Africa is a huge continent. The differences in geography contributed to the diversity - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Africa is a huge continent. The differences in geography contributed to the diversity of languages and politics. The lack of writing does not indicate a lack of a significant history / heritage. Slide2

Bantus

Longest Migration in HistoryGriots – Homers of African HistoryLanguageSlide3
Slide4

Was an Islamic Judge. H

e is best known as a traveler and explorer, covering some 73,000 miles. These journeys covered almost the entirety of the known

Islamic

world

and beyond, extending from

North Africa

,

West Africa

, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and China in the East.

Ibn BattutaSlide5

See One Man’s Odyssey…http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2084413,00.htmlSlide6

Welcome, Association of Archaeologists, Anthropologists, and Historians

Post-Classical Africa has been discovered. The AAAH has been asked to examine artifacts collected so that we can piece together the story of this continent

in the Post-Classical Period

.Slide7

Africa

Group 3: Mali

Group 2: Trans-Saharan Trade

Group 4: West

Afr

i

can

Kingdoms

Group 6: Great Zimbabwe

Group 5: Swahili Coast

Group 7: Ethiopia

Group 1: North Africa

Group 8: LibyaSlide8

Group 1:

North AfricaIbn Battuta Arrives in CairoI arrived at length at Cairo, mother of cities and seat of Pharaoh the tyrant, mistress of broad regions and fruitful lands, boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the halting-place of feeble and mighty, whose throngs surge as the waves of the sea, and can scarce be contained in her for all her size and capacity. It is said that in Cairo there are twelve thousand water-carriers who transport water on camels, and thirty thousand hirers of mules and donkeys, and that on the Nile there are thirty-six thousand boats belonging to the Sultan and his subjects which sail upstream to Upper Egypt and downstream to Alexandria and Damietta, laden with goods and profitable merchandise of all kinds. On the bank of the Nile opposite Old Cairo is the place known as The Garden, which is a pleasure park and promenade, containing many beautiful gardens, for the people of Cairo are given to pleasure and amusements. I witnessed a fete once in Cairo for the sultan's recovery from a fractured hand; all the merchants decorated their bazaars and had rich stuffs, ornaments and silken fabrics hanging in their shops for several days. The mosque of 'Amr is highly venerated and widely celebrated. The Friday service is held in it and the road runs through it from east to west. The madrasas [college mosques] of Cairo cannot be counted for multitude. As for the Maristan [hospital], which lies "between the two castles" near the mausoleum of Sultan Qala'un, no description is adequate to its beauties. It contains an innumerable quantity of appliances and medicaments, and its daily revenue is put as high as a thousand dinars. Slide9

Group 1: North AfricaSlide10

Group 2:

Trans-Saharan TradeIbn Battuta prepares to cross the Sahara At

Sijilmasa [at the edge of the desert] I bought camels and a four months' supply of forage for them. Thereupon I set out on the 1st Muharram of the year 53 [AH 753, February 13, 1352] with a caravan including, amongst others, a number of the merchants of Sijilmasa.

The saltworks at the oasis of Taghaza

After twenty-five days [from Sijilmasa] we reached Taghaza, an unattractive village, with the curious feature that its houses and mosques are built of blocks of salt, roofed with camel skins. There are no trees there, nothing but sand. In the sand is a salt mine; they dig for the salt, and find it in thick slabs, lying one on top. of the other, as though they had been tool-squared and laid under the surface of the earth. A camel will carry two of these slabs.

No

one lives at Taghaza except the slaves of the Massufa tribe, who dig for the salt; they subsist on dates imported from Dar'a and Sijilmasa, camels' flesh, and millet imported from the Negrolands. The negroes come up from their country and take away the salt from there. At Iwalatan a load of salt brings eight to ten mithqals; in the town of Malli [Mali] it sells for twenty to thirty, and sometimes as much as forty. The negroes use salt as a medium of exchange, just as gold and silver is used [elsewhere]; they cut it up into pieces and buy and sell with it. The business done at Taghaza, for all its meanness, amounts to an enormous figure in terms of hundredweights of gold-dust. Slide11

Group 2

: Trans-Saharan TradeSlide12

Ibn Battuta judges the character of the people of Mali

The negroes possess some admirable qualities. They are seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. Their sultan shows no mercy to anyone who is guilty of the least act of it. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveller nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence. They do not confiscate the property of any white man who dies in their country, even if it be uncounted wealth. On the contrary, they give it into the charge of some trustworthy person among the whites, until the rightful heir takes possession of it. They are careful to observe the hours of prayer, and assiduous in attending them in congregations, and in bringing up their children to them. Their piety On Fridays, if a man does not go early to the mosque, he cannot find a corner to pray in, on account of the crowd. It is a custom of theirs to send each man his boy [to the mosque] with his prayer-mat; the boy spreads it out for his master in a place befitting him [and remains on it] until he comes to the mosque. Their prayer-mats are made of the leaves of a tree resembling a date-palm, but without fruit.

Another of their good qualities is their habit of wearing clean white garments on Fridays. Even if a man has nothing but an old worn shirt, he washes it and cleans it, and wears it to the Friday service. Yet another is their zeal for learning the Koran by heart. They put their children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free until they have it by heart. I visited the qadi in his house on the day of the festival. His children were chained up, so I said to him, "Will you not let them loose?" He replied, "I shall not do so until they learn the Koran by heart."

