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A 250 meter long wall 11 meters tall is far from "triumph of engineering" even in 1200. "Drainage channels" are far from "evidence of a sophisticated civilisati

• aa-jv 5y ago
  >Why do they feel the need to do this? Because of a history of archeology degrading the people of the region, perhaps, and a desire to apply the same civilization-building moral standards to Africa as the rest of the world? A 250 meter long wall, 11 meters tall .. made out of nothing but bricks (no mortar, remember) .. surviving mostly intact after 10 centuries? That is definitely a triumph of engineering, by anyones standards ..
  • trabant00 5y ago
    So you fight one exageration by exagerating in opposite direction? This only gives ammunition to the opposite side.
    • jeromegv 5y ago
      Did you do anything to fight the first exaggeration? Or you're just showing up now that it is about Africa?
      • hiptobecubic 5y ago
        I feel like this is the main point people are missing. Literally every time there's a "feature" of anything that isn't already accepted by mainstream audiences, people start trotting out all the millions of reasons that isn't special, but ignore that these reasons aren't unique at all. See basically any technical media created by women for thousands more examples of this. Some woman makes a video about coding or something and people focus on how she doesn't use vim efficiently enough, she doesn't have a good enough mic set up, she is only working on "basic crud apps" etc etc.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • jterrys 5y ago
    By virtue of trying to prop up this wall, I think the same "civilization-builiding moral standards" aren't being applied here. More realistically, it's a tinge of Zimbabwean nationalism shrouded in archeological dressing being applied here.
    • aa-jv 5y ago
      Well, given that the people of the region were told for decades that their ancestors were too sub-human to have advanced well enough to develop the technology to build a wall out of bricks with no mortar, which subsequently survived centuries .. I would posit that it is not appropriate to label this as anything more than 'cultural relief that the racist view is being removed from their zeitgeist, because: science, bitches.' The Great Zimbabwe site was built by a people who clearly had more understanding of the world of physics during their time than we allowed for in our pro-European narratives, so far. The same is true of many, many other sites around the world, which don't fit the narrative of western academics' world view of themselves and their Eureopean cultures, and which undermine the perspective that prior civilizations were primitive in their approach to technology and application of scientific discoveries. The hubris and arrogance of this field is slowing being peeled away, layer by layer, and replaced with facts which update the context of human history. Its not without some relief that I personally note that this is no longer the exclusive purview of european academics with an agenda ..
• astine 5y ago
  "Drainage channels" are far from "evidence of a sophisticated civilisation". The term "civilization" has a technical meaning in archaeology which includes things such as permanent settlement and a hierarchical social order. Walls and drainage are absolutely treated as evidence of civilization when discussing other ancient civilizations such as the Sumerians and the Maya. The fact that Great Zimbabwe is not as sophisticated as other civilizations of the same time-period is a moot point because the thing that is interesting about it isn't how it stacks up to contemporary Eurasian society but the fact that it apparently is an entirely home-grown civilization in southern Africa.
  • trabant00 5y ago
    > The fact that Great Zimbabwe is not as sophisticated as other civilizations of the same time-period Then why call it "sophisticated"? Nobody would have had a problem with the article if it just stuck to proof of civilization. Even an extremely small enclosed area like this (not even a village) is still proof of people working together, ornaments speak for themselves, etc. That is clearly a civilization. They clearly had some engineering skill. But "sophisticated" and "triumph" are pathetic exaggerations which result in the exact opposite effect than what was intended.
    • astine 5y ago
      Because archaeologists call everything sophisticated including stone-aged hand-axes if they're comparing it to something less-sophisticated, such as the pastoralist communities that people usually think of when considering southern Africa. "Sophistication" in this context though, I think is referring to social complexity rather that strict technological sophistication. I have no comment on the use of the word "triumph", except that it's very subjective and the kind of thing I tend to ignore.
    • selimthegrim 5y ago
      • gutitout 5y ago
• ycombinete 5y ago
  I agree. This really felt patronising to me. Like they were trying too hard to be impressed. At the very least such claims require some contextualisation, which the article does not really supply. And I think it’s obvious why that context is never provided.
  • shmageggy 5y ago
    These comments are unreal to me. The context is right in the beginning of the article. The site was originally deemed too impressive to be built by locals, and later it was too impressive to be built without outside influence, and now that research is showing it was indeed built by locals, it’s no longer impressive. Incredible.
