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Fundamentals: Key Moments in African Societal Development It is said that this part of the cosmos came
to be 21 billion years ago, billions of years in order to get to this point. How long does one of us live, much less
than the flash of a camera. When our African children begin to read and families begin to remember, they will recount
how 5.5 million years of human life was started in Africa by Africans. |
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5.5 million Y.A. 200,000-150,000 The human race is of African origin.
The oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens) were excavated at sites in East
Africa. Human remains were discovered at Omo in Ethiopia that were dated at 195,000 years old, the oldest known in the world. Skeletons
of pre-humans have been found in Africa that date back between 4 and 5 million years. The oldest known ancestral
type of humanity is thought to have been the australopithecus ramidus, who lived at least 4.4 million years ago. 90,000 Africans were the first to organise fishing expeditions 90,000 years ago.
At Katanda, a region in northeastern Zaïre (now Congo), was recovered a finely wrought series of harpoon points, all
elaborately polished and barbed. Also uncovered was a tool, equally well crafted, believed to be a dagger. The discoveries
suggested the existence of an early aquatic or fishing based culture. 43,000 Africans
were the first to engage in mining 43,000 years ago. In 1964 a hematite mine was found in Swaziland at Bomvu Ridge
in the Ngwenya mountain range. Ultimately 300,000 artefacts were recovered including thousands of stone-made mining tools.
Adrian Boshier, one of the archaeologists on the site, dated the mine to a staggering 43,200 years old. 25,000 Africans pioneered basic arithmetic 25,000 years ago. The Ishango bone is a tool handle with notches
carved into it found in the Ishango region of Zaïre (now called Congo) near Lake Edward. The bone tool was originally
thought to have been over 8,000 years old, but a more sensitive recent dating has given dates of 25,000 years old. On the
tool are 3 rows of notches. Row 1 shows three notches carved next to six, four carved next to eight, ten carved next to two
fives and finally a seven. The 3 and 6, 4 and 8, and 10 and 5, represent the process of doubling. Row 2 shows eleven notches
carved next to twenty-one notches, and nineteen notches carved next to nine notches. This represents 10 + 1, 20 + 1, 20 -
1 and 10 - 1. Finally, Row 3 shows eleven notches, thirteen notches, seventeen notches and nineteen notches. 11, 13, 17 and
19 are the prime numbers between 10 and 20. 12,000 Africans
cultivated crops 12,000 years ago, the first known advances in agriculture. Professor Fred Wendorf discovered that
people in African Kmt's Western Desert cultivated crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, dates, legumes, lentils and wheat.
Their ancient tools were also recovered. There were grindstones, milling stones, cutting blades, hide scrapers, engraving
burins, and mortars and pestles. Africans
mummified their dead 9,000 years ago. A mummified infant was found under the Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter in south
western Libya. The infant was buried in the foetal position and was mummified using a very sophisticated technique that must
have taken hundreds of years to evolve. The technique predates the earliest mummies known in Ancient African Kmt by at least
1,000 years. Carbon dating is controversial but the mummy may date from 7438 (±220) BC. Africans carved the world's first colossal sculpture
7,000 or more years ago. The Great Sphinx of Giza was fashioned with the head of a man combined with the body of a lion. A
key and important question raised by this monument was: How old is it? In October 1991 Professor Robert Schoch, a geologist
from Boston University, demonstrated that the Sphinx was sculpted between 5000 BC and 7000 BC, dates that he considered conservative. 7000 Nubian Monarchy Oldest. Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history,
preceding the rise of the earliest African Kmtian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient
Nubia. (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern African Kmt.) 8000 African Kmtians had the same type of tropically adapted skeletal proportions as modern Black Africans.
A 2003 paper appeared in American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Dr Sonia Zakrzewski entitled Variation
in Ancient African Kmtian Stature and Body Proportions where she states that: "The raw values in Table 6 suggest
that African Kmtians had the ‘super-Negroid' body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural
indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many ‘African'
populations." 6000 African Kmtians had Afro combs.
One writer tells us that the African Kmtians "manufactured a very striking range of combs in ivory: the shape of these
is distinctly African and is like the combs used even today by Africans and those of African descent." 5000 Funerary Complex in the ancient African Kmtian city
of Saqqara is the oldest building that tourists regularly visit today. An outer wall, now mostly in ruins, surrounded the
whole structure. Through the entrance are a series of columns, the first stone-built columns known to historians. The North
House also has ornamental columns built into the walls that have papyrus-like capitals. Also inside the complex is the Ceremonial
Court, made of limestone blocks that have been quarried and then shaped. In the centre of the complex is the Step Pyramid,
the first of 90 African Kmtian pyramids. 5000 Great
Pyramid of Giza, the most extraordinary building in history, was a staggering 481
feet tall - the equivalent of a 40-storey building. It was made of 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite, some weighing
100 tons. 5000-525bc African
Kmtian city of Kahun was the world's first planned city. Rectangular and walled, the city was divided into two parts.
