Page 23 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 20

History

into a very imposing complex. A several places. The best preserved century AD influenced the writ-
colonial report of the city from portion is that known as sirati (the ing script of Armenia. A Russian
1902, described it as “a network of bridge) a little north of the eastern historian noted that: “Soon after
buildings covering an area of 33 gate . . . The main city walls here its creation, the Ethiopic vocalised
acres and surrounded by a wall 20 appear to have provided a very script began to influence the scripts
to 30 feet high outside and 15 feet strongly guarded entrance about 30 of Armenia and Georgia. D. A.
inside . . . in itself no mean citadel”. feet wide.” Olderogge suggested that Mesrop
Mashtotz used the vocalised Ethi-
59. A sixteenth century traveller 63. The Nigerian city of Kano in opic script when he invented the
visited the central African civilisa- 1851 produced an estimated 10 mil- Armenian alphabet.”
tion of Kanem-Borno and com- lion pairs of sandals and 5 million
mented that the emperor’s cavalry hides each year for export. 69. “In the first half of the first
had golden “stirrups, spurs, bits and millennium CE,” says a modern
buckles.” Even the ruler’s dogs had 64. In 1246 AD Dunama II of scholar, Ethiopia “was ranked as
“chains of the finest gold”. Kanem-Borno exchanged embassies one of the world’s greatest em-
with Al-Mustansir, the king of Tu- pires”. A Persian cleric of the third
60. One of the government posi- nis. He sent the North African court century AD identified it as the third
tions in mediaeval Kanem-Borno a costly present, which apparently most important state in the world
was Astronomer Royal. included a giraffe. An old chronicle after Persia and Rome.
noted that the rare animal “created a
61. Ngazargamu, the capital city sensation in Tunis”. 70. Ethiopia has 11 underground
of Kanem-Borno, became one of mediaeval churches built by being
the largest cities in the seventeenth 65. By the third century BC the city carved out of the ground. In the
century world. By 1658 AD, the me- of Carthage on the coast of Tunisia twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD,
tropolis, according to an architectur- was opulent and impressive. It had a Roha became the new capital of the
al scholar housed “about quarter of population of 700,000 and may even Ethiopians. Conceived as a New
a million people”. It had 660 streets. have approached a million. Lining Jerusalem by its founder, Emperor
Many were wide and unbending, both sides of three streets were Lalibela (c.1150-1230), it contains
reflective of town planning. rows of tall houses six storeys high. 11 churches, all carved out of the
rock of the mountains by hammer
62. The Nigerian city of Surame 66. The Ethiopian city of Axum and chisel. All of the temples were
flourished in the sixteenth century. has a series of 7 giant obelisks that carved to a depth of 11 metres or
Even in ruin it was an impressive date from perhaps 300 BC to 300 so below ground level. The largest is
sight, built on a horizontal vertical AD. They have details carved into the House of the Redeemer, a stag-
grid. A modern scholar describes them that represent windows and gering 33.7 metres long, 23.7 metres
it thus: “The walls of Surame are doorways of several storeys. The wide and 11.5 metres deep.
about 10 miles in circumference largest obelisk, now fallen, is in fact
and include many large bastions or “the largest monolith ever made 71. Lalibela is not the only place in
walled suburbs running out at right anywhere in the world”. It is 108 Ethiopia to have such wonders. A
angles to the main wall. The large feet long, weighs a staggering 500 cotemporary archaeologist reports
compound at Kanta is still visible tons, and represents a thirteen-sto- research that was conducted in the
in the centre, with ruins of many rey building. region in the early 1970’s when:
buildings, one of which is said to “startling numbers of churches built
have been two-storied. The striking 67. Ethiopia minted its own coins in caves or partially or completely
feature of the walls and whole ruins over 1,500 years ago. One schol- cut from the living rock were re-
is the extensive use of stone and ar wrote that: “Almost no other vealed not only in Tigre and Lalibela
tsokuwa (laterite gravel) or very hard contemporary state anywhere in the but as far south as Addis Ababa.
red building mud, evidently brought world could issue in gold, a state- Soon at least 1,500 were known. At
from a distance. There is a big ment of sovereignty achieved only least as many more probably await
mound of this near the north gate by Rome, Persia, and the Kushan revelation.”
about 8 feet in height. The walls kingdom in northern India at the
show regular courses of masonry time.” 72. In 1209 AD Emperor Lalibela
to a height of 20 feet and more in 68. The Ethiopian script of the 4th of Ethiopia sent an embassy to

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