The name Hercules can be traced to the Black Afrikan people of ancient Ethiopia and Egypt who had conceptualized the mighty saviour Heru. Consequently, this title was also bestowed on Egyptian Pharaohs who were famous for their courage and pursuit of justice. The ancient Greeks who were taught and civilized by Afrikan teachers, adopted the words Horus, Hero, and Heracles as derivatives.
During ancient times the Afrikan concept of Heru spread from Waset (Thebes) in Egypt to the British Isles, Scythis, the Indies, Ireland, Germany, and to other parts of the world.
The title Heru (Heracles) was conferred on those Afrikan men and women who displayed the finest qualities of conduct that promoted truth and nobility. The standard and process for electing an individual as a living Heru or Hercules was later imitated by the Europeans. The Greek Heracleses were Black men as were the ancestors of Greek culture.
The preparation of the Hercules and the Amazon Queens consisted of extensive training and education to prepare them for demanding tasks. Hercules and the Amazon Queens were not only mighty because of their physical ability and beauty, as they were also skilled lawyers, engineers, lawgivers, and teachers. It was the intention of these Afrikan pioneers to push culture to the European territory.
Body building, power lifting, weight training, physical fitness, mental training and spiritual development are known to have originated in Afrika before 3400 B.C. In other words, the Afrikans had set the benchmark for physical, moral and spiritual excellence.
The twelve labours of Hercules for kingship or to become a champion of the Afrikan people were difficult and arduous tests, but thousands of years later in Afrika, these same tests were used to determine the rights of the Afrikan youths to receive the privileges of manhood and for marriage. The mystery schools of the Greeks, the name given to the Egyptian Spiritual Belief System, adopted those standards tests from the Ethiopian and Egyptian Cultures.
The Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. affirmed in his writings that Hercules was an Egyptian god from "time immemorial", while in the 1st century B.C. Another Greek historian Diodoros wrote that in the beginning "Herakles" was a man.
Despite contradictory beliefs, the Greek historians would have known about Hercules, since they had the advantage of talking directly to the Egyptian priests. The Greeks, upon seeing the more ancient Hercules Archetypes in ancient Egyptian temples, acknowledged them as Heracles (Hercules).
His demanding and tireless deeds utilized in clearing the earth of wild beasts, caused Hercules to be seen as a representative of the sun-god Ra by the appreciative Egyptians. It is clearly unlikely therefore that Hercules was Germanic, because some 20,000 years ago Northern Europe was still covered with layers of ice, therefore the conditions of the Ice Age would not have been in keeping with the images presented where Hercules is only wearing a lion skin while clearing the earth of wild beasts. The comic books, movies, and animated Disney television series depicting Hercules as anything other than a Black Afrikan can therefore be dismissed as pure fantasy and a distortion of the truth.
Hercules, from conception to realization was created in Afrika by the Afrikan people, so those of the Afrikan Diaspora should be reclaiming this heroic, uplifting embodiment and icon of Divine Strength which unfortunately has been forgotten and was taken away from them by other foreign cultures. The Egyptians had conceived of the original Heracles as representing various forces of Nature and not as an actual human manifestation.
The Egyptian Heracles is said to have various manifestations which are spiritual, including natural forces like Khonsu (Lunar Deity), the multiple forms of Heru and or Harpokrates (Solar and Martian Deities), Khnum (also called Herishef), Shu (Air, Mars, and Sun Deity), and Gom (Lion-Headed Deity of the Sun and Strength), to illustrate a few.
Herodotus confirms that Heracles (Hercules) was originally known as Shu, the Egyptian god who helped Re to defeat those adversaries that had threatened the cosmic order. Shu (Onuris) was a member of the Ennead that consisted of 12 Egyptian deities from which the Greeks fashioned their idea of the 12 Olympian gods.
Shu is the god of air who separated the sky (Nut) from the earth (Geb), and who lifts and holds the heavens over his head like a cosmic weight lifter. Shu was represented by the Egyptians in their own likeness as a black man, a powerful warrior, and member of the Heliopolitan Ennead.
The chronological history of the well-known versions of Heracles (Hercules) during ancient history is highlighted on page 201 by Alan B. Lloyd, the writer of Herodotus Book II as follows.
1. The Egyptian Herakles is the most ancient.
2. The Tyrian Herakles is next, having a temple that existed in 2700 B.C.
3. The Thasian Herakles' temple which existed 5 generations before the Greek Herakles, son of Alcmene and Amphitryon. Note that the Greek Herakles was a black man.
Thebes in Egypt is the original location where the Egyptian Heracles was born and raised. The ancient Greeks named this city Thebes, Thebai, Thisbe and Thespai but the Egyptians called their city Waset, which was the home of Heracles for many hundreds of years, the centre of religious and political power in the Egyptian Empire, and also the capital of this nation throughout most of its ancient history. Now the Greeks, in seeking to establish a place for their own Greek Heracles took the name they assigned to Waset and named one of their own Greek cities Thebes.
Thoth (Tehuti) was known throughout ancient Egypt as the Canopic Hercules of which the historical and legendary figure Imhotep whom the Greeks worshipped as Ascepulapius was said to be a living incarnation. The Greek Heracles is directly modelled after this ancient Egyptian and his Black predecessors.
Homer wrote this verse, "Black he stood as night, his bow uncased, his arrow strung for flight", to describe the legendary first world hero known as Hercules, the Afrikan world teacher who left a legacy of goodwill that was emulated by his successors.
Herodotus wrote about Hercules in name and in concept as being Ethiopian and Egyptian in origin. Hercules was called Hr k3 during the 2nd century B.C. which meant that he was the human incarnation of human creative energies, of dynamic human potential at work, of heavenly productive powers, and of the power of positive miracles.
Hercules' origins in Afrika became an inspiration in the development of schools where in Ethiopia for example, such dedicated schools were established for the training of the mind, body and will. This concept eventually spread to Egypt, the Middle East, India, Ireland, and other places throughout Europe.
In every era and in various countries, men and women trained and educated themselves to assist humankind, and accounts of their great deeds have filtered down to our present time as legends. However, the myths wrapped up in the stories contain elements of historical events.
The Greek Hercules was developed from stories about the Egyptian Hercules who was a combination of the Old and Middle Kingdom Pharaohs (c.-2100 - 1800 B.C.).
Hollywood as usual has been erroneously and deliberately portraying Hercules exclusively as a hero of European ancestry, and also without any emphasis on his function as a teacher.
© John Moore - Barbados, W.I. (March 2000) ©. All rights reserved.