, "The Cushite Ethiopians were the
absolute governing class in politics. They commanded the armies
and held the offices of state. From them came the ruling families
of Babylon."ll And most recently, noted Sierra Leone historian,
George 0. Cox, mentions that, "Kush colonized ~esopotamia around
2800 B.C ... . Kushite subjects now settled in Babylonia as overlords of Mesopotamia and introduced there what the world has
since come to know as Babylonian Civilization."l2 It should be
noted that the migration of which Cox writes, was simply a reinforcement by Kushites of earlier Blacks, i.e., Grimaldis and
Austrics, who had entered the region in palaeolithic and neolithic times.l3 It was perhaps these earlier migrations, coupled
African~American

216

with extensive intermingling with non-Black types, which gave

rise to the Semites and other related groups.l4 A survey of the
available Sumerian, and Elamitic, anthropological data seems
strongly supportive of this.
In 1926, and again in 1928, the Field Museum and Oxford
University conducted joint .excavations in northern Sumer. At
the conclusion of their work they pronounced:
The earliest historical crania (bgpercolichocephalic)
are from Jemdet Nasr, 18 miles. northeast of Kish and
those from 'Y' trench at Kish . The forehead is retreating, the browridges ar~ always prominent, and the
cheekbones rather wide. The nose is broad, in some
cases inclining to extreme platyrrhine, although the
face has seldom survived. This is the type described
by Sergi, Giuffrida-Ruggeri and Fleure and named the
"Eurafrican" type. . 15

In an additional publication on the excavations at Kish ,

T.K. Penniman, listed three distinct cranial groups:
First, there is the Eurafrican. . In ancient times,
the type is found in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and mag
be compared with the Combe Capelle skull.l6rt is
possibly identi"cal with men who lived in the high
desert west o the Nile in palaeolithic times, and
is the type seen in the familiar portrait statues of
Ramses II . .. 1 7
secondly, there is the Mediterranean type, whose
variants occur all the way from Java through India and
Mesopotamia, and on both sides of the Mediterranean.
These people are of medium stature, with complexion
and hair like those of the Eurafrican, to which race
they are allied, dark eyes, and oval faces. They have
small ill-filled dolichocephalic skulls, with browridges poorly developed or absent, bulging occiputs,
orbits usually horizontal ellipses, broad noses, r,ather
feeble jaws, and slight sinewy bodies . In ancient times
their distribution was much the same as today .
Thirdly, there is the Armenoid type, whose relatives
are found all over the Eurasiatic plateau and mountains
from the Himalayas, through the Persian highland and
Asia Minor.l8

Although both
reflect the narrow
tion provided does
torical traditions

reports, through their very terminology,

thinking of their day, and ours, the informaallow us the opportunity to verify the hisand eye-witness accounts of the Black presence
217

in ancient Sumer. We can find no. physical difference between

the crania of the "Eurafricans and "Mediterraneans, referred
to in these statements and the crania of the African and Asiatic
Blacks of today. This data, albeit limited, leaves no doubt
as to the racial identity of the region 's early population. Of
the fourteen crania from "Y" trench at Kish which Penniman
examined he described two as brachycephalic, eight dolichocephalic
{Eurafrican), two Armenoid and two mixed. Buxton and Rice
studies 26 crania which, accordi ng to their report, consisted
of 17 Eurafr icans , five Mediterraneans, who are clearly Austr ics ,
and four Armenoids.l9 Incredibly, they conclude, there were no
traces of Negroid, i.e . , Africoid, blood. Fortunately, we are
in a position to form our own conclusions and we can only conclude that we are simply dealing with ethnocentric euphemisms
for Black people.
11

11

The early predominance of the Lower Mesopotamian city the

Sumerians called Kish, one of their most ancient, may be another
bond between the Sumerians and the Nile Valley. The Sumerian
Kush is apparently only a modification of the Nilotic Kush ,
and thus reflects an unsevered connection between the two
territories .
... A most valuable inscription discovered in Ethiopia
in 1914 made it reasonably certain that the Ethiopians
designated their country, or at least a goodly part of
it, as tbe land of Qevs (Kesh) ... It was formerly
thought that Kush or Cush and their derivations were
of Egyptian or Hebrew origin, but the discovery of their
counterparts in an Ethiopian record seem to indicate
that the words were indigenous to the country and
peoples to which they were generally applied.20

The script and language of the ancient Black-heads have

been carefully studied and only serve to strengthen our thesis.
The system of writing which they brought with them
has the closest affinity with that of Egypt- in many
cases, indeed, there is absolute identity between the
two alphabets. Thus the Egyptian formed a rude parallelogram for the house-~, and called it I! while the
Hamite Babylonian usea almost the same form c:=:l' and
gave it the same phonetic power ... In regard to the
language of the primitive Babylonians ... the vocabulary
is undoubtedly Cushi te or Ethiopian . . . of which we have
probably the purest modern specimens in the Mahra or
Southern Arabia and the Galla of Abyssinia.21

