A Study On Cheikh Anata Diop - 956 Words

Cheikh Anata Diop was born in Caytou, to a Muslim Wolof family in 1923. After earning his doctorate degree in Paris, he returned to Senegal and started the first carbon dating laboratory at Dakar s Institute of African Studies. Dr. Diop contributed to the scientific understanding of African history by refuting flawed euro-centric ideas on the origins of Egyptian civilization. Throughout his work, the main themes of Dr. Diop s work was that Egypt was the center of a vast network linking Africa s main cultures and languages and that it was the product of cultural influences from the African heartland. Therefore, the originators of classical Egyptian civilization were not Mediterranean whites nor Asiatic invaders as euro-centric scholars claim, but black-skinned, indigenous Africans. Secondly, Greek civilization and by extension western civilization derived many of its practices and ideas from Egyptian culture. While studying for his doctorate at the Sorbonne, Cheikh Anta Diop s ideas encountered resistance from the prejudiced French establishment. His first doctoral thesis was rejected by his professors on the grounds that it was â€Å"unfounded.† He later managed to publish his dissertation in 1954. Even though his work earned him international recognition, it took another ten years before he was granted his doctorate degree. According to Sertima, Diop s doctoral thesis had initially been rejected because it ran counter to what had been taught in Europe for two centuries