One part housed the wealthier inhabitants - the scribes, officials and foremen. The other part housed the ordinary people.
The streets of the western section in particular, were straight, laid out on a grid, and crossed each other at right angles.
A stone gutter, over half a metre wide, ran down the centre of every street. 4236 African Kmt developed its written language African Kmtian mansions were discovered
in Kahun - each boasting 70 rooms, divided into four sections or quarters. There was a master's quarter, quarters
for women and servants, quarters for offices and finally, quarters for granaries, each facing a central courtyard. The master's
quarters had an open court with a stone water tank for bathing. Surrounding this was a colonnade. Labyrinth in the African Kmtian city of Hawara with its massive layout, multiple
courtyards, chambers and halls, was the very largest building in antiquity. Boasting three thousand rooms, 1,500 of them were
above ground and the other 1,500 were underground. Toilets and sewerage systems existed in ancient African Kmt. One of the pharaohs built a city now
known as Amarna. An American urban planner noted that: "Great importance was attached to cleanliness in Amarna as in
other African Kmtian cities. Toilets and sewers were in use to dispose waste. Soap was made for washing the body. Perfumes
and essences were popular against body odour. A solution of natron was used to keep insects from houses . . . Amarna may have
been the first planned ‘garden city'." Sudan has more pyramids than any other country on earth - even more than African
Kmt. There are at least 223 pyramids in the Sudanese cities of Al Kurru, Nuri, Gebel Barkal and Meroë. They are generally
20 to 30 metres high and steep sided. Sudanese
city of Meroë is rich in surviving monuments. Becoming the capital of the Kushite Empire between 590 BC until
AD 350, there are 84 pyramids in this city alone, many built with their own miniature temple. In addition, there are ruins
of a bath house sharing affinities with those of the Romans. Its central feature is a large pool approached by a flight of
steps with waterspouts decorated with lion heads. Nigeria, West Africa's oldest civilisation flourished
between 1000 BC and 300 BC. Discovered in 1928, the ancient culture was called the Nok Civilisation, named after the village
in which the early artefacts were discovered. Two modern scholars, declare that "[a]fter calibration, the period of Nok
art spans from 1000 BC until 300 BC". The site itself is much older going back as early as 4580 or 4290 BC. West Africans built in stone by 1100 BC.
In the Tichitt-Walata region of Mauritania, archaeologists have found "large stone masonry villages" that date back
to 1100 BC. The villages consisted of roughly circular compounds connected by "well-defined streets". .1100 Earliest stone masonry villages emerge in the Dhar Tichitt-Walata region.
c.1000 Walled villages emerge in the Dhar Tichitt-Walata region. Kumbi Saleh, the capital of Ancient Ghana, flourished
from 300 to 1240 AD. Located in modern day Mauritania, archaeological excavations have revealed houses, almost habitable today,
for want of renovation and several storeys high. They had underground rooms, staircases and connecting halls. Some had nine
rooms. One part of the city alone is estimated to have housed 30,000 people. West Africa had walled towns and cities in the pre-colonial
period. Winwood Reade, an English historian visited West Africa in the nineteenth century and commented that: "There
are . . . thousands of large walled cities resemHigh Technologicalthose of Europe in the Middle Ages, or of ancient Greece." Nigerian city of Ile-Ife was paved in
1000 AD on the orders of a female ruler with decorations that originated in Ancient America. Naturally, no-one wants
to explain how this took place approximately 500 years before the time of Christopher Columbus! Yoruba metal art of the mediaeval period was of world
class. One scholar wrote that Yoruba art "would stand comparison with anything which Ancient African Kmt, Classical Greece
and Rome, or Renaissance Europe had to offer." |
Excavations at the Malian
city of Gao carried out by Cambridge University revealed glass windows. One of the finds was entitled: "Fragments
of alabaster window surrounds and a piece of pink window glass, Gao 10th - 14th century." Malian city of Timbuktu had a 14th century population
of 115,000 - 5 times larger than mediaeval London. Mansa Musa, built the Djinguerebere Mosque in the fourteenth century. There
