Cheikh Anta Diop
29 December 1923 – 7 February 1986
Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist and physicist who argued that ancient Egypt was a Black African civilization and a foundation of African history. Trained in Paris, he founded a radiocarbon laboratory in Dakar and later an opposition political party in Senegal. The University of Dakar was renamed in his honour after his death.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Cheikh Anta Diop.
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- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Overlapped 63 years →
- Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Overlapped 63 years →
- Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) Overlapped 63 years →
- Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002) Overlapped 63 years →
Life events
Diop was born into a Wolof Muslim family in the village of Thieytou in the Diourbel region of French West Africa.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAfter completing his baccalaureate in Senegal he travelled to Paris, where he studied physics, chemistry, philosophy and history.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgDiop married Louise Marie Maes, a Frenchwoman, in Paris; the couple had four sons.
The book set out his thesis on the African origins of Egyptian civilization and became a landmark of Pan-African scholarship.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAfter earlier thesis submissions were rejected, he successfully defended his doctoral thesis in 1960.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe returned to newly independent Senegal and took a research post at the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe laboratory, the first of its kind in Africa, was established to date archaeological material.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe English translation of his earlier works brought his arguments to a wider international readership.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgDiop established the RND as an opposition party to the government of Léopold Sédar Senghor; it was legally recognised in 1981.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgDiop died in his sleep in Dakar at the age of 62.
Source: en.wikipedia.org