Page 19 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 20

History

fishing based culture. tions where she states that: “The
7. Africans mummified their dead raw values in Table 6 suggest that
4. Africans were the first to en- 9,000 years ago. A mummified Egyptians had the ‘super-Negroid’
gage in mining 43,000 years ago. In infant was found under the Uan body plan described by Robins
1964 a hematite mine was found in Muhuggiag rock shelter in south (1983). The values for the brachial
Swaziland at Bomvu Ridge in the western Libya. The infant was and crural indices show that the dis-
Ngwenya mountain range. Ultimate- buried in the foetal position and was tal segments of each limb are longer
ly 300,000 artefacts were recovered mummified using a very sophisticat- relative to the proximal segments
including thousands of stone-made ed technique that must have taken than in many ‘African’ populations.”
mining tools. Adrian Boshier, one hundreds of years to evolve. The
of the archaeologists on the site, technique predates the earliest mum- 11. The ancient Egyptians had Afro
dated the mine to a staggering mies known in Ancient Egypt by at combs. One writer tells us that the
43,200 years old. least 1,000 years. Carbon dating is Egyptians “manufactured a very
controversial but the mummy may striking range of combs in ivory: the
5. Africans pioneered basic arithme- date from 7438 (±220) BC. shape of these is distinctly African
tic 25,000 years ago. The Ishango and is like the combs used even
bone is a tool handle with notches 8. Africans carved the world’s first today by Africans and those of Afri-
carved into it found in the Ishango colossal sculpture 7,000 or more can descent.”
region of Zaïre (now called Congo) years ago. The Great Sphinx of
near Lake Edward. The bone tool Giza was fashioned with the head of 12. The Funerary Complex in the
was originally thought to have been a man combined with the body of a ancient Egyptian city of Saqqara
over 8,000 years old, but a more lion. A key and important question is the oldest building that tourists
sensitive recent dating has given raised by this monument was: How regularly visit today. An outer wall,
dates of 25,000 years old. On the old is it? In October 1991 Professor now mostly in ruins, surrounded
tool are 3 rows of notches. Row 1 Robert Schoch, a geologist from the whole structure. Through the
shows three notches carved next to Boston University, demonstrated entrance are a series of columns, the
six, four carved next to eight, ten that the Sphinx was sculpted be- first stone-built columns known to
carved next to two fives and finally a tween 5000 BC and 7000 BC, dates historians. The North House also
seven. The 3 and 6, 4 and 8, and 10 that he considered conservative. has ornamental columns built into
and 5, represent the process of dou- the walls that have papyrus-like cap-
bling. Row 2 shows eleven notches 9. On the 1 March 1979, the New itals. Also inside the complex is the
carved next to twenty-one notches, York Times carried an article on its Ceremonial Court, made of lime-
and nineteen notches carved next to front page also page sixteen that was stone blocks that have been quarried
nine notches. This represents 10 + entitled Nubian Monarchy called and then shaped. In the centre of
1, 20 + 1, 20 – 1 and 10 – 1. Final- Oldest. In this article we were as- the complex is the Step Pyramid, the
ly, Row 3 shows eleven notches, sured that: “Evidence of the oldest first of 90 Egyptian pyramids.
thirteen notches, seventeen notches recognizable monarchy in human
and nineteen notches. 11, 13, 17 and history, preceding the rise of the 13. The first Great Pyramid of Giza,
19 are the prime numbers between earliest Egyptian kings by several the most extraordinary building in
10 and 20. generations, has been discovered in history, was a staggering 481 feet
artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. tall – the equivalent of a 40-storey
6. Africans cultivated crops 12,000 the territory of the northern Sudan building. It was made of 2.3 million
years ago, the first known advanc- and the southern portion of mod- blocks of limestone and granite,
es in agriculture. Professor Fred ern Egypt.) some weighing 100 tons.
Wendorf discovered that people in
Egypt’s Western Desert cultivated 10. The ancient Egyptians had the 14. The ancient Egyptian city of
crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, same type of tropically adapted skel- Kahun was the world’s first planned
dates, legumes, lentils and wheat. etal proportions as modern Black city. Rectangular and walled, the city
Their ancient tools were also re- Africans. A 2003 paper appeared was divided into two parts. One part
covered. There were grindstones, in American Journal of Physical housed the wealthier inhabitants –
milling stones, cutting blades, hide Anthropology by Dr Sonia Zakrze- the scribes, officials and foremen.
scrapers, engraving burins, and mor- wski entitled Variation in Ancient The other part housed the ordinary
tars and pestles. Egyptian Stature and Body Propor- people. The streets of the western

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