Africa's Great Civilizations (Documentary)

[Music] [Music] no matter what we look like today we're all directly descended from ancestors who evolved on the african continent the oldest human population emerged in africa africa is the home of the world's most ancient civilizations far too often africa has been thought of as isolated and static but nothing could be further from the truth the roots of every family tree trace here to africa and so does the history of civilization in this series we'll be going on a journey through 200 000 years of history we'll explore great cities built along africa's extensive trade networks discover art of unparalleled beauty and technical brilliance and marvel with thousands of years of breathtaking architecture [Music] driving all this were africans who prospered created and suffered through their rich sometimes tragic yet endlessly fascinating history this is a seldom told story of how africans by shaping their own worlds shape the larger world as well [Music] africa's great rift valley this is where humanity's story most likely begins homo sapiens anatomically modern humans have lived here for about two hundred thousand years [Music] this great geological fault stretching 3 000 miles through africa from ethiopia to malawi with its great lakes and savannas full of animal life gave our ancestors the perfect environment in which to evolve the rift body it's like a crucible like in a chemistry lab where humans have been tested because nature constantly tests different varieties of species those who can fix the environment or the situation that is around survive and continue and the others you know get replaced in 1997 the rains fell heavily in ethiopia's northern rift valley layers of sediment dislodged revealing an extraordinary find a human skull it's one of the oldest homo sapien remains to be found anywhere in the world scientists name the skull edultu meaning firstborn an adult who walked these valleys 160 thousand years ago dr burhani osval was one of the scientists who made the discovery this is one of the few specimens that we found almost complete called the face and the brain case and the most impressive thing about this is even at this early age the face is more than homo sapien the brain case is modern homo sapien the shape from the back is a modern homo sapien it's exactly us the anatomy and age of adulthood skull provided the strongest evidence yet that anatomically modern humans emerged in africa in each stage of the evolution toward modern humans it takes place in africa when we found homo sapiens adult it was very important because it pushes the time far back that means anatomically modern homo sapiens started walking on this planet much earlier than we thought and the interesting thing is at the same time europe was packed with neanderthals which are completely different from homo sapiens one of africa's most respected paleo anthropologists is dr richard leakey he and his colleagues have made groundbreaking discoveries about how our species evolved on the african continent i've come to meet him at his institute in nairobi kenya how do we know that the first human beings evolved on the african continent the fossil evidence and the archaeological evidence that's come to light in the last 20 30 years is very very substantial testable and real why do you think this idea was so disturbing in some quarters historically the science of paleoanthropology or anthropology came came into existence at a time when we really knew very little um africans were considered primitive heathen who knows in the origins of the um subhuman status of africans begins really in the 18th century and the enlightenment ironically enough yeah they weren't really considered to be one of our species continuing archaeological finds and now major scientific breakthroughs have confirmed that africa absolutely was the cradle of humanity it's like if we were exploring our past and looking at where our roots are sunk down we'll find that they're the deepest in africa and that's where we get most of our genetics geneticists have identified an astonishing link to our earliest human relations through our dna every living person shares a common direct maternal ancestor she's known as mitochondrial eve we believe that she was part of a small group of humans who lived in this region of africa around the time of the adult two skull our common ancestry through the mitochondria leave means that our genetic differences are literally skin deep that at the bottom we are all descended from the same family mitochondrial dna found in our cells is the genetic signature passed down through females from mother to child what it means is that this was a woman hypothetically who lived 200 000 years ago who had enough daughters in a continuous chain straight back so that her mitochondrial dna survived absolutely right and all of us today no matter what we look like are descended from black ancestors yeah that is exactly that's what happened all the humans or the homo sapiens all over the world be it yellow white black we are descended from a common ancestor in africa what would life for human beings two hundred thousand years ago have been like in this valley two hundred thousand years ago i would imagine the groups were quite small the dangers around you know we had predators things like hyenas and groups of carnivores all around it's difficult for us to imagine prehistoric life or a world without any trappings of the things that have come to define humanness over the last 10 000 years and so in the modern zeitgeist the only thing that comes close is actually the post-apocalyptic zombie shows for example you have small bands of people roaming the landscape working together fighting off predators that are trying to eat them and worried about the other groups of humans that they might bump into so there are a lot of interesting parallels that could be drawn modern homo sapiens initially lived only in africa slowly spreading across the continent over and twenty thousand years [Music] but between eighty and fifty thousand years ago they began successfully to populate the rest of the world so what happened eighty 000 years ago well i wish we knew what happened but there's no no doubt at all that a very small population somewhere in that time zone got some adaptation that gave them a huge advantage i have a feeling it might have been speech i don't know what it was but they spread very quickly out of africa so 80 000 years ago the human community was black whatever they were in the world but when those early human beings migrated out of africa they weren't traveling alone they were carrying something within them and that something had developed slowly over millennia it was culture that culture would develop to include the greatest achievements of human creativity and it began here on the african continent in 1991 archaeologist christopher henshawwood exploring his grandfather's land discovered the opening to a cave on a cliff face above the crashing waves where the atlantic and indian oceans collide today we call this the blombos cave inside is evidence of over 140 000 years of human habitation and signs of the first form of human creative expression before this discovery we thought the earliest examples of artwork were found in the lasko caves in france dating back only 35 000 years ago when people began making discoveries in southern africa like at blombos cave they realized that actually this record of artistic production goes back much further than anyone guessed in france cave painting's 30 000 years old 35 000 at the oldest in southern africa we're talking about ninety thousand a hundred thousand years the blombos cave is a relatively recent discovery so um the more research we do in africa and also the more dating we conduct this will change people's minds of how we saw human history and the evidence shows they were already assessing the cognitive behavior that we see as defining the modern human before they left africa small ochre blocks found in the blombos cave completely changed how we understand the development of human creativity one of these blocks covered in curious markings is now housed in the ezeko museum in cape town it's unique in terms of firstly where it was found and the date it's pretty old 77 000 years ago what is interesting is the etching it's almost a hashed etching on the one edge and that is done with purpose i've often thought that if pigment was put on it you could use it as a stamp which to me screams artistic expression meaning symbolic meaning so this would make it one of the earliest artistic artifacts that we have this is a sign of a group of people who had managed to emerge above immediate concerns for food and basic human survival that says something about africa and africans i think so it shows that these people were cognizant of their surroundings they were socially aware it shows the birthplace of a very rich cultural heritage that has in the past not been recognized this is artwork alongside the ochre block a painting kit was found that ochre block was not only decorated it was ground down mixed with water and minerals and used as paint once a group is into symbolic expression whether it be via beads or using colorants to paint the body or to paint walls that's going to be another very important behavior to use for communicating complex sets of ideas about group identity and also to help transmit information to other members of your immediate group much of this early art has perished with time but cave art provides us with the only snapshots of how early human beings live hunted and even loved we just get the durable element but when you're painting your skin when you're painting hides that you might be wearing when you're using feathers and other kinds of really special objects but perishable objects you know when we look at societies today they have this incredible range of things that would never survive in the archaeological record deep in the libyan desert in a remote cave at wadi sora miles from any lush vegetation today a stunning visual record reveals a quite surprising picture of daily life in the sahara seven thousand years ago the walls of the cave team with depictions of people swimming and animals grazing glimpses into a long lost landscape you have the cave of swimmers there you have your history recording if you like where we are getting an idea of a place where we today cannot even imagine any life surviving we have lakes hence the depictions of the swimmers and very abundant wildlife thriving in the sahara a place now we know for its sand dunes however the sahara was once a completely different environment capable of sustaining these emerging human communities today the tsar is very barren and dry but from rock art we find like a lot of aquatic fauna hippos crocodile giraffes a very vibrant biodiversity so in this case art verifies the archaeological evidence yes tells us more about how the landscape has changed or how the environment has changed over 10 000 years ago the sahara was actually a green savannah there were animals fishes lakes rivers and right across what is now the sahara the environment was green this is the kind of environment that attracts the great herbivores the large herding animals the hippopotamuses the rhinos this would have been a time when those have been important animals although early humans continued to be hunter-gatherers over time they began to cultivate plants and around ten thousand