In an essay on the people and language of Africa, Richard

Lepnias, concurs with Rawlinson on the origins of the Blackheads:

218

In the oldest times with the memory of men we know

of only one literary development, viz., that of
Egypt; and we know of only one contemporary people
which could have had knowledge of this culture,
appropriated its results, and conveyed them to
other nations, this was the Kushites, the masters
of the Erythraean Sea to its furthest limits. It
was by them that Babylonia was colonized and
fertilized with Egyptian culture. And it is thus
only that the thorough going correspondence between
Babylonian knowledge and institutions and the Egyptian
ones becomes intelligible . The pictorial writing
forming the basis of the cuneiform characters is unmistakeably only a species of the hieroglyphics; the
astronomy of Babylon is only a development of that of
Egypt . .. its unit of measure, that is, the royal
arcbi tectural ell of 0 525m, is completely identical
with that of Egypt .. its architecture, that is to
say, its temples as well as its pyramids and obelisks,
is an imperfect imitation of Egyptian originals;
and so with the other arts. At every step we meet
in Babylonia with the traces of the Egyptian models . . 22

A brief glance at the Sumerian pantheon provides yet

another tie in the Sumerian Nile Valley connection. In Sumer
the king of the gods, the "god of heaven", was Anu.23 All of
the Sumerian gods and goddesses were Anu's children.24 The
Annunaki were the sons of Anu; the fifty great gods. Flinders
Petrie applies the same term Anu, or as Diop goints out,25 to
an aboriginal race of predynastic Egyptians.2
THE THIRD DYNASTY OF UR
For most of her history, Sumer consisted of a number of
largely independent city-states . Each such entity contained a
city with satellite towns and villages. Periodically, however,
these city-states were united under powerful provincial governor/
priests, elevated to kings with divine status. Ur, which covered
more than fou r square miles, was the nation's capital at the
apogee of a united Sumer. The Black-heads had finally completed
the expulsion of the Guti, a savage collection of hill tribes
from the Zagros Mountains, who had ravaged Sumer for decades.
Now began a Sumerian renaissance. Cites British archaeologist
Leonard Wooley, "For nearly a century, 2112-2015 B.C. , under the
five kings of the Third Dynasty, Ur was the capital of a great
empire and its rulers strived to make it a center worthy of its
political preeminence.27 The rulers of Ur assumed the titles
"King of Sumer and Akkad." This was not the first.time a_Sumerian
city-state had reached out to embrace the surround1ng reg1ons.
During the reign of its powerful governor , Gudea, 21~2-2122_B.C. ,
Lagash subjugated Susa and much of Elam. From a senes of 1n-

219

scriptions we learn of Gudea's conquests, his lack of acknowledgement of a superior, and of the Susians and Elamites who came to
Lagash, " ... To aid h~~ in reconstructing the temple of his god ."28
Gudea's god was Anu.
In this comparatively golden age, Sumer exercised dominion
over Akkad, Elam, Dilmu (Bahrain), Oman, and the entire Persian
Gulf. Indus Valley seals, vases, and ornaments attest to the
commercial and diplomatic relations between these two eastern
Kushite high-cultures.30
In spite of the scarcity of stone, classical Sumer was an
age of colossal construction projects, and each of the major
urban centers erected tremendous multi-level brick structures
called "ziggurats," which, in physical appearance, closely resembled Zoser's third dynasty "Step Pyramid" at Sakkara, Egypt.
The Great Ziggurat of Ur is representative of the finest aspects
of Sumerian architecture.
Ur's Third Dynasty empire, grown expansive and wealthy, unfortunately, was built on a very fragile base. First of all,
the coalition of city-states that constituted the core of the
Sumerian Empire was a loosely arranged affair, and there does
not appear to have been any serious attempt towards long term
concrete tegiona 1 central izat ion. Secondly, through decades
of soil abuse, the agricultural productivity of much of Sumer
had become severely limited, and the Black-heads had become
heavily dependent on foodstuffs grown in the northern provinces
of Sumer and Akkad. Thirdly, the continuing spread of IndoEuropean and Semitic peoples after the mid-third millenium B.C.,
had begun to isolate Sumer and seriously challenge, not only her
dominance of Lower Mesopotamia, but her existence itself. The
powerful rulers of the Third Dynasty were able to hold these
nomadic tri~es at bay, but at the beginning of the second
millenium B. C. the dam was ready to burst. The northern food
producing region came under violent assault by the invaders;
creating famine in the populous southern city-states. The Blackheads called these tribes, "The MAR.TU who know no grain ... The
MAR.TU who know no house or town, the boors of the mountains ...
The MAR.TU who does not bend (to cultivate the land), who eats
raw meat, who has n~ house during his lifetime, who is not buried
after his death ... " 1 Is this how the now mighty Semites and IndoEuropeans entered history? If so, as seems apparent, it is quite
ironic. Any of these factors might have caused the decline of
Sumer. Combined, they spelled her doom. The seemingly stable
empire quickly broke apart, and Sumer's former vassals turned
on her with a vengeance .
In approximately 1990 B.C., the Elamites, of the Zagros
Mountains, and the Sutians, of the desert region west of Mesopotamia,
launched a devastating raid on Ur and ruthlessly massacred its

