8 ms·

> 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. Well, I'm not sure how y

by prmph 5y ago

> 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. Well, I'm not sure how you come by that conclusion. I do hope you are familiar with the civilizations of Kush, Aksum, Congo, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, etc. If you are, it seems disingenuous on your part to claim that African history is being portrayed as something it is not. If anything, popular depictions of African history are woefully lacking in the knowledge of these and other civilizations that existed in ancient times. We need more dissemination of what is known to academia regarding African civilizations, and more research into these barely explored sites. The exhibit and movie you mentioned are clearly meant to be fiction, so I'm not sure what they have to with a supposed "painting the history of Africa into something that it's not"

astine 5y ago
I do hope you are familiar with the civilizations of Kush, Aksum, Congo, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, etc. You could also add the Swahili coast to this list.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  as well as Nubia/Meroë
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Did any of the non-northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups ever advanced to technologically advanced civilizations? Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?
  - dang 5y ago
    You started a tedious race flamewar and perpetuated it downthread. We ban accounts that do that. Please don't do that on HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - prmph 5y ago
    Is that a rhetorical questions or you genuinely seek to expand your knowledge? In case it’s the latter, then your slant of: > northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups is weird. Many European cultures were influenced by the Romans, who were influenced by the Greeks, who were influenced by other cultures. The flow of ideas across time and space is what actually gives rise to civilizations. So what if an African civilization was influenced by another civilization? Does that make it less meaningful? As for what civilizations Africa had, you can read about Kerma/Napata/Kush/Nubia, Aksum, Kongo, Swahili coast, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Egypt, etc. However, I suspect you have your mind made up, hence the dismissive “Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?”
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      There's lots of people in this thread demonstrating exactly what this Great Zimbabwe project is about. The history of Africa that many of us have been taught is basically "there were a bunch of black people living in mud huts forever, and then the White Man came and gave them civilisation". This is an ideological and inaccurate portrayal history designed to make African people look backwards. In actuality, despite a challenging climate, various African groups built cities and civilisations. The idea to use European civilisational and technological development as the measure for all other places is also absurd, because you could sample various points in time where e.g. Britain was a place of warring tribes with pointy sticks while China or the Middle East had thriving civilisations. Real life history is not a game of Civ where everyone starts at the same point and races through a bunch of predetermined milestones.
      - edmcnulty101 5y ago
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        It's like you didn't even read my comment. Why do you think everybody is just stacking technologies on top of a shared pool? That's a post-globalisation concept. African people discovered plenty of technologies including metal forging - but they were less technologically advanced than Europeans when they were invaded. Why? Because the material situation in Europe is ideal for technological development. The climate is temperate, food is abundant, the Romans went everywhere dumping their own advanced tech on everybody, probably other factors a historian could elaborate. There are plenty of alternative explanations to the one you're implying, and the one that's been historically taught, which is "black people are not capable of developing civilisation or technology". Edit given you appended "at any point in time": basically no milestone technological development has happened anywhere for quite some time now, excluding computers and the Internet. Everything's incremental now. Plus for much of that time many African countries have either been trying to recover from colonialism or been caught up in civil war (which should be expected when a power vacuum is created). I would say that mobile money is a good candidate for a meaningful invention though, and that came out of Nigeria.
  - astine 5y ago
    Well, the Swahili coast is nowhere near the Nile/Mediterranean and it was quite advanced. But that was connected to the Arab world via trade and I think what you mean is did any African societies develop to a similar level of sophistication without influences from outside of Africa? That's a complicated question that I'm not qualified to answer (Congo maybe?), but I'd point out that even in the ancient near east, trade and contact with foreigners preceded the development of civilization in those regions and European civilization especially owes a lot of its success to contact with outside civilizations. So the fact the most well-known African civilizations had regular trade contacts with Eurasia should not do much to diminish the accomplishments of those civilizations as such. For example, it's possible that iron smelting began in the Sahel in Africa, and from there spread to the Near East/Mediterranean rather than the other way around which would mean that Africa entered the iron age well before the rest of the world. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    This is a weird dichotomy, given that the Roman state has its origin in a series of tribal unifications and that "technologically advanced" is a relative term (i.e., relative to neighboring societies and groups) when doing anthropological research on ancient civilizations.
_etyf 5y ago
The Mali Empire is particularly fascinating. Mansa Musa, who ruled that empire c. 1324, remains by some estimates the richest man who ever lived. His net worth is estimated by historians at around $400 billion USD. Elon Musk's net worth today is around $280 billion, for comparison. Mansa Musa's wealth was built almost entirely by slaves, who were forced to mine gold and made up much of the Empire's military. Slavery in Mali continues to this day with an estimated 200,000 people held in direct servitude to a master [1]. Maybe that's why we don't hear so much about the Mali Empire, or the Ghana Empire for that matter. Personally I think it's history worth knowing, all the moreso if it shatters the myth that any one race is especially prone to the evil of slavery. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mali
- prmph 5y ago
  > The [Viking's] wealth was built almost entirely by violent plunder of other nations .... Maybe that's why we don't hear so much about the [Vikings]... Oh wait, we continually hear about the glorious "exploits" of the Vikings.
  - neartheplain 5y ago
    You've misunderstood. Read the last sentence of my comment again, the bit after the comma.
    - prmph 5y ago
      Well, I showed that a statement you made is not supported by the evidence. As for this supposed "Mansa Musa's wealth was built almost entirely by slaves", where's your evidence for that?
      - neartheplain 5y ago
        You ignored the explicit meaning of my comment, rewrote it to mean something entirely different, and now claim to have disproved that version of it. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. >As for this supposed "Mansa Musa's wealth was built almost entirely by slaves", where's your evidence for that? Again I'll refer you to my original comment, specfically the "before colonization" section of the Slavery in Mali Wikipedia link. It cites various books and articles written and researched by professional historians.