years ago across africa and the middle east they began to breed animals as livestock and domesticate cattle the sahara became this band where these people spread their livestock raising everywhere across the sahara you have vast scenes of paintings of these animals but also i think it kind of also shows that this is then going towards the domestication of animals and settle in a sedentary society when you look at africa it's the cradle of mankind but looking into the development of agriculture it becomes a cradle of civilization between 4 800 and 4200 bc more than a thousand years before the rise of ancient egypt in the areas west of the nile the first complex african society forms it's not a settled society of towns but it's people who raise great herds of cattle for three thousand years these communities and the world around them continue to evolve farming developed and populations grew but by 4000 bc vast areas of the lush savannah had turned into desert life for the people the green sahara is brutally transformed everything changes setting civilization in africa on a radical new path there was a slow changing climate thus making traditional pastoral ways of life far more difficult for people in the face of this climate change the populations of the sahara dispersed and many people migrated towards the fertile lands of the nile valley becoming the ancestors of both the egyptians and the nubians the vedant value of the nile was an attractive place for communities to settle the nile is like this green river through a desert and the regular floods create this incredible soil so that once you have the domestication of plants this becomes the bread basket of the mediterranean basin and you've got that happening as people are developing villages and states there's pressures that arise as population grows that leads to foundation of more complex societies the population becomes divided between the food producing groups and the non-food producing groups and what we see with the non-food producing groups is that they become artisans professional builders so they have a surplus of food and this is the point at which we start seeing things that we might call civilization burial pits in the nile valley have been the source of rare and unique artifacts dating back more than 6 000 years they show a rich creative culture these prestige items were crafted by artisans to be enjoyed by elites how old is this so this dates about 3600 bc really this is 6 000 years ago yes so the brothers and sisters back in the nile valley were combing out their hair with an afro comb yeah just like africans these long thick cones would have been perfect for african hair and this is an item that would proclaim status and identity and make a statement and they're often found in the burial still in the hair very prominently placed so these symbols would have been visible just the way black people wear them today absolutely black people were combing their hair with afro combs i thought we invented this in the 60s amazing so the uh barrels of that date were pit burials um and the dry sand often that preserves organic materials um we can actually do an archaeology of hairdos and hairstyles oh what kind of hairstyle they've got all sorts we've got the use of henna and fake hair and big bouffants there's even a suggestion we've got some mohawks as well that's astonishing so the people who made this were highly skilled crafts people they were making beautiful pottery very skilled at making stone vessels all up and down the nile valley at this time we see groups creating very vibrant personal culture that they would wear and display we get this coming out of people from the sahara bringing ideas that even more complex larger scale institutions can be built and then development of little tiny kingdoms different groups are uniting under powerful figures or perhaps local deities or fetishes or emblems and then these groups consolidate one is victorious over another they get larger and larger and smaller in number in 1988 archaeologists discovered a tomb at abydos 300 miles south of cairo the tomb is thought to contain one of egypt's earliest rulers credited with consolidating the lands that would become ancient egypt he's known as the scorpion king and is believed to have ruled at the end of the fourth millennium bc little was known about him or his reign but his royal tomb housed 150 small ivory tags covered in carved symbols that help to rewrite the history of civilization these simple ivory tags revealed something astonishing something that overturned what archaeologists believed about how our ancestors communicated the symbols on these tags aren't artworks they are in fact the world's first writing egyptian writing as we know it as in fully developed egyptian hieroglyphs appear first around 3250 bce and some of the earliest pieces are these little labels these little ivory tags from tomb at abidos similar tags from this burial complex are now kept at the petri museum in london this is a formative stage of hieroglyphic writing so what does this say it's been suggested that it might be a place name this is a prestige item and what was it used for so you can see there's a hole just drilled through there and that would have been tied to a box or or a bag indicating property so this would have said this property belongs to alice it could have done or it could have said this material comes from this part of egypt and do you have any idea what the function of this property identification system was this object is uh only being used by the elite by royalty and it's about the royal ownership of parts of egypt's parts of labor over materials we used to believe the first writing began in mesopotamia modern-day iraq and syria but these small tags proved that writing developed simultaneously and independently here in africa as to which language is older there's a huge debate that continues to rage i think we can say that ancient egyptian writing develops independent of rioting in ancient mesopotamia and develops really almost at the same time although this egyptian writing appears to be in some frequent use a little bit before we seem to get true fully developed kinear form right the concentration of resources led to a concentration of power resulting in the first kings ruling over wide areas maintaining that power required the ability to communicate and maximizing the capacity to communicate led to the development of writing and so writing became a tool for organizing society also became a tool for domination in that sense became a tool for for for ruling over people the evolution of writing enabled egypt's rulers to maintain power and establish a system of royal ascendancy it looks as though tomb uj that has this earliest egyptian writing in it it's also the first tomb that can be followed in a line of development that leads us right to the pyramids of the old kingdom from the first king of the first dynasty until the pyramids is a relatively short period of time so you have the creation of an egyptian bureaucracy and within a few centuries you have the construction of the pyramids and the most spectacular pyramid of all is the great pyramid of giza it's the most famous and the most iconic building in the entire world a triumph of scientific innovation and artistic imagination built for the pharaoh khufu who came to the throne around 2600 bc and ruled for about 27 years the great pyramid took his entire reign to complete the project required two million three hundred thousand stone blocks each weighing an average of two and a half tons the pyramid would remain the tallest building on earth for nearly 4 000 years the great pyramid is an african construction and we shouldn't forget that and i find it fantastic to think about khufu and his courtiers sitting around and saying we're going to do something that no one else has conceived of let's make something bigger more impressive with the ancient pyramids we really see all of the strong suits of ancient egypt come to the fore so you have their geological wealth of limestone and you also have the advanced egyptian mathematics and engineering skills alongside this very large labor force you don't pull that off with hebrew slaves and all of these myths that really have no basis in reality the pyramids were built by egyptians they were conscripted from all parts of the country when the nile is in flood that of course plays a role too during those months farmers could do very little with their fields and they could be employed to build the pyramids and that was also part of the ways that you could pay your taxes in ancient egypt but while egypt would dominate northeastern africa further south on the banks of the nile in modern-day sudan another center of power was growing it was the capital of the ancient kingdom of cush karma digging in the sudanese sand between 1913 and 1916 archaeologists led by harvard professor george reisner stumbled across a pit filled with human bones in the burial mound of one of the last kings of karma around 322 remains of humans were found in one elite burial in the eastern cemetery this of course initially was thought to be human sacrifice reisner estimated the bodies dated back to about 1500 bc but evidence in other burial sites shows the practice of human sacrifice dates back even further death and karma particularly for the elite seem to be something of a spectacle however these may very well have been retainers who would have served the king in life and thus would serve him in death even the idea that these were slaves captured in foreign wars and killed as a sort of triumphal act the earliest settlement in kurma has been dated to 4000 bc settlements in mesopotamia formed into the earliest cities but recent archaeological finds show that kerma was developing into a complex society at the same time by 2500 bc it's estimated that the city's population had grown to over 10 000 and its power and wealth rivaled that of its northern neighbor egypt today little remains of what was once a magnificent planned city built around monumental architecture as grand as that of early egypt the archaeology of the city itself centered around what seems to be a vast structure this is known as the defuffer different scholars have different ideas about what it could be in terms of mudbrick architecture it certainly seems to be the largest and earliest in africa the nubian kingdom had its own distinct culture and religion and was renowned for its deadly archers this was a defensive town so there is a big defence wall surrounding the area most of the houses here was built of moderate so people still use the same technique from the past until now the town itself was well organized it was divided to several parts in its part there is a big hut for prince and his control his area while in the central part for the king for over 2000 years the kingdoms of cush in egypt prospered and grew as kindred civilizations at opposite ends of the nile valley by 1500 bc egypt was the world's greatest power controlling trade routes to the middle east but egypt's gateway to the precious resources of the interior of africa was kush kush supplied luxury items such as gold to egypt's flourishing 18th dynasty from tutankhamun's face mask to the trading expeditions led by hopship suit and the wealth amassed by queen nefertiti egyptian pharaohs required endless supplies of exotic goods to help their passage into the afterlife it's difficult to imagine any people anywhere who