220

citizens. Afflicted by severe famine, the Sumerians seem to have

offered only feeble resistance to their attackers. The Blackhead's pathetic plight and heartrending pleas for mercy to their
patron god, Enlil, son of Anu and Shepherd of the Black-headed
people, were clearly documented and have survived to represent
one of the saddest chapters yet in the history of the Black
race.32
With the destruction of Ur, the foreign intrusions accelerated
and Sumer was subjected to increasingly frequent assaults. The
Kassites, apparently an Indo-European group, were particularly
destructive in the wars against the Blacks. little, however,
i f anything, was the cultural contribution offered by these
rude newcomers, as Wooley points out: "The early Kassite is a
blank page in the history of Mesopotamia; politically the kings
were insignificant, the arts stagnated, no great buildings gave
lustre to the names of the rulers and no records were kept of
their uneventful rule."33
As one center after another was captured and
destroyed, the Blacks retreated southeast to what eventually became known as the Sea land. This Kingdom of the Sea land is the
last we hear of the ancient Slack-heads of Sumer. It appears to
be their final expression of national consciousness, although the
Sea land itself remained a geographical entity for centuries.
By 1700 B.C., the Sumerian Black-heads, who, for a thousand
years, had dominated the Mesopotamian center stage and laid the
foundation for every near eastern civili~ation that was to come
after it, had, in essence, vanished from history. Over the Blackheaded people the winds swept.
MIGHTY ElAM
Elam, the first high-culture of Iran, shared Sumer's eastern
border and the historical destinies of these nations were inextricably wound together. The country was essentially divided
into two parts; Anshan and the mountainous north, and S~~iana
with its capital city of Susa, or Kissia, in the south .
The
early Elamites seem to have titled their land Anzan-Sousounka,35
with the term Elam perhaps being introduced by the early Hebrew
writers.
Elam's history can be traced, with certainty, to about 3000
B.C. and thus roughly corresponds with the chronologies of E~pt,
Sumer, and the Harappan high-culture of the Indus Valley. _Whlle
much of its history, particularly the initial stages, rema1ns
vague, due in large measure to the heretofore inability to decipher
the Elamitic script,36 several interesting features do stand out.

221

When first encountered, Elam appears to be, possibly even

more than Sumer, a nation in ethnic transition. This point canna
be overemphasized. Diop places Elam in the zone of confluence,37
where th'e northern and southern peoples, and cultures, overlapped
The biblical composers regarded Elam as a son of Shem, the eponyrr
of the Semitic type.38 Certainly, by the end of the second mill
B.C., we can see the country turning rapidly from Black to brown
and then to white.
Although nomadic non-Africoids early overran the mountainous
northern regions, the Black genetic material in the south was
somewhat more solidly entrenched .
we have thus fixed the locality of the people designated
by the word "Elam" to the region on the left or east
bank of the Tigris; opposite Babylonia, and lying between
that country and Persia proper. But a few words must
be added with respect to the people themselves. We
find the tract in question designated by different
names. Sometimes it is called Kissia; sometimes
Elam, or Elymais. The first of these names is a mere
derivative from the name of the capital, Susa; but the
other two indicate the fact that the country was inhabited by two distinct races. The Elami. tes or Elymaens
were probably the earlier incomes, and from them the
tract was called Elymais. They were subsequently overrun and conquered by the Kissians or Cossaeans (Cushites),
who became the governing race, and called the country
after themselves, Kissia. We find the two classes of
inhabitants mentioned together in the book of Ezra
(chapter. iv. 9), and they even contined separate and
distinct to the time of Strabo.39