    • boffinAudio 5y ago
      Yes, these comments are unreal to me too, and I think we are witnessing a great deal of white guilt manifesting itself as cowardly dismissal. It is incredible to be witnessing here on HN, but it speaks to how much work is still left to be done in the world, to deal with the hubris and arrogance of western moral authority -- which is as much a fallacy as anything. Peoples investment in the authority and altitude of their own cultures is like a giant boat that won't be turned by anything but a major current. We are but waves on these arrogant bows, friend.
  • prmph 5y ago
    > And I think it’s obvious why that context is never provided It is not obvious to me. Can you to tell us more about why the context is not provided, if you are better informed?
    • nyolfen 5y ago
      it would be difficult to be impressed by this structure if you have passing familiarity with what contemporary civilizations were building. it’s obviously of historical and archaeological significance but my assumption based on the superlatives in the article was that it had been built 1-2k years before its actual construction, roughly contemporaneous with eg notre dame and roughly aligning with the social & technological sophistication of contemporary stone age peoples in the americas. it’s interesting but the text of the article does seem patronizing.
• honkdaddy 5y ago
  Personally, I believe it's for the same reason there's an Afrofuturism exhibit at The Met in NYC speculating a history which never was. It's the same reason Black Panther grossed 1.4b. It's the same reason Ian Smith is painted as a racist and Mugabe is now remembered fondly as a controversial but well-meaning champion of the people. I'm not sure how to phrase this without being accused of dog-whistling, but I do think there's a subversive effort, especially in the media, in painting the history of Africa into something that it's not.
  • notahacker 5y ago
    The main difference seems to be that when we have history and art exhibitions dedicated towards the unrealised visions of white people or successful comic book films featuring [mostly] white characters or reconstructions of Anglo Saxon earthworks which were pretty unimpressive compared with neighbouring and preceding civilisations, nobody claims that its a "subversive" effort... Not sure where you're getting the idea that Mugabe is fondly remembered or that Ian Smith wasn't a racist either tbh
    • edmcnulty101 5y ago
      We seem to be getting a large amount of successful African American actors and directors and producers in Hollywood with wealth accumulating in A.A. individuals and groups, that could fund A.A. specific productions. In music African Americans have thrived and lifted each other up and created all kinds of amazing music. Why isn't this repeated in film industry?
      • achillesheels 5y ago
        Entrenchment.
        • edmcnulty101 5y ago
          I'm not sure if placing the blame on entrenchment tracks. Numerous filmmakers have come from literally off the street. Tarantino and Kevin Smith and Spike Lee all came from pretty much nothing
• SaintGhurka 5y ago
  >> Why? Why do they feel the need to do this? The desired end-point narrative changes with the political objective. 120 years ago Cecil Rhodes was keen to prove that Zimbabwe was fantastically advanced for its time and place, because it would prove it could not have been built by the locals, and therefore he could take the land from the present occupants, because they had taken it from someone else. As Michener puts it in his (fictionalized) account: "So now, if Rhodes could prove that no black society had ever been advanced enough to have built Zimbabwe, his theft of Matabeleland would seem more palatable. It would, after all, be rather ugly to have stolen a kingdom in order to bring it civilization if that kingdom had once been civilized."
• wccrawford 5y ago
  It's hardly unique to Africa, and the opposite exists, too. People do their best to tear down past accomplishments that were previously hailed as special. Why? I think it's to make themselves feel better in comparison. They get some kind of happiness or satisfaction from elevating their own ancestors, or degrading others'.
• JJMcJ 5y ago
  > Why? Why do they feel the need to do this? Because the still common belief that Africa was in a very primitive state before the Europeans showed up and "civilized" them.
  • missedthecue 5y ago
    I think they inadvertently supported that notion.
• ravar 5y ago
  You know why.
• hooande 5y ago
  ooh, I can answer this one. It seems abundantly clear that the premise of the article is that many people don't believe that African civilizations in that time period could have built walls or drainage channels like this. It was little clues in the text that gave it away, like this: "That is because, says Mr Chirikure, Great Zimbabwe should be a “symbol”, not just of Africa’s power and potential, but of how outsiders have too often told Africans’ stories—and got them wrong." If the prevailing idea is that this relatively rudimentary technology was too advanced for the people of the region, then this discovery is evidence to disprove that. It doesn't have to be "sophisticated" on an absolute scale. Only relative to expectation. Imagine a 5 yr old wrote working Java code. Any working program, even the equivalent of a drainage ditch, would be worthy of praise. And something as simple as a linked list could be described as a "sophisticated technique" (for a 5 yr old) Understanding context and reading the article are, as ever, the keys.
• interactivecode 5y ago
  why does the west feel its their job alone to write the history of African countries instead of letting them research and write their own history instead? (write as in write down, not write as invent)
• gromitss 5y ago