resisted the finality of death more lavishly than did the egyptians the king's sacred tomb would be filled with every conceivable luxury to accompany him through the afterlife leopard skins ostrich feathers ivory precious stones and gold from nubia's bountifully laden minds gold is the skin of the gods the god is hator as face of the sun is the woman's face on foss with the cowl ears as gold it is a metal that never corrodes and so they recognized this as being the perfect material for funerary goods we see the royals being adorned with gold and we find from myriad uh even lesser elite houses we see gold objects the gold mining regions of the eastern desert really force the ancient egyptians and the ancient nubians to continue the close associations they already culturally had it's one of the reasons why egypt can't let go of nubia and it's one of the reasons nubia is both so attractive and potentially dangerous the relationship between egypt and the cushite kingdom was one of intimacy proximity and bitter rivalry the egyptians felt threatened by nubia and wanted to control the gold mines themselves the kingdom of karma and egypt seem to have had what you might call a difficult relationship at this point the egyptians were writing of nubia as vile kush so we know there was certainly a lot of venom from the egyptian side eventually rivalry led to conflict culminating in a war that would bring to an end 15 centuries of independent cushite rule every time you have civilizations develop in the world what you have is warfare and bloodshed because other people want the stuff that you've got and that becomes a part of the history of civilization around 1500 bc standing at the prowl of a flotilla of ships pharaoh tutmos the first led his troops to war against the cushite kingdom tutmos the first not born of royal blood had served as a general to the previous pharaoh and earned a reputation as a formidable military strategist [Music] for the egyptians nubia was a very strategic location what we see is topmosus going very determinedly to the south and he sacks the city of kerma to sac the capital city of this kingdom was truly a feat the nubians were well-known warriors and fighters there are stories of thousands of captured prisoners of war being executed in a variety of different ways lest anyone doubt the finality of the conquest tutmo strapped the body of the fallen nubian king to the front of his ship egypt is the chief he declared while peoples across the whole earth are her servants nubia became a second part of egypt the 18th dynasty is really a period of time when the egyptian presence in nubia expands for 400 years the people of cush would struggle under and against egyptian rule while egypt plundered the kingdom's gold mines through annual tribute kushite royal tradition survived south of the regions that egypt ruled all of nubia is incorporated into egypt more fully than ever before nubia gets a a shadow government that mirrors phronic egypt you you get a viceroy of cush the king son of cush who like pharaoh is in charge of all of nubia the egyptians also brought along their culture and their gods we know that already in the 18th dynasty the ancient egyptians were building temples in nubia two egyptian gods but egyptian gods that had a local relevance for the nubians amun god of gods in egypt for four hundred years seven hundred years later the cushites made this all-powerful deity their own incorporating him into their pantheon alongside their lion-headed god a pedomak the egyptians built an awe-inspiring temple to amun at the southernmost tip of their nubian empire at the holy site of jebel barkle this would also become a sacred place for the cushites for the ancient egyptians and the ancient cushites this pinnacle symbolized a serpent that was a protective deity on the crown of the pharaoh that spit fire and poison at the pharaoh's enemies so this is what gave jebel barkle its mystical association that that led egyptians and kushites to build and rebuild and expand their temples over the centuries but after 1100 bc parts of kush regained their independence and by 750 bc egypt following invasions by libyan tribes was greatly diminished and fragmented around 750 bc pianki a new cushite king came to the throne he was brilliant and ambitious driven in part by his fervent worship of the god amun he clearly made jebel barkle an important place he built a palace here he very significantly expanded the temple and barkle was very clearly the center of his symbolic assertion of kingship pianki turned his sights northward to egypt portraying cush as the champion of amun nubia appears to see itself as the real egypt because they're the real worshipers of the egyptian gods it's remarkable that the nubians adopted egyptian culture and religion and civilization to the point that they believed that they were better egyptians than the egyptians who are currently in control of the nile valley so when piangi invades egypt he does so in the name of the god of moon pyanki essentially cast his invasion of egypt as a holy war of the re-establishment of the proper worship of the god of moon at the head of a powerful army pianki set sail north down the nile ready to invade the once impregnable empire of egypt he ordered his men to purify themselves in the river i shall let egypt he said taste the taste of my fingers in a campaign that lasted nearly a year pianki's army conquered egypt as far north as the nile delta triumphant pianki was crowned pharaoh of nubia and egypt and founder of the 25th dynasty of egypt's pharaohs the cushites once the conquered now became the conquerors reuniting fragmented egypt under their rule we can see the nubian conquest of egypt as both a holy war and a strategic expansion to the north and obviously it was a great prize to rule both egypt and nubia they're ruling over an empire that runs from merreway down in the south clear up to the delta larger than any territory egypt itself ever ruled over in some ways it can be seen as a turning of the tables that nubia who's always the underdog now has egypt as the underdog it simply shows i think over and over again how upper egypt and nubia are so closely associated ideologically this was the start of a new era in egypt which would see it ruled by a dynasty that historians call the black pharaohs of the nile restoring prosperity and stability back to egypt but across africa in the lush forest of modern day central african republic new radical technological innovations were laying the foundation for other civilizations sometime between 1800 and 1500 bc small communities of craftspeople gathered to stoke furnaces intending to fire ceramic but in the lateritic african soil the craftsman discovered a by-product iron iron is one of those inventions that actually has a tremendous impact we suspect the first usages were for decoration for ornamentation but very quickly people would begin to see oh hey we can shape this each metal has a certain quality iron for its strength and the kind of tools that one can create with it in terms of converting economies from hunting and gathering to agriculture iron began to be used particularly as currencies but also in terms of agricultural production we previously thought that iron had been discovered in turkey around 1500 bc but new evidence reveals that iron working emerged at the same time in africa for a long time the idea that iron could be smelted in sub-saharan africa was completely dismissed the new evidence is that iron working begins right in the heart of africa we find dates of around a thousand in lake chad area 900 as we get toward the middle of nigeria 700 to 500 bc over in mali showing the spread of iron coming out of that area even with the kinds of technology that we have today it's incredibly difficult to produce a smelt in the way that people would have you know 3000 years ago people talk about civilizations and they think everything new and exciting begins in a civilization turns out when you look at history human beings create advanced new technologies out of their own experiences they don't have to live in this kind of society or that kind of society the iron working communities of central africa left little tangible evidence of their existence behind but they did leave their technological legacy together with a sophisticated artistic heritage unique to this part of africa near the center of modern-day nigeria during the first millennium bc a remarkable artistic tradition of terra cotta sculpture emerged these pieces are highly sophisticated intricately detailed and technically accomplished yet much of the culture from which they were created remains a mystery they're known as the noc terracottas and they are sublime in 1943 a farmer from a village called knock gave archaeologist bernard fagg the head of a scarecrow on closer inspection estimated that the finely sculpted head dated back to around 900 bc making it outside of egypt the earliest sculptural art found in africa they have this very elaborate hairstyles and very heavy jewelry around the neck so we assume it depicts people maybe high-ranking people in ceremonial attire [Music] current thinking is that it was probably traveling artists who were moving around creating these works for individual it could have been courts or distinctive religious traditions that certainly makes a lot of sense simply because of the breadth of the distribution of these works the height of the knock period is during the last thousand years bc this is the period in the archaeology we know the ironworking is reaching this area throughout central africa new communities were taking shape from 3000 bc an incredible movement of people and technologies unfolded that would change the face of africa it's known as the bantu migration the migration is particularly significant because about two-thirds of sub-saharan africa is populated by bantu speakers by 1000 bce bantu have entered into eastern africa and societies like the swahili society that we know of and the zulu that we know in southern africa start to emerge while the people of central africa were building new societies based on iron this great technological advancement was also transforming the civilizations along the nile and nowhere more so than in mariway built on what was once a fertile green island on the banks of the nile maraway by 500 bc had become the new capital of the independent kingdom of cush it was an area that supported agriculture that had the royal city there so life was probably relatively comfortable for most of the population at merriway the rulers of the third age of cush created a powerful kingdom evidence of which can still be seen in their monumental legacy at merriway these pyramids were burial chambers for the kings and queens of mariway more than a hundred dot the skyline on this island the wealth of cush had been founded on its abundant reserves of gold which it could trade with the ancient world but there was another resource that would generate wealth for the state and would come to define marijuana it's long been known that merriway was an ironworking center because there were these enormous slag heaps in that urban part of the town it was used for weapons iron blades iron spearheads and those weapons would be needed to defend cush in the face of a new threat in 31 bc cleopatra's egypt once the greatest empire in the mediterranean was defeated by the romans the roman military machine was the most powerful in the ancient world annexing