Axum is an ancient city in Africa; this city is very different than the others found in Sub Saharan Africa. Axum adopted Christianity during the 4th century; which is also the time Constantine adopted it in the Roman Empire. King Ezana, the monarch of the time, decided to adopt Christianity. Today, Axum is known as the religious capital of the Christians of Ethiopia.
Axum was different from other cities for another reason. The city of Axum used plows to farm wheat and other crops. Most other cities used hand tools like hoes and digging sticks. Axum harvested wheat, millet, and barley. They also harvested a very unique grain to the region; teff. Teff is a highly nutritious grain that was hard to come by in Africa.
This may not seem very interesting, but if you think about the things that are present in the United States today; Axum was an amazing city in Africa. The main religion in the US today is Christianity and Axum was the first city in Africa to use it as their main religion. Their farming system is also very common these days; to harvest most of our crops we us big plows and other machinery. Imagine if we just used hand tools like hoes or digging sticks; I don’t think that would turn out so well.
My information can be found in the book Ways of The World by Robert Strayer and http://www.incredible-ethiopia.com/Axum.html.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Where is sub-Saharan Africa?
Recently I just discovered what the geographical area of the term sub-Saharan Africa is. Now I’m sure many of you are already questioning my intelligence, but I am also sure that many of you have never actually thought about where sub-Saharan Africa is. We are all guilty of just going through the motions for our classes, and not really bothering to look up information apart from what the professor says. I myself just did an assignment and watched a video, but never bothered to look up the terms required to further understand and grasp the topic.
Now, in hindsight, I probably should have known where sub-Saharan Africa was, but we all have those days, and I’m pretty sure many of you are wondering if I’m ever going to tell you where sub-Saharan Africa is. Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the continent that is below the Sahara Dessert, and I think the light bulb just came on and the room got a little brighter.
Another thing I learned about Africa is that North Africa is linked to the Arabian world. For me, this information also caused a light bulb to go off, because much of sub-Saharan African’s history is missing, or destroyed, while many are aware of Northern African history, in places like Egypt. I think that a large part of the reason why North Africa’s history is more known than sub-Saharan Africa, because many settlers viewed southern African’s as primitive, and unable to build some of the archaeological findings that were found by explorers.
Now, in hindsight, I probably should have known where sub-Saharan Africa was, but we all have those days, and I’m pretty sure many of you are wondering if I’m ever going to tell you where sub-Saharan Africa is. Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the continent that is below the Sahara Dessert, and I think the light bulb just came on and the room got a little brighter.
Another thing I learned about Africa is that North Africa is linked to the Arabian world. For me, this information also caused a light bulb to go off, because much of sub-Saharan African’s history is missing, or destroyed, while many are aware of Northern African history, in places like Egypt. I think that a large part of the reason why North Africa’s history is more known than sub-Saharan Africa, because many settlers viewed southern African’s as primitive, and unable to build some of the archaeological findings that were found by explorers.
References:
Zimbabwe -- Lost and Found
We watched a video in class the other day on lost civilizations that focused primarily on Africa and the argument of who occupied it first, that black people or white people. The video documents the struggles of archaeologists and African citizens to uncover the truth about who the areas belonged to first. In particular, the portion of the video on Zimbabwe interested me. The video talked about why the civilization, as well as who first inhabited it, were forgotten and therefore claimed by white people.
Great Zimbabwe was first inhabited by the Shona speaking people in about 500 A.D. The Shona translation of Zimbabwe is "house of rock". Zimbabwe was called so for the obvious reason that they built their entire city of stone, which they created starting around 1100 AD. There was more than one area of the City of Great Zimbabwe; the Hill Complex, built first, the Great Enclosure, built second, and the Valley Complex which was built last in the 15th century. All areas of Zimbabwe were massive, but the largest was the Great Enclosure which had walls up to 32 feet high, 17 feet thick, and 300 feet around.
The Shona people left Zimbabwe at some point in the 15th century and left nothing behind to identify themselves as the creators of the legacy that was the great city. When Europeans discovered the city after the Shona had left, they believed that nothing as great as Zimbabwe with its massive structures and and complexity could have been created by black Africans, and thus must have been created by white people. Because the citizens of Zimbabwe did not document in writing and mostly passed on stories by word of mouth through the generations, there was nothing to document the founding of Zimbabwe.
As time passed, many archaeologists studies the areas of Zimbabwe. For a long time, people still refused to believe that black people could have created the massively amazing city. Eventually, however, some archaeologists unearthed artifacts that were irrefutably of African crafting. These findings proved that the structures of Zimbabwe were in fact created by the Africans and they deserve the credit for their doings.
It is not surprising to me that Europeans thought in such shallow minded ways as to deem the black Africans as incapable of creating anything of a massive, complex, or beautiful nature. I am glad, however, that archaeologists who disagreed with such erroneous assumptions continued to search for untouched lands to dig and find proof. The Shona people deserve to have the credit for building such an amazing city, and thanks to those who want to know the truth, they do.
Informational sources:
Time Life's Lost Civilizations Series - http://www.timelife.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=1001&langId=-1&top_category=&productId=211131
http://theculturedtraveler.com/Heritage/Archives/Zimbabwe.htm
http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Africa/GreatZimbabwe.html
Great Zimbabwe was first inhabited by the Shona speaking people in about 500 A.D. The Shona translation of Zimbabwe is "house of rock". Zimbabwe was called so for the obvious reason that they built their entire city of stone, which they created starting around 1100 AD. There was more than one area of the City of Great Zimbabwe; the Hill Complex, built first, the Great Enclosure, built second, and the Valley Complex which was built last in the 15th century. All areas of Zimbabwe were massive, but the largest was the Great Enclosure which had walls up to 32 feet high, 17 feet thick, and 300 feet around.
The Shona people left Zimbabwe at some point in the 15th century and left nothing behind to identify themselves as the creators of the legacy that was the great city. When Europeans discovered the city after the Shona had left, they believed that nothing as great as Zimbabwe with its massive structures and and complexity could have been created by black Africans, and thus must have been created by white people. Because the citizens of Zimbabwe did not document in writing and mostly passed on stories by word of mouth through the generations, there was nothing to document the founding of Zimbabwe.
As time passed, many archaeologists studies the areas of Zimbabwe. For a long time, people still refused to believe that black people could have created the massively amazing city. Eventually, however, some archaeologists unearthed artifacts that were irrefutably of African crafting. These findings proved that the structures of Zimbabwe were in fact created by the Africans and they deserve the credit for their doings.
It is not surprising to me that Europeans thought in such shallow minded ways as to deem the black Africans as incapable of creating anything of a massive, complex, or beautiful nature. I am glad, however, that archaeologists who disagreed with such erroneous assumptions continued to search for untouched lands to dig and find proof. The Shona people deserve to have the credit for building such an amazing city, and thanks to those who want to know the truth, they do.
Informational sources:
Time Life's Lost Civilizations Series - http://www.timelife.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=1001&langId=-1&top_category=&productId=211131
http://theculturedtraveler.com/Heritage/Archives/Zimbabwe.htm
http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Africa/GreatZimbabwe.html
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