From Strabo we learn that the Elamites ~6 the mountains

waged war against the more Africoid Susians.
Due to their
close proximity and many similarities, the high-cultures of
Sumer and Elam are often compared:
The sate of Susiana on the opposite frontier of Chaldea
must also be taken into the account in estimating the
power of the great Rami te empire on the lower Euphrates
There we have an extensive collection of legends, both
on bricks and slabs, belonging to a series of kings, who,
judging from their language, must have been also a
Hamitic race .. These Cushites, whose memory would seem
to have survived in the Greek traditions of Memnon and
his Ethiopian subjects, but who were certainly independent of the monarchs of Chaldra Proper, have been passed
over by Berossus as unworthy of a place in his historical
scheme; yet if we may judge from the works of which the
citadel of Susa is an example and from the extent of

222

country over which the Sus ian monuments are found,

they could hardly have been inferior either in power
or civiliz~tion to the Chaldeans who ruled on the
Euphrates. 4 1

It is clear then that, racially, the Sumerians and, at

least, the Susian portion of the Elamites, were of the same
mold and that the Blacks were in positions of real power and high
authority wel l into historical times.
MATERIAL EVIDENCE
As to be expected, a number of scholars, particularly
Elliot Smith, go through a list of similarities between predynastic Egypt and early Susa. These similarities include:
arrow-heads, polished stone implements, pressure-flaking, mace
heads, writing, pottery, painted and incised; stone vases, animal
vases and figures, feminine figurines, art motifs, inlays, meta'
mirrors, spinning and weaving, vase supports, cylinder seals,
architecture and copper chisels.42 It seems quite apparent
that the ancient high.- culture of Susa, in particular, and Elam
in general came in ready-made.
Gaston Maspero describes the Elamites as, " ... A short and
robust people of well knit figure with brown skins, Black hair
and eyes, who belnnged to the Negritic race which inhabited a
considerable part of Asia in pre-historic times ."43 French
archaeologist Dieulafoy, one of the first to excavate at Susa,
referred to ancient Elam as a prerogative of an Ethiopian dynasty.44
George Rawlinson, once again, records that, "In Susiana, where
the Cushite blood was maintained in tolerable purity ... there
was, if we may trust the Assyrian remains, a very decided prevalence of a negro type of countenance ... The head was covered
with short crisp curls; the eye larg~S the nose and mouth nearly
in the same 1ine, the 1ips thick ... "
According to crude, racist,
but still regarded by many as eminent, anthropologist Harry
Johnston, "The Elamites of Mesopotamia appear to have been a
negro people with kinky hair, and to have transmitted this racial
type to the Jews and Assyrians." 46 Completing this short 1ist
of authorities is anthropologist A. C. Haddon who remarks, "There
is one portrait of an Elamite (Cushite) king on a vase found at
Susa; he is painted black and thus belongs to the Cushite race." 47
The women of Elam, like their Nile Valley contemporaries,
and women in ancient Black societies in general , held significant
stature whether mortal or goddess. The Elamitic woman's sphere
of activity was not limited to the home. She signed documents,
carried on business, inherited and willed fortunes, brought suits
in the courts of law and controlled servants. In early Elamite
documents there is frequent mention of the mothers, sisters and
daughters of the ruler. The existing evidence points to a

223

matriarchal character of the royal succession. Royal incest

occurred and was probably the generl practice. Elamitic scholar
George C. Cameron calls attention to Kirisha, a form of the
mother-goddess, and claims that the, " ... Hundreds of clay
statuettes of their deity found in the course of the Susa excavations bespeak her whom the common people of Elam really
and sincerely worshipped."48 Walther Hinz, in a significant
work, The Lost World of Elam, is in complete harmony with Cameron:
Pride of place in this world was taken by a goddess
and this is typical of Elam. The treaty we have just
mentioned opens with the following appeal; 'Hear,
Goodess Pinikir, and you good gods of heaven! ' Later,
too, the Elamites saw Pinikir as the mistress of heaven
endowed with the power to curse, and her name often
forms a part of proper names .. The very fact that precendence was given to a goddess, who stood above and
apart from the other Blamite gods, indicates a
matriarchal approach in the devotees of this religion ...
In the third millenium, these 'great mothers of the
gods'; still held undisputed sway at the head of the
Elamite pantheon.49

THE EPIC OF MEMNON

Susa was generally believed to be the home of Memnon, the
great Black warrior-king who is credited by Quintus of Smyrna
with, " ... Bringi ng the countless tribes of his people who live
in Ethiopia, land of the Black man," to Priam's Troy in support
of his desperate war fg survival against the hostile coalition
of Greek city-states.
" ... Memnon came to helo them. The Trojans were delighted to see him in their city." 51