was the University Mosque in which 25,000 students studied and the Oratory of Sidi Yayia. There were over 150 Koran schools
in which 20,000 children were instructed. London, by contrast, had a total 14th century population of 20,000 people. Many old West African families have private
library collections that go back hundreds of years. The Mauritanian cities of Chinguetti and Oudane have a total
of 3,450 hand written mediaeval books. There may be another 6,000 books still surviving in the other city of Walata. Some
date back to the 8th century AD. There are 11,000 books in private collections in Niger. Finally, in Timbuktu, Mali, there
are about 700,000 surviving books. 9th
century Nigerian city of Eredo was found to be surrounded by a wall that was 100 miles long and
seventy feet high in places. The internal area was a staggering 400 square miles. On Kongolese metallurgy of the Middle Ages, one modern scholar wrote that:
"There is no doubting . . . the existence of an expert metallurgical art in the ancient Kongo . . . The Bakongo were
aware of the toxicity of lead vapours. They devised preventative and curative methods, both pharmacological (massive doses
of pawpaw and palm oil) and mechanical (exerting of pressure to free the digestive tract), for combating lead poisoning." In Nigeria,
the royal palace in the city of Kano dates back to the fifteenth century. Begun by Muhammad Rumfa (ruled 1463-99)
it has gradually evolved over generations into a very imposing complex. A colonial report of the city from 1902, described
it as "a network of buildings covering an area of 33 acres and surrounded by a wall 20 to 30 feet high outside and 15
feet inside . . . in itself no mean citadel". Ngazargamu, the capital city of Kanem-Borno, became one of the largest cities in the seventeenth
century world. By 1658 AD, the metropolis, according to an architectural scholar housed "about quarter of a million people".
It had 660 streets. Many were wide and unbending, reflective of town planning. Nigerian city of Surame flourished in the sixteenth century. Even in ruin
it was an impressive sight, built on a horizontal vertical grid. A modern scholar describes it thus: "The walls of Surame
are about 10 miles in circumference and include many large bastions or walled suburbs running out at right angles to the main
wall. The large compound at Kanta is still visible in the centre, with ruins of many buildings, one of which is said to have
been two-storied. The striking feature of the walls and whole ruins is the extensive use of stone and tsokuwa (laterite
gravel) or very hard red building mud, evidently brought from a distance. There is a big mound of this near the north gate
about 8 feet in height. The walls show regular courses of masonry to a height of 20 feet and more in several places. The best
preserved portion is that known as sirati (the bridge) a little north of the eastern gate . . . The main city walls here appear
to have provided a very strongly guarded entrance about 30 feet wide." Nigerian city of Kano in 1851 produced an estimated 10 million pairs of sandals
and 5 million hides each year for export. In 1246 AD Dunama II of Kanem-Borno exchanged embassies with Al-Mustansir, the king of Tunis. He
sent the North African court a costly present, which apparently included a giraffe. An old chronicle noted that the rare animal
"created a sensation in Tunis". By the third century BC the city of Carthage on the coast of Tunisia was opulent
and impressive. It had a population of 700,000 and may even have approached a million. Lining both sides of three streets
were rows of tall houses six storeys high. Ethiopian city of Axum has a series of 7 giant obelisks that date from perhaps 300 BC to 300 AD.
They have details carved into them that represent windows and doorways of several storeys. The largest obelisk, now fallen,
is in fact "the largest monolith ever made anywhere in the world". It is 108 feet long, weighs a staggering 500
tons, and represents a thirteen-storey building. Ethiopia minted its own coins over 1,500 years ago. One scholar wrote that: "Almost
no other contemporary state anywhere in the world could issue in gold, a statement of sovereignty achieved only by Rome, Persia,
and the Kushan kingdom in northern India at the time." Ethiopian script of the 4th century AD influenced the writing script of Armenia. A Russian historian
noted that: "Soon after its creation, the Ethiopic vocalised script began to influence the scripts of Armenia and Georgia.