territories from britain to the middle east and africa now it turned its sights onto cush one of the things the romans did is they pushed the southern boundary of egypt further into meroidic territory and what we do know is that the marowites started to push back halting this roman advance would call for strong and decisive leadership from maraway one of the most unusual things about the kingdom of cush is a surprising number of queens that ruled they were known as candikees in about a hundred years we have four of these tremendously powerful conducts and they are terrifically effective without doubt the most famous of those queens was a one-eyed warrior named amani renus who risked her life in battle to defend her kingdom and make sure that her people could live securely amani reignus reigned from 40 to 10 bc said to have the figure of a man by the greek philosopher strebo she had a fearsome reputation as a military leader and strategist for five years ahmani reignus led attacks into roman egypt preventing the romans from invading cush these battles were recorded in roman documents but a firsthand account written by the cushites themselves was recorded in their own meroitic script when does this stellar date from well it dates from the second half of the first century bc during the the reign of the queen amani reynaz in the case of meroitik the writing system has been deciphered already a century ago but it is the language that is a problem so why with all computer technologies why can't we correct the one african written script from the ancient world it is a bit as if i was asking you as an english native speaker to read me a text in polish you would be able to read it perfectly but probably you won't be able to understand it except place name and name this is where we are with meroitic script but it's about a particular battle with the romans exactly so this is giving us the melodic version of the story of the war against a roman unfortunately we are not able yet to see what they are saying amani reyna showed her utter disdain for the roman emperor augustus caesar by capturing his bronze bust during an attack on his forces and placing it beneath the threshold of her grand temple to be trodden underfoot by all who entered so all the people in the kingdom are stepping over the great caesar augustus's head yes according to the archaeological evidences we have it's it's clear she brought back the head of augustus of his bronze statue despite the might of the roman empire amani reynus's clever military tactics eventually brought both sides to the negotiating table where the formidable nubian queen successfully brokered a peace treaty with augustus caesar himself are you telling me a one-eyed black woman was able to defeat the most powerful army on the face of the earth in 23 bc here in the kingdom of cush yes that's what happened amani rayness the victorious african queen would ensure the independence of the cushite kingdom and its splendid culture for another 400 years human history was born on the african continent which makes africa the wellspring from which all of the world's history flows africa is the birthplace of art and music the first writing agriculture and systems of laws africa gave us the blueprint for civilization itself these records speak to us across millennia as profound refutations of the claim that africans lacked a history before europeans arrived this is the true history of africa and it's only just begun in the following centuries the world's great religions christianity and islam molded in their infancy in africa would grow and transform the fate of the world great empires would prosper and cultures would blossom as a result but they would also draw the continent into bloody conflict the horn of africa where the red sea meets the arabian scene here a bridge of salt water connects the african continent with the middle east the ancient egyptians sailed down this inlet to trade with their southern neighbors in the kingdoms of punt and cush greeks and romans persians and byzantines would follow eager to acquire the luxury goods that had fired the imagination of egyptian pharaohs africans and europeans have been trading on the east coast of africa for at least two thousand years this book written in greek in the first century a.d and called the para plus of the era three and sea describes a key african port on the red sea and it's called odulus the pair plus of the aerothreanc is one of the most remarkable tech surviving from the roman empire a tripadvisor guide written by an enterprising greek merchant it describes the ports and trading partners he encountered along the red sea oculus was the maritime gateway to an african kingdom that would become one of the most powerful in the ancient world aksum the great persian religious leader mani described aksum as one of the four great empires appear with rome persia and china at its height it dominated the whole of the horn of africa and stretched across the red sea deep into southern arabia imports flowed into otilas copper and bronze goods silver gold olive oil and wine with ivory rhinoceros horn and even turtle shell going the other way this control over odulus that makes oxxum rich providing a gateway between the interior of africa and ports on the red sea and the indian ocean the para plus includes a colorful account of one oxamine king zakala who reigned in the middle of the 1st century a.d his greek training partner describes him somewhat enviously as miserly in his ways but otherwise upright aksum grew wealthy through stiff tariffs on trade through its ported audilius while inland fertile soil nourished by two rainy seasons yielded bumper crops annually in the center of the city of oxxum once the capital of this stunning empire stands some of the most remarkable monuments of the ancient world these large vertical phallic symbols were erected in honor of the glory of the king under solid blocks of sinaite the king's body was laid to rest this park is a memorial ground of a civilization over 100 stelli erected between the third and fourth centuries a.d as grave markers for oxum's elite they're taller than any other monoliths crafted in the ancient world i asked dr abba balgela to explain to me how architecture on this scale could have been created back then how about how in the world did they move this huge slab here from another place they brought these stones from distance of five kilometers to the west as one big unit as one big unit this fragmented column estimated to weigh 700 tons is one of the largest single pieces of stone ever carved by sculptors scholars believed that it buckled as it was being erected the carving process they definitely used chiseling so they must have used iron chisels so the artwork took place right where where it would be erected so the carving might have taken probably ten years nine years ten years yeah how long did it take to move it from the quarry probably they can drag it a distance of you know 10 yards or 15 years a day that might have also taken them about three years do we know for whom this stella was created we don't know certainly but if we see fragmentary historical sources and then some evidences from archaeological excavations that are made at different times in this area this steli uh seems to be made for al-ahmed as the first and when did he live the second half of the third century king al-almeda also known as usanas ruled during the golden age of aksum gold coins embossed with his face and name and inscribed in greek were recently unearthed in india two thousand miles away we think that usada's son isana who would become one of the most famous kings of aksum was memorialized by the other great stella on the site a network of chambers lie buried beneath these towers i'm about this amazing look at those shafts of light yeah what was in the chambers on the right as opposed to the chambers these are tombs of kings so on this side they deposit the body of the king and then on this side they deposit the valuables of the kings not like in egyptian pyramids when they would bury the king with his possessions here they put the possessions here and the body there yeah the body and the possessions in different directions ninety percent of ancient oksum remains unexcavated beneath the city's modern buildings but sculptural reliefs on the cell eye are signs of its grandeur as you look up the a you see story after story of windows there's even door frames with handles which you could open if you had the right kind of power this was a city of 20 000 people at its heart stood a monumental palace adorned with bronze statues and its grand processional ways were lined with granite victory thrones oxum's power was founded on its wealth and its wealth on the rich resources of its unique position on the horn of africa but one of its many extraordinary resources was paramount frankincense frankincense was an international commodity and brought a lot of religious prestige because incense has magical powers an aromatic gum resin produced from the bark of a tree that grows in the highlands of ethiopia somalia and southern arabia frankincense was as valuable at the height of the roman empire pound for pound as gold it grows very high up on a very harsh environment it's very hard to access it people want to go on a pilgrimage if you like to to get this as a very sought after commodity this led to long-distance trade [Music] by the 5th century a.d through expansive trade and war aksum had established itself as not just one of the great african empires but one of the great empires of the entire ancient world but the roots of this kingdom lie in an equally remarkable civilization that thrived in the horn of africa a thousand years earlier a civilization associated with one of the old testament's most iconic figures the legendarily beautiful queen of sheba 30 miles north of oksum dr iris gurlock is excavating artifacts from an ancient royal palace in a city called yeha we are here at the main entrance of a palace which is 3000 years old you can see the rest of six pillars and the entrance of a 27 meter high building so let's say one of the first skyscrapers of the world at least here in east africa yaya was the capital of the ancient kingdom of dhamma and this is thought to have been the luxurious palace of its rulers we have here kind of let's say secret room it's not excavated already totally but at least the main door is closed more or less directly after the erection of the room so maybe this room was used to store some values like gold or incense in this palace the ruins suggest that damat shared a culture with a neighboring kingdom called sabah just across the red sea in southern arabia the building was erected in a south arabian and a sabayan style that means they used a huge podium a six meter high podium where the walls were erected on the walls are of rubble stones and wood a wooden stone construction this this was a reason because they would like to erect a very high building so the walls should not be too heavy known in english as sheba the kingdom is famous for its legendary queen iris gerlock believes that sabans brought their culture here from across the sea some group of sabane they came to this area and they erect this kind of palace 800 bc they settled here and had a kind of community with a lot of sites and jeha is a capital of this community while some scholars see yeha as an offshoot of sabah others argue that damat's kings actually hired or imported