Cheikh Anta Diop

Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, who died in Dakar on 7 February 1986, was an outstandingly versatile man of culture whose name will always be associated with the renaissance of African history. His works revealed unchrated areas of the African past and filled many gaps in our knowledge of the evolution of humanity.

Today it is no longer possible to write a history of ancient Egypt without referring to his work on the origins of African and pharaonic civilizations. A man of science and a man of letters, Cheikh Anta Diop was anthropologist and historian, physicist and Egyptologist, linguist and philosopher. After working for several years with the French physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie, he specialized in nuclear physics at the College de France. In the human sciences, he was trained by two eminent French scholars, the philosopher Gaston Bachelard and the prehistorian Andre Leroi-Gourhan. He submitted a thesis at the Sorbonne on the comparative study of the social systems of Europe and black Africa from Antiquity to the formation of modern States. Professor of Egyptology at the University of Dakar, founder-director of the Radiocarbon Laboratory at the University's Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN), Cheikh Anta Diop was one of the most active members of the International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa. Sponsored by Unesco, this major work in eight volumes, some of which have already appeared, is now in the final stages of preparation.