Golden Age of Africa

First, I will take you to central Africa

where archeologists found a testament

to the humble wisdom of the people of the time

What is it?

The Lebombo bone in the South

and the Ishango bone in Central Africa

are both mysterious and groundbreaking archeological artifacts

See…

These early humans who made the

carvings in the Lebombo bone

perhaps just wanted to keep track of their cattle

on the Ishango bone the carvings

are even more elaborate

It is the earliest evidence

of arithmetic in all of humanity

a primitive calculator if you will

Then there is the rock art further up north in the Sahara

People drew wonderful sceneries of lions

chasing gazelles along the shores of rivers

Thanks to these early drawings

we know that the Sahara was not always

a dry and desolate desert deprived of life

It was once green and lush

With their artistic renderings

in the form of cave and rock paintings

these early people invented a way to communicate

their stories to the generations to come

The before mentioned carved bones

pioneered quantitative data storage

and the paintings on the rock

became a qualitative way to pass

information to their descendants

Djambe! Take me to Egypt.

This is the oldest country of all.

human ingenuity began to sprout.

They called their realm Kemet,

the black land.

Here reigned a the culture of thought,

knowledge gathering and preservation.

It is the birth land

of mathematical systems, medicine

and glass making techniques,

among other things.

Faith is what built this place,

not slavery or forced labor.

It’s the devotion of hundreds

of thousands of people all working

for same pharaonic objective, guaranteeing

the immortality of their highest leader.

There is no doubt that these people

were a highly developed society.

With a believe and knowledge

system rivalling the one we have today.

Their eagerness to learn peaked

with the creation

of the Library of Alexandria.

It was an immense library

with 700,000 papyrus

scrolls and documents,

a research center with lecture halls,

classrooms and gardens.

This was humanity’s

first attempt to get all the world’s

knowledge in one place.

After the Romans conquered Alexandria,

their Emperor Caesar burned down the library.

Another day,

another pyramid.

I don’t know exactly how deep this pyramid is.

Should be 70 meters or so.

If i’m not mistaken.

The way this was built.

I should have been counting steps,

but there’s no point in doing that

when I’m already half way in.

It’s certainly getting really dark in here.

This is ground zero of human civilisation

Looks like I have

this pyramid all for myself.

Humanity is clearly all about

information and storytelling.

No sarcophagi was ever found in here.

It’s amazing structure.

I guess I can count the steps

while climbing out,

One, two…

While discovering the cradle of civilization

for myself,

the most striking thing was not that people were

Africans of dark complexion.

I mean,

how can someone even argue on that?

But I realized I had been

brainwashed too

since I actually came here

to see with my own eyes

and confirm what I already knew

A part of me was so used to

the whitewashed narrative

that I was doubting the scientific evidence

unconsciously

On my journey towards the south,

I could see how all this wisdom,

customs and knowledge

was circulating up and downstream

along the Nile.

Their are more pyramids here in Sudan

than in the Lower Nile and Egypt.

It started with simple cuts in bones

and paintings on walls.

But by now, the human scribbles

and carvings had evolved into complex

writing systems, allowing us to preserve both

quantitative and qualitative information.

And fact is

there were many other writing systems

and scripts in Africa,

including the meroïtic script here

in the Kingdom of Kush.

These pyramids were able

to stand the test of time

for more than two millennia,

but would ultimately succumb

to the explosives of a ruthless

Italian treasure hunter on an egomaniac

quest for gold and riches

More than 1000 years later,

the practice of knowledge

gathering and preservation

would take another leap forward.

This time in West Africa.

Timbuktu is at the intersection

of two trade routes.

The Camel trains of the Sahara Desert

and the riverboats of the Niger River.

Similarly to Alexandria a 1000 years earlier,

Timbuktu was a centre of knowledge

and learning.

The city scholar’s studied

the mechanics of the Solar System

and tried to explain

the motions of the planets.

Erected here 1000 years ago,

the Sankore mosque and university

is the oldest continuously operating

institution of higher education

here in this part of Africa

Exchanging books and knowledge

with the oldest university in the world,

the University of al-Qarawiyyin,

located further up north in Morocco.

From the ninth to the 12th century,

the Islamic world was the center of

critical thinking and observation.

Modern scientific methodologies

were practiced here.

Scholars followed early

versions of current citation,

peer reviewing and validation processes.

It is said that throughout his childhood

Soundiata Keïta was unable to walk.