The story of Memnon was one of the most widely circulated

of a non-Hel l enic hero in the world of antiquity. In addition
to the references of Quintus and the allusions of Homer, Memnon
was also referred to by Hesiod, Virgil, Ovid, Diodorus Siculus,
Pausanias, and Strabo, among others. Arctinus of Miletus
composed an epic poem, "Ethiopia," in which Memnon was the
leading figure. 52 Diodorus records that Memnon led a combined
force of ten thousand Susians, and a like number of Ethiopians,
along with two hundred chariots to the assistance of the Trojans . 53
According to Robert Graves, in his classic work, The Greek MYths,
"Priam had by now persuaded his half-brother, Tithonus of Assyria,
to send his son Memnon the Ethiopian to Troy ... Tithonus governed
the province of Persia for the Assyrian king Teutamus, Priam's
overlord ... He was black as ebony but the handsomest man alive,
and like Achilles, wore armour forged by Hephaestus . Some say
that he led a la~e armY of Ethiopians and Indians to Troy by
way of Armenia."
Memnon distinguished himself in battle and
momentarily checked the Greek onslaughter, before he was himself
mortally wounded.
224

The Greco/Trojan War, c. 1270 B.C., long regarded as only

a myth, was given a t~rm historical foundation by Schliemann
in the past century.
The war ma.v have represented the efforts
of the Achaean Greeks for the control of the Aegean Sea trade, or
was perhaps simply an attempt to plunder and loot the cities of
the Troad,,of which Troy was the righest ~nd the most powerful.
Troy's pos1tion on the northwest coast of Asia Minor must have
made her an important western port for the Susians, and it is
only natural for them to have come to her aid in such a threatening commercial situation. Perhaps even more intriguing are the
possibilities of actual blood ties linking the Susians and the
Trojan royal families. These family relations may well have
been similar to those of the Egyptians and Nilotic Kushites in
the major period of Egyptian/Kushite history and particularly
in the 17th and 18th dynasties.56 The fact that Hemnon led a
combined force of Blacks, i.e., Susians and Harappans, Nilotic
Kushites or even Egyptians, could well represent an early example
of a confederation of Kushite, i.e., Black, nations assisting
a sister nation, and political ally, in a time of national
crisis. Logic itself impels us to believe that the ancient Blacks
of North Africa, Western Asia and the Nediterranean, must' have
viewed the aggressive Indo-Europeans and Semites as a threat to
the survival of the known world. The southern cradle, although
still powerful and experiencing many moments of brilliance, was
now on the defensive. In 1680 B.C. Egypt had experienced her
first organized invasion. Sumer had fallen, and towards the
end of the 15th century B.C., Minoan Crete was overrun by Achaeans
from the Greek mainland. The Aryans, probably in the 13th century
B.C., sacked Harappa and the cities of the Indus Valley. Eventually they conquered all of the northern India, forcing the
Blacks into the central and southern regions of the country where
they remain today. In the 19th and 20th dynasty reigns of
Merneptah and Ramses III, Egypt was invaded no less than three
times, with the Achaean/Dorian Greeks and related groups constituting a major portion of the invading forces . The active
participation of Memnon at Troy, then, may be viewed as the
evidence of an ancient, collective, endeavor by the Kushite
nations and their allies to save their world order from annihilation.
IHE FINAL BATTLE OF ELAM
The beginning of the seventh century B.C. ushered in the
twilight of Elam. This was the epoch marked by the wars with
the Assyrians, whose imperial ambitions cast a giant shadow over
all of Western Asia and the Nile Valley . In all the annals of
human history, it is difficult to find any people with an appetite
for bloodshed and carnage to rival that of .the ancient Assyrians.
They borrowed their civility from the Sumerian Black:head~ . and
their chief contribution to the modern world was the1r ab1l1ty
to preserve the religious and secular texts of their predecessors.

