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.