sabayan architects to build their palaces and in fact ruled saba at the time for centuries these kingdoms had a symbiotic relationship sharing religious beliefs and culture near the palace stands one of the oldest stone structures in africa the great temple of the moon built in the 5th century bc about the same time as the parthenon in ancient greece it's the most enduring testimony we have a pre-christian beliefs in the horn of africa we know a little bit about what happened in the temple of vieja because of fragments of altars and inscriptions that archaeologists have found in the temple these include small basins with carved out tops that we believe incense was burned in as well as stylized carvings of ibexes which are a kind of horned animal these engravings of the crescent moon carved in stone are symbols of the god al-maka the main inscription at the temple of the moon in yehat does say it's dedicated to the god al-makha with the chief god of the kingdom of sabah in yemen so there obviously is a shared worship [Music] over time the gods worshiped at yeha migrated becoming the gods worshiped in aksum [Music] but in the early 4th century a.d aksum itself was about to be transformed by a revolutionary force sweeping through much of the ancient world a new religion was fundamentally changing established forms of worship throughout the northeast of the african continent and it was changing the course of world history in the process the religion would be known as christianity today there are some 500 million practicing christians in africa and many of us would assume that christianity came to the continent with european colonialism nothing could be further from the truth christianity took root on the african continent as quickly as it did in the middle east [Music] many people associate christianity in africa with the arrival of european missionaries in the 19th century but here in the northeastern corner of africa christianity is as ancient as it is anywhere in the world africa is in the foundations barely a decade after the time of jesus christian communities had established themselves in alexandria in northern egypt alexandria was an economic focal point it was bustling a lot of the cultural and religious innovations lived in these towns like alexandria rather than in jerusalem christianity quickly gained a foothold in africa and many of its doctrines would be formulated here in many ways africa in the mediterranean world was incredibly important for theology so the main theologians weren't sitting in rome the majority of them were either sitting in alexandria or in tunisia or algeria it's also in northeast africa that another christian tradition developed monasticism in one of the world's oldest monasteries in egypt's eastern desert pilgrims still worship at the site of the cave of the man many credit as the founder of this global tradition saint anthony [Music] egypt is the cradle of monasticism in many ways the idea that you go into solitude and that you stay there and that you form your community around this experience this is a very early development by these people who move in the desert and it is sort of a movement that wants to re recapture this early christian life of feeding the poor of being self-sufficient of working to make that part of christian life and not just this educated learned liturgical christianity this comes from egypt the monastery becomes a kind of wellspring for teaching for thinking for religious engagement but also for holding and preserving the key tenets of the faith by the beginning of the fourth century the new faith had grown from a small persecuted sect to one of the most dominant religions within the roman empire and now in what is today ethiopia the powerful kingdom of aksum itself was about to undergo a profound religious conversion and this momentous transformation began not as it usually does among the people but at the very apex of aksum society because one of the first converts in the entire kingdom would be the king king izana would become one of the most celebrated leaders in african history not only for his imperial adventures but because of a personal decision that would change the course of ethiopia's history and in some ways the history of christianity itself isana became popular after his reign and most of the people in aksum and other places they give izana a special place in aksumite history because of his conversion to christianity in king azana's conversion story history and myth collide so the conversion of aksum we have a legend of two boys fermenters and aedesius are their names they traveled with their father a christian merchant going down the red sea and they're subjected to piracy the father's killed and next we find these boys in the court of aksum and they're taken in by the king and they are the ones educating his son isana according to one recounting fromentius and his brother were syrian christians traveling back from india in the early 4th century a.d his passion for his religion was so compelling the story goes that young king izana decided to embrace this new religion as his own in the story we have a lot of truths embedded the first one being aksum wasn't on the outskirts of the world it was right along the trade routes toward india toward oman so the father who goes out to trade reflects the connections that aksum actually has no matter how it originated izana's conversion is no myth these oximite coins revealed that a momentous change occurred in the kingdom in the fourth century dr abba balgala explains these coins more than their economic importance they tell a lot of history there are two kinds of religious symbols on axomite coins the earlier ones they have the symbol of a crescent and a disk so the crescent it symbolizes the moon god al-maka and then the disc symbolizes the sun god shamus these gods have been piously worshipped in the great temple of jeha and across the horn of africa and southern arabia for over a thousand years but during izana's reign around 350 a.d the design of oksum's coinage dramatically changed becoming the first coins in the world to bear a christian symbol those coins of isaana that were minted after his conversion to christianity they have the symbol of the cross a coin is a very good medium to tell people also that we are christians seeing the kingdom's religion featured on its currency shows us two things the power of its spiritual belief and its extensive commercial ties with christendom the dominant european power at that time was rome whose emperor constantine had himself converted to christianity in 325 a.d it's worth noting that king izana accepted christianity just really a few decades after constantine did he did a lot of business with the eastern end of the roman empire it could very well be that his decision to become a christian was connected to the geopolitics of the day or commercial politics of the day and just like constantine isana had territorial ambitions in the middle of the 4th century oximite armies forged their way inland along the nile valley invading new territories and heading for the great city of maryland the third and last capital of the ancient kingdom of cush for hundreds of years the kings and queens of cush from their capital at maraway had dominated the southern end of nile valley civilization rich from trade and sharing religious beliefs and culture with its millennia-old rival [Music] egypt but by the fourth century eclipse by oxum's rise kush was in decline it started when axum appeared as a powerful kingdom and because marui economy was based on trade along the night to control all trade and all the route coming from africa towards the red sea and the mediterranean and then axum appear with its power control these fruits an inscription on a throne uncovered at maraway describes an assault on the city by king izana's conquering army now in the remains of one of meroway's temples mahmoud bashir believes he's found physical evidence of the violent destruction resulting from aksum's attack all the evidence shows that it's being destroyed and burned all the statues are smashed in a very small pieces so we have a real evidence for like something happened there like people came they destroyed and everything with the attack of uh zanus aksum conquers marawi king azena who by this times christian is that what i believe isana died around 360 a.d over the next 150 years the oxamite empire extending from the horn of africa into southern arabia would become solidly christian in nubia the successor to kush it would take another century for christianity to establish itself through peaceful means [Music] here in khartoum at the national museum of sudan is housed an extraordinary collection of christian artworks in the sixth century christian missionaries from constantinople traveled up the nile and began the conversion of the three nubian kingdoms that had arisen after the fall of cush bread of christianity has a lot to do with establishing connections so if you have missionaries coming from the north you're not just interested in the texts they bring you want to do trade you want to be able to travel there yourself and have people who will sponsor these travels you want to establish various connections the people of nubia readily embraced the new faith and within a generation had created a vibrant and distinctly nubian christian culture christianity thrived in the three nubian kingdoms for almost a thousand years dozens of these beautiful christian murals have survived this one depicts the virgin mary and the baby jesus protecting the queen whose name is martha curiously queen martha is depicted as a brown woman while mary and jesus are white little was known of this medieval christian civilization until archaeologists made an extraordinary discovery buried in the nubian desert were the remains of a seventh century christian cathedral in pharaohs once the capital of the kingdom of novatio the cathedral is now submerged under the flood waters of lake nasser but this series of exquisite frescoes created during the earliest era of christian nubia was saved this find of these frescoes and the churches and fares is significant because it's the only extant art that we really have from this early nubian christianity and it dates back to the seventh and end of the sixth century so very very early art [Music] this nativity scene once covered the eastern wall at pharaoh's cathedral it shows the virgin mary in repose and crowned like a nubian princess watching over her are the archangels michael and gabriel in the crib the infant jesus lies warm by the breath of the animals and in the corner stands the figure of a nubian king the christian kingdoms of nubia which flourish along the southern reaches of the nile from these rich beginnings to the 15th century but just as christianity was taking root in nubia a new religion islam was about to transform the spiritual landscape of africa [Music] from the deserts and oases of arabia a conquering force powered by faith was on the move through the spread of islam they were about to transform the cultural and political fabric of africa both above and below the desert this contact remains one of the most significant events in the history of islam a first emigration of muslims not to medina but to africa so here's muhammad sending a part of his family and some friends to find refuge with a christian king because he's under pressure in in mecca they were received by the uh emperor in aksum and so