225

The Assyrian state, with its capital of Nineveh, was a vast

military machine; more terrible th'an any the world had ever seen.
The Assyrians fielded the first large armies equipped with iron
weapons and, unlike many another nation of antiquity, placed no
dependence on foreign mercenaries, whose loyalties might shift
at any time. The mass of the Assyrian armies was composed of
archers and heavily armed spearmen and shield bearers. Next
to the archers and infantry were the horsemen and heavy chariotry .
In addition to t hese well trained, absolutely ferocious and
utterly merciless soldiers, the Assyrians employed battering rams
and formidable siege machines. The Semitic Assyrians elevated
warfare to an exact science . These fierce warriors were not
content to merely conquer a people; they must completely crush
them. Around the smoking ruins that had been cities would
stretch lines of tall stakes , on which were impaled the bodies
of the defeated community leaders flayed alive. Scattered about
were huge mounds of the cruelly mutilated bodies of the dead and
dying. Those that survived the holocaust were deported to other
regions of the Assyrian Empire. In addition to the rising clouds
of dust, all the main roads of the empire were lined with herds
of cattle, horses, flocks of goat and sheep, and long lines of
camels loaded with gold, silver and precious stones, the wealth
of the conquered. At the head of processions marched the rulers
of the pillaged kingdoms. Around their neck~ were the severed
heads of their former princes and nobility.57
Under the reign of Ashurbanipal, 669-625 B.C. , the Assyrians
reached their destructive zenith. In 667 B.C. Egypt was invaded.
In 663 B.C. she was again invaded; this time with Ashurbanipal
himself at the head of what must have seemed like the legions
of Hell. The Egyptian country-side was devastated; its splendid
cities plundered. The magnificent temples of Thebes, the living
repositories of the greatness that was Egypt, were looted and
put to the torch. On his return to Nineveh, Ashurbanipal besieged the great Phoenician commercial center of Tyre. To
appease him, Tyre's king sent, to Nineveh, his own family heavily
laden with rich tribute, and the king's daughter for Ashurbanipal's
harem .
After the Egyptian and Phoenician conquests and the defeat
of a host of lesser states, the Assyrians directed their attention
towards Elam. Elam, a highly formidable state in her own right,
who had often struck terror in the regions of the near east, had
long contested the territorial ambitions of the Assyrians, and,
seizing the initiative, took the war to Nineveh's doorstep. So
much of Assyria's energies were directed to the Elamitic Wars
that Egypt, in 655 B.C., was able to regain her independence.
At any other time Ashurbanipal would have led an army to stamp
out the revolt. The Elamitic War effort, however, had grown
so intense that the Assyrians had to give up Egypt to maintain
Asia.

-226

In 639 B.C., after a prolonged resistance, Susa was overwhelmed. Her ziggurat was destroyed. The royal families,
particularly the females of the line through whom the kingship
descended, were sent to their fate in Nineveh. The Assyrians
made an example of Sus. For twenty-five days their armies
marched over the remains of Susa, scattering salt over its ruins
Wild beasts, declared Ashurbanipal, would now be her occupants .5A
To a people conscious of a splendid past there could be no
greater humilation.
Albeit in a severely diminshed capacity, after the devastation of Susa, the Blacks of Elam remained an important regional
factor. Herodotus finds them represented in the Iranian armies
that engaged in the fifth century B. C. Persian/Greco Wars.59piggot
informs us that during classical times, Southern Baluchistan,
extreme eastern Iran and Western Pakistan was known as Gedrosia,
the country of the dark folk.60 The Persian ruler Cyrus erected
his winter capital at Susa, and it was in this now Persian city
that the biblical prophet Daniel resided.6l
In spite of the early and continued inroads of foreigners
in the north, and the final defeat at the hands of the Assyrians,
the ancient Susian Elamites distinguished themselves as a highly
advanced and aggressive people who developed their land,62 and
defended it from conquest again and again. Like the Sumerians
of Mesopotamia, they established a standard for civilization
that the kingdoms and empires that followed could only imitate.
2500 years after its last national defense, reports of the
remnants of this Kushite colony called Elam, with its Susian
heartland, persist. In his, History of Persia, Percy Sykes writes:
Some years ago during the course of 11':J travels, I
was puzzled by the extremely dark populations of
Baskakird and Sarhad, very rerrote and mountainous
regions bordering on Persian Baluchistan. The solution
may be that the whole country was originally peopled
by Negri toes, the Anariakoi of Non-Aryans of the Greeks,
who probably stretched along the northern shores of
the Persian Gulf to India and that their descendants
have survived in those distant parts.63

Massey describes this group, whom he calls Lumluns, as

anthropologically allied to the Bisharis of Egyptian/Sudanese
border .region. 64 According to George Rawlinson, "Even now the
ancient Susiana is known as Khuizistan," the land of Khuz, or
of the Cushite.65
NOTES
lGenesis 10:8-10.

227

,-----

2George Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, Vol. 1 (New

York: D. Appleton & Co. , 1861) p. 358.
3"Now the Chaldaeans, belonging as they do to the most
ancient inhabitants of Babylonia, have about the same position
among the divisions of the state as that occupied by the priests
of Egypt; for being assigned to the service of the gods they spend
their entire life in study . .. " Diodorus Siculus, Bk II. 29.1
"In Babylonia a settlement is separate for the local philosophers ,
the Chaldaeans, as they are called , who are concerned mostly with
astronomy . " Strabo 16.1.8 " ... The Chaldees were originally
Negroes." Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis Vol. 2, (London: Longman, 1836) p. 364.
4Rev. Alexander Hislop, The TWo Babylons (Neptune;
Loizeaux srothers, 1959) pp. 43-44; See also Gerald Massey,
Book of Beginnings Vol.
(Secausus: University Books, Inc.
1881, rpt. 1974) pp. 504-505.
5, ... the Egyptians are colonists sent _out by the Ethiopians, Osiris having been the leader of the colony ... And the
larger part of the customs of the Egyptians are, they hold,
Ethiopian, the colonists still preserving their ancient manners .
For instance, the belief that their kings are gods, the very
special attention which they pay to their burials , and many other
matters of a similar nature are Ethiopian practices ... " Diodorus
Sicul us, Bk. 3. 31.
6Massey, op. cit . , p. 518.
7Ephorus, quoted by John D. Baldwin, Pre-Historic Nations
(New York : Harper & Brothers, 1872) p. 219 .
8Homer.