Nounfari, the finest blacksmith,

made him an iron rod, which bent

when Sundiata pulled himself upright

only when he used a branch of a baobab tree.

Was he able to stand.

He would grow to

become as strong as a lion.

He forged coalitions with an

unprecedented number of tribes,

conquered the entire region and founded

Manden Kurufuba, the Mali Empire,

earning him the title of Mansa

the King of Kings.

In Kurukan Fuga,

Sundiata Keïta and the Assembly of his

wise men, proclaimed the Manden Charter,

one of the oldest

constitutions in the world.

Tell me more about the Manden Charter.

The Manden Charter.

It can be compared

to the Charter of Human Rights.

It was also an attempt to regulate

environmental protection.

Divided into seven chapters,

the clauses advocate for peace, diversity,

the inviolability of a human being,

education,

food security

and the integrity of the motherland;

the abolition of slavery

and freedom of expression

and trade.

The different kings of the Mali

empire were visionary

explorers, curious and open

to scientific knowledge, paving the way

for a knowledge-based society.

Welcome to Kilwa.

We have reached the land

of the Swahili people,

they were intercontinental traders

connecting the African interior

with the international trade routes

out on the Indian Ocean

The East African coastline had ports

and cities stretching from present day

Somalia to Mozambique.

Towards the interiors of our continent

was the Kingdom

of Zimbabwe controlling extensive

mineral deposits in the region.

This could have been another great source

of ancient African knowledge,

if the so-called discoverers had not

destroyed the archeological evidence.

Africa was an indispensable

part of an intercontinental trade network.

Gold from West Africa, ivory

from the East,

all kinds of precious goods were sold

and exchanged through extensive

trade networks,

blanketing Africa and extending

as far as India and China.

Evidence for Africa’s innovative

spirit can be found everywhere.

The ox head of Egyptian hieroglyphs, for

example, carries the facts.

As it evolved, it eventually became the Roman alphabet.

Most of the alphabet

we use today originated here.

At the time,

this region was a driving

force in human progress.

It is time to flip the script,

rewrite the story

and look at Africa from another angle.

Societies here had self-organizing

structures following an intentional,

but nonetheless natural process.

When making any choice,

everything that could be affected

by human activity

was taken into consideration.

People would consciously choose

materials that decompose

because a settlement, just like

everything else, has a life cycle

and when it fullfils its purpose,

organic materials allow it

to decay and disintegrate

without harming the environment.

Whatever lives dies and as such, is

meant to feed the ground and return

to nature.

The African design philosophy

is based on patterns

and the conscious application

of fractal geometry.

From the small choices

made when creating jewelry,

to the shape of a home

and the configuration of a village,

everything seems to repeat itself

over and over again

in progressively larger scales.

Let’s analyze the typical structure

of a traditional home.

We have an open circle

with a small household altar

for the spirits in the center.

On a larger scale,

we can see that a family ring

follows the same design principle

with enclosures for cattle and grains

at the entrance

and family homes that increase in size

as we move to the back,

the home of the family’s elder

taking a central place.

On a village or settlement level,

the family rings are laid out

in the same circular way,

from lower status at the entrance

to higher status at the back

and central here is the chief’s family ring.

The chief himself has a home

in the center of everything.

Ancestors had a central position

in everybody’s life.

A person is embraced by the home,

which is protected by the family,

in turn guarded by the entire settlement.

In other words, it takes a village…

It takes a village to raise a child.

I’m humbled by the profound wisdom

that strikes you when you expect it

the least.

first, it hits,

then it makes you ponder about life,

your choices, personal challenges.

You feel like one more question

has been answered simply by the

clear-sightedness of all those that

came before you,

In Bantu cultures,

when you die, you become a spirit.

This is actually nothing new.

Hence,

the little shrine inside the traditional

fractal huts.

The life changing thing to me is that

your ancestors only cease

to exist when no one remembers them.

Think about that for a minute.

Do I remember my ancestors?

Do I celebrate them?

Remember that DNA test?

DNA tests can actually

bring the memory

back, not just for me, no,

but all those who do not

know where they come from.

Some say the continent has no history.

Truth is

history starts here.

Others say it has just never been written,

Down, so there’s no evidence for anything.

The truth is we were among the first people to write.

But if one ignores

the history of Africa, humanity

as a whole becomes amnesic.

From Kemet to the Zulu kingdoms,

from the Mali empire to the Swahili states.

This was the golden age of Africa,

and as Europe would get out

of their dark ages,

Africa would pay the highest price

for their progress.