by prmph 5y ago

astine 5y ago

I do hope you are familiar with the civilizations of Kush, Aksum, Congo, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, etc. You could also add the Swahili coast to this list.

selimthegrim 5y ago
as well as Nubia/Meroë
edmcnulty101 5y ago
Did any of the non-northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups ever advanced to technologically advanced civilizations? Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?
- dang 5y ago
  You started a tedious race flamewar and perpetuated it downthread. We ban accounts that do that. Please don't do that on HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- prmph 5y ago
  Is that a rhetorical questions or you genuinely seek to expand your knowledge? In case it’s the latter, then your slant of: > northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups is weird. Many European cultures were influenced by the Romans, who were influenced by the Greeks, who were influenced by other cultures. The flow of ideas across time and space is what actually gives rise to civilizations. So what if an African civilization was influenced by another civilization? Does that make it less meaningful? As for what civilizations Africa had, you can read about Kerma/Napata/Kush/Nubia, Aksum, Kongo, Swahili coast, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Egypt, etc. However, I suspect you have your mind made up, hence the dismissive “Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?”
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    There's lots of people in this thread demonstrating exactly what this Great Zimbabwe project is about. The history of Africa that many of us have been taught is basically "there were a bunch of black people living in mud huts forever, and then the White Man came and gave them civilisation". This is an ideological and inaccurate portrayal history designed to make African people look backwards. In actuality, despite a challenging climate, various African groups built cities and civilisations. The idea to use European civilisational and technological development as the measure for all other places is also absurd, because you could sample various points in time where e.g. Britain was a place of warring tribes with pointy sticks while China or the Middle East had thriving civilisations. Real life history is not a game of Civ where everyone starts at the same point and races through a bunch of predetermined milestones.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        It's like you didn't even read my comment. Why do you think everybody is just stacking technologies on top of a shared pool? That's a post-globalisation concept. African people discovered plenty of technologies including metal forging - but they were less technologically advanced than Europeans when they were invaded. Why? Because the material situation in Europe is ideal for technological development. The climate is temperate, food is abundant, the Romans went everywhere dumping their own advanced tech on everybody, probably other factors a historian could elaborate. There are plenty of alternative explanations to the one you're implying, and the one that's been historically taught, which is "black people are not capable of developing civilisation or technology". Edit given you appended "at any point in time": basically no milestone technological development has happened anywhere for quite some time now, excluding computers and the Internet. Everything's incremental now. Plus for much of that time many African countries have either been trying to recover from colonialism or been caught up in civil war (which should be expected when a power vacuum is created). I would say that mobile money is a good candidate for a meaningful invention though, and that came out of Nigeria.
- astine 5y ago
  Well, the Swahili coast is nowhere near the Nile/Mediterranean and it was quite advanced. But that was connected to the Arab world via trade and I think what you mean is did any African societies develop to a similar level of sophistication without influences from outside of Africa? That's a complicated question that I'm not qualified to answer (Congo maybe?), but I'd point out that even in the ancient near east, trade and contact with foreigners preceded the development of civilization in those regions and European civilization especially owes a lot of its success to contact with outside civilizations. So the fact the most well-known African civilizations had regular trade contacts with Eurasia should not do much to diminish the accomplishments of those civilizations as such. For example, it's possible that iron smelting began in the Sahel in Africa, and from there spread to the Near East/Mediterranean rather than the other way around which would mean that Africa entered the iron age well before the rest of the world. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa
- woodruffw 5y ago
  This is a weird dichotomy, given that the Roman state has its origin in a series of tribal unifications and that "technologically advanced" is a relative term (i.e., relative to neighboring societies and groups) when doing anthropological research on ancient civilizations.

_etyf 5y ago

The Mali Empire is particularly fascinating. Mansa Musa, who ruled that empire c. 1324, remains by some estimates the richest man who ever lived. His net worth is estimated by historians at around $400 billion USD. Elon Musk's net worth today is around $280 billion, for comparison. Mansa Musa's wealth was built almost entirely by slaves, who were forced to mine gold and made up much of the Empire's military. Slavery in Mali continues to this day with an estimated 200,000 people held in direct servitude to a master [1]. Maybe that's why we don't hear so much about the Mali Empire, or the Ghana Empire for that matter. Personally I think it's history worth knowing, all the moreso if it shatters the myth that any one race is especially prone to the evil of slavery. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mali

prmph 5y ago
> The [Viking's] wealth was built almost entirely by violent plunder of other nations .... Maybe that's why we don't hear so much about the [Vikings]... Oh wait, we continually hear about the glorious "exploits" of the Vikings.
- neartheplain 5y ago
  You've misunderstood. Read the last sentence of my comment again, the bit after the comma.
  - prmph 5y ago
    Well, I showed that a statement you made is not supported by the evidence. As for this supposed "Mansa Musa's wealth was built almost entirely by slaves", where's your evidence for that?
    - neartheplain 5y ago
      You ignored the explicit meaning of my comment, rewrote it to mean something entirely different, and now claim to have disproved that version of it. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. >As for this supposed "Mansa Musa's wealth was built almost entirely by slaves", where's your evidence for that? Again I'll refer you to my original comment, specfically the "before colonization" section of the Slavery in Mali Wikipedia link. It cites various books and articles written and researched by professional historians.