The Iliad.

9strabo, quoted by William Leo Hansberry, Africa and

Vol. 2, (Washington D.C.: Howard U. Press 1976) p. 6.

Af ricans,

lOBaldwin, op . cit., pp . 66-67.

lloiodorus Siculus, Bk . 2.21, quoted by Drusilla Dunjee
Houston, Wonderful Ethiopians of The Ancient Empire (Oklahoma
City: Universal Publishing Co., 1926) p. 193 .
12 George 0. Cox, African Empire And Civilization (African
Heritage Studies, 1974) p. 106.

228

13Albert Churchward, Signs & Symbols of Primordial Man

(Wesport: Greenwood Press , 1913 rpt. 1978); See also H. S.
Gladwin, Men out of Asia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947) pp.
23-27; See also Legrand H. Clegg II, "The First Invaders", Journal
of African Civilizations, Vol. 3, No.1 pp . 8-20.
14 "Anthropologically and culturally speaking, the Semitic
world was born during protohistoric times from the mixture of
white-skinned people in western Asia." Cheikh Anta Diop, African
origins of civilazation (New York: Lawrence Hill, 1974) XV "This
community of physical type," the earliest Blacks, "possibly
already disturbed, was finally altered by the spread of the
Armenoid type and of peoples akin physically to men of that
type, who penetrated from the highlands into the lowlands at a
period in Asiatic history yet to be determined, and who by hybridizing in different degrees with their predecessors brought
the welter of physical types which confront every student of
ethnology of the region stretching from Cape Cormorin to
Kurdistan ... " L.H. Buxton, quoted by Henry Field, op . cit.,
p. 89.
l 5Henry Field, Ibid., pp . 84-85; Giu~eppe Sergi, perhaps
the best known of the three scientists mentioned in this report,
was an Italian anthropologist whose work, The Mediterranean Race,
which appeared in 1901, became a hallmark in anthropology. Sergi
postulated that only skeletons, and specifically only the skull,
could provide systematic indices of race. In Sergi's view only
the cranial form was hereditary and immutable; mixed groups do
not produce a fusion of traits that equal intermediate types,
but only a juxtaposition of traits retaining their racial
identity . Skin color itself, as well as hair texture were external traits without diagnostic value because they are subject
to en vi ronmenta1 influence. G. Sergi, The Mediterranean Race
(London: Walter Scott, 1901).

16Fossil remains found in close proximity to the Grimaldi

skeletons. Representative of the advanced prehistoric culture
called "Aurignacian . "
lloiop illustrates the common physiognomy of the famous
portrait statue of Ramses II, now in the Turin Museum, and a
modern Watutsi from Central Africa. Diop, Op cit., p. 19.
18T. K. Penniman, "A Note on The Inhabitants of Kish
Before The Great Flood," Excavations At Kish, Vol. 4, pp.
19 Field,

Op . Cit.,

pp. 84-85.

229

65-72 .

20Hansberry,

t>p . Cit.,

pp. 8-9

21 Rawlinson, op. cit., p. 353

22 Athenaeum, July 24, 1889, rpt. in Massey, op. cit . , p. 521.
23Morris Jastrow, The civilization of Babylonia and Assyria
Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott Co., 1915) p. 208.
24 Ibid., pp. 209-210.

25 cheikh Anta Diop, "Origin of The Ancient Egyptians ,"

In General History of Africa, Vol. 2, ed. G. ~oktar, UNESCO
International Scientific Committee For Drafting a General History
of Africa, 1981, p. 32.
26Flinders Petrie, The Making of Egypt {London: Sheldon
Press, 1939) pp. 68-69; Anu was also the metropolis of the
thirteenth Lower Egyptian Home and was known to the Greeks as
Heliopolis, and the Hebrews as On. In addition, according to
Budge, "The abode of the blessed in heaven was called Annu, and
it was asserted that the souls of the just were there united to
their spiritual or glorified bodies, and that they lived there
face to face with the deity for all eternity." E. A. Wallis
Budge, The Book of The Dead {New York: Dover Publications, 1895,
prt. 19671 pp. xxvii-xxviii; Anu was also the sky-god of the
ancient Hittites. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, Vol 1. {Penguin Books, 1955) p. 39.
27Leonard Wooley, Excavations at ur {New York:
Co. , 1954) p. 122