Group 3

:

MaliSlide13

Mosque in Jenne

Group 3

:

MaliSlide14

The Songhai

In the late 13th century, power in Songhai was consolidated in the Sunni dynasty, which gradually gained independence from Mali and thereafter began to encroach upon the weakening Mali power. Songhai expansion was most aggressively advanced by Sunni Ali, who incorporated the eastern part of Mali into his empire, subjugating Djénné in 1471. He was followed by Muhammad, of the Askia dynasty, who further extended Songhai's influence and made Tombouctou again a thriving cultural center. After his reign, however, dynastic rivalry perilously weakened the empire, while revolts and raids from neighboring states further tested its endurance. An assault by Moroccan forces equipped with firearms in 1591 was the final blow, from which the Songhai state never recovered.Group 4:

West African

Kingdoms

(Ghana, Mali, Songhai)Slide15

Group 4

: West African KingdomsSlide16

Ibn Battuta sails along the east coast of Africa

On leaving Zayla we sailed for fifteen days and came to Maqdasha [Mogadishu], which is an enormous town. Its inhabitants are merchants and have many camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day [for food]. When a vessel reaches the port, it is met by sumbuqs, which are small boats, in each of which are a number of young men, each carrying a covered dish containing food. He presents this to one of the merchants on the ship saying "This is my guest," and all the others do the same. Each merchant on disembarking goes only to the house of the young man who is his host, except those who have made frequent journeys to the town and know its people well; these live where they please. The host then sells his goods for him and buys for him, and if anyone buys anything from him at too low a price, or sells to him in the absence of his host, the sale is regarded by them as invalid. This practice is of great advantage to them. We stayed there [in Mogadishu] three days, food being brought to us three times a day, and on the fourth, a Friday, the qadi and one of the wazirs brought me a set of garments. We then went to the mosque and prayed behind the [sultan's] screen. When the Shaykh came out I greeted him and he bade me welcome. He put on his sandals, ordering the qadi and myself to do the same, and set out for his palace on foot. All the other people walked barefooted. Over his head were carried four canopies of coloured silk, each surmounted by a golden bird. After the palace ceremonies were over, all those present saluted and retired.

Group 5

:

East African (Swahili) CoastSlide17

Dhows along the Swahili Coast

Group 5: East African (Swahili) CoastSlide18

Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers [there is a]...fortress built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them.... This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar, and one of them is a tower more than 12 fathoms high. The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, which according to their language signifies court.--

Viçente Pegado, Captain, Portuguese Garrison of Sofala, 1531

Group 6

:

Great Zimbabwe

Bantu MigrationSlide19

The ruins of Great Zimbabwe – the capital of the Queen of Sheba, according to an age-old legend – are a unique testimony to the Bantu civilization of the Shona between the 11th and 15th centuries. The city, which covers an area of nearly 80

ha (a hectare or ha of land is about 2.47 acres), was an important trading centre and was renowned from the Middle Ages onwards.

Group 6

:

Great ZimbabweSlide20

Group 7:

Ethiopia (Axum)King Lalibela

The life of King Lalibela is shrouded in legend. One holds that when he was born he was surrounded by a swarm of bees. Seeing this his mother reputedly cried out. “The bees know that this child will become king!”  He was accordingly given the name Lalibela which means “ the Bee Recognizes his Sovereignty”.

Lalibela duly established a capital at a place called Roha where the red volcanic rock was suitable for the excavation of churches.  The locality was subsequently renamed after

Lalibela.

There

he founded a remarkable group of churches which made his capital a major place of pilgrimage. The Gadla Lalibela claims that visiting these churches was equivalent to seeing the face of Christ.Slide21

Lalibela’s Churches

Group 7: Ethiopia

(Axum)Slide22

Group 8:

LibyaReview of George G. M. James, Stolen Legacy By

Femi Akomolafe

The greatest crime Europe committed against the world is the intellectual theft of Africa's heritage. That Greece invented philosophy, the Arts and the Sciences is the only basis on which the arrogance of Europe stands. What course would the history of the world had taken if the European scholars[?] had not FALSELY claim for the Greeks what is certainly not theirs? Would the arrogance of Europeans not have been diminished if the truth about the contribution of Africa to human civilization have been correctly stated and interpreted? "The term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence. The ancient Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was also the first system of salvation." .Pythagoras, the oldest of the so-called Greek-thinkers was a student in Egypt for several years. He was exiled when he started to teach what he had learned. Socrates was executed for teaching 'foreign ideas.' Plato was sold into slavery. Aristotle was also exiled. What we are asked to believed by western scholars was that these ancient Greeks were persecuted in a society that is sufficiently advanced in philosophy. What is incredible about these 'Great Philosopher' is the total lack of any knowledge about their early lives. The crucial question of how Aristotle got all the books that bore his credit is easily answered by the simple historical fact that he went with his friend, Alexander the Destroyer (some called him Great), in the latter campaign and conquest. After Egypt was conquered and destroyed, the Royal Library and the Temples were looted by Aristotle. Slide23

Group 8

: LibyaSlide24

African Empires and Societies

Ethnic IdentificationLocation

Religion

Time Period

Significant Facts

Axum (Aksum)

Ethiopia

Christian

300 - 700

Carved churches out of rockGhana SE Mauritania Empire from 700's to 1076 Armies with iron weapons became masters of the trade in salt and gold Mali Niger River

Islam

Empire from

1235

to

1400's

Mansa (emporer) Musa's hajj made Mali's wealth famous

Songhai

West African

Empire that flourished in the 1400's and 1500's Conquered Mali and gained control of the salt trade Benin West African Trading kingdom strong in the 1400's and 1500's Famous for bronze and brass works of art Great Zimbabwe Southeastern Africa Capital of trade-based empire from 1200's-1400's City of a great stone castle abandoned