you have a very close relationship very early on and again this goes to show how much of a regional hegemon aksum was soon after the prophet's death in 632 a.d islamic armies marched west out of arabia into north africa by 642 they had deposed the unpopular byzantine rulers of egypt and controlled the breadbasket of the mediterranean a lot of people refer to them as the muslim conquest i refer to them as the arab conquest there wasn't the establishment of uh forced conversion under a kind of military rule what was established was islamic rule of law conversion wasn't required amongst subject populations [Music] islam comes to the african continent pretty early in places like the horn of africa it goes into egypt in most places it comes through trade you can't force anyone to believe in a religion it's sort of people have to adopt it and and make it their own and that's really what happens with islam in africa in the places that it truly takes root it's through people's own initiative and their own valuing of this what happens in north africa is you have the establishment of a kind of islamic political rule that isn't necessarily all that islamic you know from a religious standpoint for you know in in in important parts of its history but it's nonetheless it's a rule by muslims from egypt arab armies pushed west by the beginning of the 8th century they had taken control of all of the christian provinces of byzantium across present-day libya tunisia algeria and morocco then in the year 711 from their base in tangier the armies looked north towards a new frontier europe at the mouth of the mediterranean 12 000 soldiers assembled a vast invasion force from the african continent seeking to conquer a european kingdom their leader a warrior and brilliant military strategist would become a legend his name was tariq ibn ziyad it said he was born a slave but rose to become a fierce fighter in general so impressive were his military feats in helping to capture the north african city of tangier that he was made its governor but tariq wasn't an arab tariq was a berber the people known as berbers are actually calling themselves in their own language imagine it was the romans who actually coined the word berbers it started becoming a kind of a derogatory reference to those people amongst the berber communities who would not want to indulge with the romans into doing business and being liable to them the berber people have inhabited north africa from present-day morocco in the west to tunisia in the east from at least the 3rd millennium bc during the centuries of roman and byzantine rule many berbers migrated away from the rich coastal cities inland they resisted foreign colonial rule preserving over centuries their own distinctive and diverse culture and traditions deeply rooted in the mountains and fertile plains of north africa berbers were tough fighters comes from the toughness of their life first it's also the difficulties in which they lived the fact that they had actually to fight to live made them actually excellent warriors though the berbers made a strong stand one by one their chieftains fell to the arab conquerors by the time tariq gathered his army in tangier thousands of berbers had not only converted to islam they had also joined its sweeping armies there's a long history of african conquests of southern europe especially iberia we can see berbers playing a particular role side by side with arabs as well on the 29th of april in the year 7-eleven tariq's force set off from tangier just nine miles separate africa and europe at the mouth of the mediterranean and on a fine day from tangiers you can even see the place where tarik's army landed a great rock that marks the southernmost typically iberian peninsula and the site of the legendary african victory it was named jabel tarik after the conquering general we know it in english today as the rock of gibraltar from gibraltar tariq advanced onto the iberian peninsula at the head of a phalanx 5 000 strong one of his soldiers is said to have asked him sir when shall we return he answered we haven't come here to return either we shall conquer and establish ourselves or we shall perish reinforced by some 18 000 berber and arab soldiers the muslim armies of north africa within a year had conquered most of present-day spain and established outposts as far as southern france recalled to damascus tariq would be dead within 10 years [Music] but as conquest helped establish a new islamic civilization stretching across north africa and much of spain which would endure for over 800 years and create a cultural bond between two continents so instead of seeing them as we do now as as the break between europe and africa during this period they were a bridge between two very interconnected areas where people travel backwards and forwards as soldiers as political advisers as craftsmen architects scholars so the enormous amount of movement between the two sides of the straits of gibraltar the spread of islam across north africa and the middle east had profound effects on other parts of africa trade to the east that had once passed through the red sea now shifted north toward the new islamic centers of power in damascus baghdad and the persian gulf christian oxume became isolated and vulnerable to attack particularly vulnerable was the port of ottawa the kingdom's economic lifeline with the rise of islam they locked their eyes on arduous because of its economic importance they invaded adolescence and then adults was totally burnt and destroyed in seven autumn beginning from that time action started a long period of decline but in the 11th century a new dynasty would revive the fortunes of ethiopia's once great christian kingdom and create one of the most spectacular of all religious sites in africa and in the world la la bella 12 extraordinary churches carved out of the living rock in the ethiopian highlands one of the most extraordinary architectural achievements that the world has ever seen [Music] the churches were built during the zagway dynasty which arose from the ashes of aksum reviving the red sea trade routes in christian ethiopia built before many of the great cathedrals of europe they are an astonishing feat of construction design and imagination being able to see this church buried in this block of stone it's a bit like michelangelo seeing david buried in that block of marble [Music] the most celebrated king was la la bella and according to legend he was instructed by god to build a new jerusalem in ethiopia according to the saints biography of king lalibella it was said that he had a vision and during that vision he made a pact with god god told him that if you build these churches i'm showing you i will make you king angels were said to have transmitted the plans to him and to have assisted him night and day as he dug for 24 years to build all of these churches [Music] lalibela is one of the very few ethiopian kings who has ever made a saint king lalabella built these extraordinary cathedrals they had literature they had all sorts of things that were happening during that period so it was clearly a very vibrant time carved in the shape of a cross the church of saint george is the most celebrated of all the magnificent buildings in la la bella's sacred complex but deeper within this complex is a church that contains replicas of the tombs of christ and adam and is considered the holiest part of la la bella it's the church of beta golgotha historian solomon gaetene is an expert on the history of the [Music] you churches look at here of course look at the altar oh there's king alabella and holy virgin mary when they paint it they make the hair is big the eye also is big in order to show the excellence of the brain and he had insight exactly inside here to say laliballah also is for it so it's the body of the king exactly but it's in the holiest of holy so it's not allowed scholars believe that lalabella's complex of churches was built as a symbolic representation of jerusalem the ethiopians became christians very early on and within a couple of decades of that they had set up a monastery in the heart of jerusalem so they have had a deep connection to it and a journey to jerusalem is the longing of any pious person in ethiopia every single thing in this rotin church is symbolized aliba symbolize everything to jerusalem gologota is a place where our lord jesus christ was bullied yes so this place was called there are 12 pillars pillars symbolizing apostles exactly [Music] all of la la bella is a three-dimensional biblical allegory exactly you can easily read it in fact it's now thought that the churches at la la bella were built between the 7th and 13th centuries and that some were originally palaces and even fortresses it was only later that they became churches which remain places of pilgrimage to this day these are not buildings in the sense that you take bricks or stones and put them one on top of the other these are massive sculptures that have been carved out of living rock lalabella is like no other place on earth you get a sense of the creation of kind of an ideal uh paradisical setting because it's hewn of living rock and much like other african architecture it is sculpture in its own right but sculpture one can walk into and move around and and what is particularly remarkable there is how one experiences religion in the personal pilgrimages one has to take to get there that are a central part of this whole [Music] tradition twelve churches carved out of the ground each structure unique each ingeniously designed and each chiseled by skilled artisans from a master plan the churches of la la bella stand as more than just a symbolic jerusalem on ethiopian soil this was a new jerusalem in africa 120 miles from la la bella sits a sacred site that binds the old testament to the heart of ethiopia's story lake tana in the ethiopian highlands the source of the blue nile which for many conjures the sacred river gehan that flowed out of the garden of eden on its islands nestled 20 ancient monasteries dating from the 8th to the 18th centuries each one a paragon of ethiopian art lake hana is one of the most important places for both the orthodox religion and for orthodox art it's a location in which monasteries and churches were able to really flourish and to remain protected even in moments of peril in churches and monasteries such as these the ethiopian orthodox church developed its signature style of painting still visible here today there's that visual complexity the kind of sensual power that these works offer that make you want to look very carefully [Music] this is the painting of saint mary mary is very important he's the mother of jesus christ like an intermediate and intermediate between woman and god so we respect mary you see these enormous staring eyes there's something about the one-on-one engagement between the figures depicted both in the murals and the manuscripts and a means to connect individually with the worshiper what you can also see is this bold set of colors the rich reds blues and greens often with carefully delineated marks that frame one particular element from another but according to ethiopian tradition a monastery on lake tana tanakirkos once housed a different kind of treasure an object of immense power that would shape the country's history and its national identity to this day connecting ethiopia once again to the queen of sheba the ark of the covenant at least since the 10th century a.d