,Crowell

28George C. Cameron, History of Early Iran {Chicago:

University of Ch.icago Press, 1936 rpt. 1976) p. 55.
29

S.H. Hooke, Babylonian And Assyrian Religion {New York:

Hutchinson's University Library, 1953) p. 25
30David H. Ray, "Links Between Ur And The Indus," Journal
of Tamil Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 1-18; Harappa, the Indus
Valley high-culture, was also black and had relations with Elam
and Sumer. India, Senegal, ~ali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia
and Somali have the same latitude. Only the Indian Ocean separates Africa from India. The descendants of the Harappans are
the Dravidians, who now occupy the southern extremes of the
Indian sub-continent. IHth continental Africans they share a

230

common physical appearance, matriarchal social structures, the

historical worship of mother goddess figures, trade contacts by
serpent oriented cults, and phonetic and lexical parallels.
U.P. Upadhyaya, "Dravidian And Negro-African" International
Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, Vol. 5, No. 1.
31
E. Chiera, Sumerian Bpics And
Nos . 58 & 112 .

Myths;

Chicago, 1934,

32"Lamentation Over The Destruction of Ur," S. N. Kramer,

ed. Assyriological Studies, No. 12, Oriental Institute (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1940).
3~~ooley, op. Cit., p. 197.

34strabo, Geography, 15.3.2-4.

35Percy Sykes, History of Persia, Vol. 1 (London: MacMillan
And Co., 1930) p. 51; see also Marcel A. Dieulafoy, L'Acropole
de Sus (Paris: Hachette et cit, 1890) p. 23.
36P.E. Cleator, Lost Languages (New York:
p. 176.

Mentor, 1959)

37 cheikh Anta Diop, The Cultural Unity of Black Africa

(Chicago: Third World Press, 1963) pp. 106-111.
38Genesis 10:21-22
39George Rawlinson, origin of Nations, Pt. 1, (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912) p. 231.
40strabo, op. cit., 15.3.12.
41Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, Op. Cit., p. 358.
42G. Elliot Smith, Human History (New York:
1929) pp. 365-368.

Norton &Co.,

43 Gaston Maspero, History of Egypt, Vol. 4, trans. M.L.

McClure (London:
The Grollier Society, 1903) pp . 45-46.
44Marcel A. Dieulafoy, L'Acropole de Susa (Paris:
et Cie, 1893) pp. 27, 44, 46, 57-86, 102-115.

231

Hachette

45

George Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies of The Ancient

Vol. 3 (New York: l~hite, Stoke & Allen) p. 500.

Eastern World,

46 Harry Johnston, The Negro in The New World (London:

Methuen & Co., 1910) p. 27.
47 Alfred C. Haddon, History of Anthropology (London:
Watts &Co., 1934) p. 6.
48cameron, op. cit., p. 21.
49 walther Hinz, Lost world of Elam, trans. J. Barnes (New
York: New York U. Press, 1973) pp . 42-43.
50Quintus, The war at Troy, trans. F. M. Combellack (Norman:
Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1968) p. 48 .
51 Ibid., p. 50.
52Hansberry, Op. Cit., pp. 53-55 .
53oiodorus Siculus, Bk. 2.21 .22.
54Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (Penguin Books, 1955)
p. 314.
55Henry Schliemann, Troy And Its Remains, 1874.
56Legrand H. Clegg II, "Black Rulers of The Golden Age,"
Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 81-102 .

Journal of African Civilizations,

57James H. Breasted, Ancient Times (Boston:

1916) pp. 157-158.

Ginn & Co . ,

58 o. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria And Babylonia,

Vol. 2, (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1927) pp . 309-312.
59"The eastern Ethiopians--for there were two sorts of
Ethiopians in the army--served with the Indians. These were
just like the southern Ethiopians, except for their language and
their hair: their hair is straight, while that of the Ethiopians
i.n Libya is the crispest .and curliest in the World . " Herodotus,
The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (New York: Penguin
Books, 1972) p. 468.

232

60stuart Piggott, Prehistoric India (Harmondsworth:

Penguin Books, 1950) p. 150.
61 oaniel 8:2.
62"The alluvial plain extending behind the marshes was as
rich and fertile as that of Chaldea . Wheat and barley yielded
a hundred and at times two hundred fold ... " Maspero, op.
Cit., p. 1'48.

63sykes, op. cit., p. 47.

64Hassey, op. cit., p. 518-519.
65George Rawlinson, Egypt And Babylon (New York:
Lovell Co.) p. 10.

233

John W.