D. A. Olderogge suggested that Mesrop Mashtotz used the vocalised Ethiopic script when he invented the Armenian alphabet." Ethiopia has 11 underground
mediaeval churches built by being carved out of the ground. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD, Roha became
the new capital of the Ethiopians. Conceived as a New Jerusalem by its founder, Emperor Lalibela (c.1150-1230), it contains
11 churches, all carved out of the rock of the mountains by hammer and chisel. All of the temples were carved to a depth of
11 metres or so below ground level. The largest is the House of the Redeemer, a staggering 33.7 metres long, 23.7 metres wide
and 11.5 metres deep. In
Southern Africa, there are at least 600 stone built ruins in the regions of Zimbabwe,
Mozambique and South Africa. These ruins are called Mazimbabwe in Shona, the Bantu language of the builders, and means great
revered house and "signifies court". Great Zimbabwe was the largest of these ruins. It consists of
12 clusters of buildings, spread over 3 square miles. Its outer walls were made from 100,000 tons of granite bricks. In the
fourteenth century, the city housed 18,000 people, comparable in size to that of London of the same period. Evidence discovered in 1978 showed that East Africans
were making steel for more than 1,500 years: "Assistant Professor of Anthropology Peter Schmidt and Professor of Engineering
Donald H. Avery have found as long as 2,000 years ago Africans living on the western shores of Lake Victoria had produced
carbon steel in preheated forced draft furnaces, a method that was technologically more sophisticated than any developed in
Europe until the mid-nineteenth century." Ruins of a 300 BC astronomical observatory was found at Namoratunga in Kenya. Africans were mapping
the movements of stars such as Triangulum, Aldebaran, Bellatrix, Central Orion, etcetera, as well as the moon, in order to
create a lunar calendar of 354 days. Autopsies
and caesarean operations were routinely and effectively carried out by surgeons in pre-colonial Uganda. The surgeons
routinely used antiseptics, anaesthetics and cautery iron. Commenting on a Ugandan caesarean operation that appeared in the
Edinburgh Medical Journal in 1884, one author wrote: "The whole conduct of the operation . . . suggests a skilled
long-practiced surgical team at work conducting a well-tried and familiar operation with smooth efficiency." Sudan in the mediaeval
period had churches, cathedrals, monasteries and castles. Their ruins still exist today. Nubian Kingdoms kept archives. From the site of Qasr
Ibrim legal texts, documents and correspondence were discovered. An archaeologist informs us that: "On the site are preserved
thousands of documents in Meroitic, Latin, Greek, Coptic, Old Nubian, Arabic and Turkish." Glass windows existed in mediaeval Sudan.
Archaeologists found evidence of window glass at the Sudanese cities of Old Dongola and Hambukol. Style and fashion existed in mediaeval Sudan.
A dignitary at Jebel Adda in the late thirteenth century AD was interned with a long coat of red and yellow patterned damask
folded over his body. Underneath, he wore plain cotton trousers of long and baggy cut. A pair of red leather slippers with
turned up toes lay at the foot of the coffin. The body was wrapped in enormous pieces of gold brocaded striped silk. Sudan in the ninth century
AD had housing complexes with bath rooms and piped water. An archaeologist wrote that Old Dongola, the capital of
Makuria, had: "a[n] . . . eighth to . . . ninth century housing complex. The houses discovered here differ in their hitherto
unencountered spatial layout as well as their functional programme (water supply installation, bathroom with heating system)
and interiors decorated with murals." Kenyan
city of Gedi contains evidence of piped water controlled by taps. In addition it had bathrooms and indoor toilets. Tanzanian city of Kilwa to be
of world class. He wrote that it was the "principal city on the coast the greater part of whose inhabitants are Zanj
of very black complexion." Later on he says that: "Kilwa is one of the most beautiful and well-constructed cities
in the world. The whole of it is elegantly built." AFRICAN KMT TIMELINE 4236-2986 B.C.
Earliest Dynasties 2986-2181
B.C. OLD KINGDOM Dynasties Earliest to VI 2181-2040
B.C. INTERMEDIATE PERIOD Dynasties VII to X 2133-1786
B.C. MIDDLE KINGDOM Dynasties X & XII 1786-1567 B.C. INTERMEDIATE PERIOD Dynasties XIII-XVII the
Minoan civilization on the nearby island of Crete. 1567-1085 B.C. NEW
KINGDOM Dynasties XVIII - XX 1185-900
B.C. 4 ANCIENT KMT: The Gift of the Nile (3000 B.C. - 30 B.C.) TIMELINE (Continued) 900-851 B.C. 800-751 B.C. 776 B.C. 663 B.C. 600 B.C. 586 B.C. 585
B.C. 500 B.C. 483
B.C. 457 B.C. 400 B.C. 390
B.C. 332 B.C. city of science and culture, is founded on the
Mediterranean shore of Kmt in honor of Alexander. 323 B.C. 260 B.C. 170 B.C. 148 B.C. 146 B.C. 91 B.C. 31 B.C. 30 B.C. |
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