ethiopians have claimed that the original ark containing moses's stone tablets inscribed with the ten commandments has been housed in their country according to the national epic the quebra nagas when the queen of sheba visited king solomon in jerusalem they conceived the son menelik menelik years later returning from a visit to meet his father brought the ark from the temple in jerusalem to its new resting place in 1270 a.d this powerful myth was used to justify a violent coup that brought a new dynasty to power in ethiopia when a ruling zagway king was overthrown by a rival yakuno amlak the new king drew on this mystical connection to the bible to validate his claim the new king claimed direct descent from king solomon and the queen of sheba through their son menelik who was born in ethiopia after his mother's stay in jerusalem menelik was the legendary founder of the aksomite dynasty by claiming this lineage the king could argue that his seizure of the throne was actually a restoration a restoration of the true line of ethiopian monarchs the solomonic dynasty founded as an extension of this extraordinary lineage descending from king solomon and the queen of sheba would rule ethiopia for the next 700 years they are claiming decent even from a holy family christ was born from david's family so this made the dynasty more legitimate more acceptable the audacity is breathtaking to say not only are we legitimate but we are descended from king david through solomon fused bloodlines through our queen our oximite queen and beyond that to god himself to god himself it's the ultimate genealogical chart it is an extraordinary way of legitimating the kings of ethiopia by taking the power of the bible the power of the israelites and accruing it to themselves it is probably the most powerful national myth that has ever been invented to this day the ark of the covenant plays a profound role in the religious life of ethiopia every church hosts a tablet its own sacred replica of the ark in ethiopia the ark of the covenant is often called zion or zion and this is where god lives each one of them is a sign that god is here god is dwelling with us and protecting us and ethiopians celebrate their deep-rooted connection to the ark every year at the festival of timcat the ethiopian orthodox church's celebration of the baptism of jesus in the river jordan [Applause] over centuries the deep roots of ethiopian christianity and its unique traditions would be a powerful unifying force for the kingdom the bond and the solidarity of the ethiopian population framed around christianity was something that gave them a real strength and a real um sort of political hold on that area that made this one of the only places in africa indeed the only place that never was colonized the whole sort of population of ethiopia was able to come together to safeguard its traditions and certainly christianity plays an important role in that [Music] ethiopian christians still believe that the ark of the covenant resides in ethiopia hidden from view in a small church in oxum the city where one of the ancient world's greatest civilizations was born the myth of the king's descent from king solomon and the queen of sheba and the legendary presence of the ark of the covenant here at saint mary's church in oxum are the cornerstones of the ethiopian orthodox church these stories assert ethiopia's direct historical link to the wider christian world of course but also the nation's special duty as guardian of the christian faith [Applause] from their earliest days two of the world's great religions christianity and islam put down roots in africa these revolutionary new faiths not only transformed the history of africans they were shaped in turn by africans who created and bequeathed to the world some of our most profound cultural legacies connections forged by christianity and islam would lead not only to the exchange of beliefs and ideas they would help lay the foundations of new networks of commerce and trade that would place africa and its riches at the heart of the medieval world by 1000 a.d islam a religion born on the arabian peninsula had become established along the whole north african coast and deep into the iberian peninsula [Music] the western extremity of islamic civilization was called the maghreb meaning land of the setting sun this is where our story begins in the city of marrakech when it was founded in the year 1070 marrakesh was the center of politics and law but it soon began to attract merchants of craftsman from the surrounding regions for centuries since luxury goods have been traded here spices gold and textiles in just 50 years marrakesh had been transformed from a collection of mud brick huts to a sophisticated metropolis the ancient walled city the medina is a maze of narrow laneways it's easy to get lost seemingly around every corner one encounters a fine palace a great mosque or a lush garden the origins of much of the splendor can be traced to the influence of one charismatic islamic theologian abdullah ibn yasin ibn yasin actually originated from what's now southern morocco he was obviously someone who was interested in religious learning because he made the very difficult journey north across the high atlas mountains into spain to study in cordoba he seems to have had aspirations to religiously lead a group of tribes but then lead them on to greater things in a political sense as well [Music] ibn yasin was a berber his tribe the judala was part of the sanhaja a group living in the sahara desert in 1046 ibn yasin was invited to give the son hajja instruction in the true principles of islam when they rebelled against his harsh interpretation of the law he withdrew founded a movement to convert them in 1055 he launched the campaign to spread his reformist ideas among the urban centers of morocco and ghana at that point the tribes of the sahara were fairly superficially islamised so they were muslim but they didn't have a deep knowledge of the rights and rituals that came with being muslim nor were they very familiar with islamic law solution was to go back to basics and promote a literal and puritanical form of islam he wanted to bring worshipers back in line with what he believed was the true islamic faith talked about people converting but what he actually meant was changing the way they've been practicing islam to the way he thought it should be practiced and he decided that they were effectively deep sinners and so they should give up one-third of all their goods to him and he was really fond of flogging people [Music] people left out a word while they were praying they got some lashes for that if they didn't stand in the right position they got lashes for that those joining the movement would be whipped and scourged for the prayers they hadn't performed in their past life they were in a sense literally being whipped into a frenzy and the zeal for the movement was being inculcated in them through this very intense phase of initiation [Music] deep in the desert among the sanhaja berbers his revolutionary message attracted a fervent following his followers were called the al-muraviks which can be interpreted as people of the frontier fortress [Music] this is one of many movements where people come along and say you know you're doing it wrong and i know the way to do it right and it's at that point in the 1050s that the al morovids begin to coalesce as a significant army as a significant military force and began to emerge from their desert territories moving northwards first of all towards the great caravan city of sijomasa sijomasa was an important trading center on the edge of the sahara [Music] ibn yasin demanded that sijomasa submit because of its sins when it refused he attacked at the caravan city of sijomasa the yamarava army smashed musical instruments and shut down the wine shops everywhere they conquered the yama ravens imposed a fundamentalist regime those who failed to comply risked execution evan yasin was motivated by a number of different factors there was obviously the religious factor but at the same time there were commercial and political motives underpinning his actions when they were successful they believed that meant that they were religiously right in their approach he saw victory as a mark of god's favor taking sigil masa brought ibn yasin and his army one step closer to a major goal control of the trans-saharan caravan trade especially the trade in goal to complete that mission ibn yasin set off on the arduous thousand mile journey across one of the largest deserts on the planet the sahara the great expanse of the sahara desert was an ocean to cross it was a barrier that divided africa from north to south and attempts to navigate it were treacherous long journeys from one oasis to the next oasis could be quite dangerous even life-threatening [Music] the sahara covers three and a half million for minimal square miles the sanhaja lived across the whole of the sahara from ghana and tekkru on one side to sijomasa on the other so berbers like them have been crisscrossing the desert to trade for more than a thousand years [Music] around the second century they adopted a new mode of transportation which made crossing easier the camel as transparent trade routes opened up demand for west african gold increased dramatically the domestication of the camel would allow traders to conquer the unforgiving heat and vast distances through seas of sand with far greater efficiency than ever before on the southern end of the trans-saharan caravan route was a resource-rich land called the sahel meaning shore it contained merchant cities that were gateways to the principal source of gold from medieval europe one of the largest of these cities was in modern-day mauritania aldehust seize it and the hamaravits could control the gold trade that meant confronting a large sub-saharan state the empire of ghana ghana emerges as a kind of middle-man state that is going to tap into west african mercantile activity and especially going to control the gold trade across the desert from sub-saharan africa ghana's roots date back to the very first civilizations in sub-saharan west africa around 1500 bc a rich culture arose in the region of dartich in today's mauritania [Music] eventually the civilization spread south and founded new settlements along the niger river where it grew into a powerful empire gun is located right in the middle between the senegal river system and the niger river system and it's in a position strategically where it can control access to both of those at least potentially it can control of the gold trade generated enormous wealth wealth that built empires and the kingdom of ghana was poised to exploit its perfect location ghana's legendary wealth and strength would lead the gold coast colony in 1957 to adopt ghana as the name of its modern day nation [Music] there's a 11th century source that says the ruler of the empire of ghana can put 200 000 soldiers in the field 40 000 of the marchers he's the biggest baddest guy in the block and you're not messing with him ghana had a very strong equestrian tradition and cavalry that would have allowed it to dominate other regions around it in the 10th century ghana's army had captured aldegus from the san hatcher so in 1055 ibid yasin arrived to seize it back in a brutal takeover writing in 1068 a.d the andalusian muslim geographer and historian al-bakri had this to say they violated the women and declared everything they found there