Did the ancient Egyptians migrate to ancient Nigeria?

Abstract

Literatures concerning the history of West African peoples published from 1900 to 1970 debate the possible migrations of the Egyptians into West Africa. Writers like Samuel Johnson and Lucas Olumide believe that the ancient Egyptians penetrated through ancient Nigeria but Leo Frobenius and Geoffrey Parrinder frowned at this opinion. Using the works of these early 20th century writers of West African history together with a Yoruba legend which teaches about the origin of their earliest ancestor(s), this researcher investigates the theories that the ancient Egyptians had contact with the ancient Nigerians and particularly with the Yorubas.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: There is an existing ideology amongst the Yorubas and other writers of Yoruba history that the original ancestors of the Yorubas originated in ancient Egypt hence there was migration between Egypt and Yorubaland. This researcher contends that even if there was migration between Egypt and Nigeria, such migration did not take place during the predynastic and dynastic period as speculated by some scholars. The subject is open for further research.