to be the property of the muslim community following the loss of aldehust ghana began to decline ultimately falling in 1076. its traditional religions first coexisted with but then eventually gave way to the force of islam the al-marava's may very well have converted ghana by conquest or it may have been a voluntary conquest or an alliance or some other kind of thing we know that by 1100 that region had been converted to islam by the late 1050s the yamarava army initially comprised mostly of north african sanhaja berbers now included vast ranks of sub-saharan africans senegalese you know soldiers not slaves free senegalese soldiers that participate at least 4 000 of them so then it's not surprising that instead of an adversarial relationship these saharan and sub-saharan you know populations were working in you know in at concert 59 while the amaravats were campaigning in the desert ibn yasin was killed in battle but his movement continued to grow one of its new leaders was a general yusuf bentashvin bintashvin marks the amaravid army across the high atlas mountains and seized control of the north african coast in the year 1070 vintajan founded a new city to be his alma ravi capital it was called [Music] marrakesh [Music] they settled on a territory which is described as being very arid very barren quite desert-like not an area that one might think of as immediately being the place to found a city but nonetheless an environment which was quite akin to the environment which they had come from what the al-muravids did was replace the old town of sigil masa which was on the other side of the high atlas mountains with their new center their new city marrakech which became much greater than single masa ever had been before marrakesh became such a rich commercial city for one reason its location it was the terminus of one of the great commercial trade routes on the african continent situated halfway between the sahara and the mediterranean marrakesh was a junction for goods moving across africa and to europe and asia textiles leatherwork and above all gold you know war is wonderful i mean i guess theoretically you know but it doesn't it doesn't provide a steady means of support and so building a city a trading city is a much better way as the city grew in wealth and reputation marrakech became a showcase for the ingenuity and artistry of architects and artisans i think that the almerovids had bad press probably the people who wrote about them had suffered under their rule and so they didn't have anything good to say to them one of the things that's great about art and culture i mean is that it's sort of silent testimony to what happens during a period in 1947 archaeologists uncovered something here that shed new light on its alma rabbit period this tower the cuba one of the most notable features of the kugba is the contrast between the exterior which is quite plain and simple and what you see when you go inside it's a real revelation [Music] compared to the austerity of the exterior once you get inside and you look upwards you see this fantastic deeply carved plaster dome which has vegetal designs conch shells which in some ways reminds you of the interior of the domes in the great mosque of cordoba so in the day it would probably have been even more of a surprise because the plaster work would probably have been painted [Music] one theory holds that the cuba was an ablutions pavilion for a great alma ravid mosque which no longer exists another is that it was a monument in a public park we can't really say exactly what the kubba was designed for originally but it is part of the monumental infrastructure of early marrakech and it was certainly designed to be a project which the public would see and which they would identify with the al moravids and which would celebrate the al-moravid empire in its widest sense [Music] the architecture of the cuba is a product of the interaction between andalusian builders and techniques and north african patrons the al-muravids have this reputation of not being attuned to aesthetic things clearly were interested because they must have brought very talented artisans to build these structures from spain to morocco and of course the artisans were happy to come because this is where the money was [Music] by the end of the 11th century marrakech had become a place of affluence wealth and luxury a far cry from the berber's nomadic existence in the remote atlas mountains the berbers had gone from being mercenaries for hire to empire builders in 1085 war broke out in al-andalus the patchwork of muslim ruled kingdoms in the iberian peninsula a christian king alfonso the six of lyon sees the central spanish city of toledo from the muslims across the straits of gibraltar in north africa yusuf bentashvin was now the supreme al-muravid leader the muslim rulers of the peninsula desperately needed military assistance then they began to send messages down to yusuf bin tashfin in north africa saying you know you're an important muslim ruler you have a good army we need military support with bentashman's help andalusian army halted alfonso's advance at the bloody battle of zlaka then vintaj decided to seize the andalusian territories for himself the only way to hold the peninsula was to actually conquer it and bring it into his empire he felt that the kings of al andalus were too weak uh too likely to pay tribute and join with christians in alliances to hold the territory by the time of his death in 1106 bentashvin's empire stretched from central spain to southern mauritania and from lisbon to algiers [Music] a flourishing world of art science commerce and religion the iberian peninsula and north africa were seen as the two shores of the single political entity the al-moravid empire and there was enormous movement backwards and forwards across the straits of gibraltar which are very much a bridge rather than a barrier at this time the amaravat empire had rapidly expanded but it would prove to be short-lived in the 1120s a new berber religious movement arose in remote valleys of the atlas mountains [Music] they were known as the almahads a term derived from the arabic word for the monotheists in 1147 they overthrew the al-ravids and founded their own empire the almahads used literacy as a vital tool to spread the word of islam in the city of fez northeast of marrakesh islamic scholarship would reach new heights [Music] fez has been a center of learning since it was founded in the year 789 a.d but under almahad rule in the 12th century it became a truly global hub for knowledge fez is just a remarkable city and such an important center it was always the intellectual capital in a certain sense the scholars capital within morocco [Music] vested among the greatest centers of education not only on the african continent but throughout the medieval world home to astonishing breakthroughs in science mathematics and astronomy fez during europe's middle ages was a city of more than two hundred thousand people crammed into a maze of more than nine thousand twisting streets today the fez el bali wall medina is the largest urban pedestrian precinct in the world you go inside these great gateways and suddenly there are no more cars there are no more wheeled vehicles except for like little trolleys or hand carts to move things it's all beasts of burden donkeys or humans of burning quarters carrying it and everyone's screaming at you bella watch out watch out watch out and they're coming up behind you and it's like total chaos in the middle of this bustling city sits a mosque begun in the year 859 a.d the carowind it's arguably the world's oldest institution of higher learning two centuries before european universities like oxford and bologna even existed the carowind was issuing medical degrees the karawin was founded in the 9th century supposedly by one of two sisters who came from chiron which was the capital of tunisia and so it's called the karawin meaning the mosque for the people of karum this was the most important mosque in the city and the reason was because it was the center of muslim scholarship muslim learning for the whole region in 1349 the carowind was endowed with the library home to more than 5 600 priceless arabic manuscripts professor syed energy is an expert on its history syed what are some of the great literary treasures held in this library one good example is uh volume five of eben haldun's book eben haldoon was a very famous scholar we think of him as the father of sociology and he wrote this masterpiece the universal history in late 14th century and we have this volume number five with his signature on it saying that this copy should stay here at at the library he was a student here he had this strong connection with fez maybe as a student but maybe also as a teacher or at least as someone who had connections with the elite affairs we know that he was here maybe in this very spot wow amazing some of the most important intellectuals of the middle ages did their finest work here in fez and in the amahad empire more generally these are cultural figures who flourished and they became in effect the gateway for the transfer of classical knowledge to the west one especially brilliant scholar was ibn roost also known by his zlatan guy's name averroes aviroas was considered the greatest interpreter of aristotle so when europeans started wanting to study aristotle they turned to the arabic writings which they then translated into life another noted scholar at the carowind was hassan wazan also known as leo africanus leo africanus was a north african legal scholar who was actually captured by christian pirates and became a slave of the pope for a while while he was a slave of the pope he wrote a description of basically all of north and west africa the walls of pheasants carowind instruction took place in a network of residential schools called madrassas [Music] the madrasas or islamic schools were structured like the medieval colleges of oxford and cambridge students can deepen their understanding of the koran and study the most important developments in the sciences and humanities by the 14th century seven great madrasas thrived in fez the most famous of which was the buu inania founded in the year 1350 [Laughter] [Music] the repetition of design on the one hand there is this sort of mathematical quality in it of multiples of geometries of that play of forms but there's also something that takes on an element of meditation as you begin to explore a form and it merges into another form and it separates from one into another you can't really go away from these without just being in awe of the incredible artisans and architects who created them when fez was reaching its peak a new center of scholarship emerged 1200 miles away on the southern shore of the sahara desert it became a kind of sister city to fez and no less legendary the fabled city of timbuktu [Music] since the 14th century timbuktu has been a place of mystery in the imagination of the west a metaphor for the remotest place on earth but timbuktu has become one of the great cities of the medieval world an unparalleled center of scholarship learning and trade timbuktu had its own counterpart to fezz's carowind the sankare mosque [Music] timbuktu really attracted a lot of very learned scholars and the sankhori mosque in particular became really the university of west africa for muslims so if you were an islamic scholar and you were living in a village in the gambia let's say one of your aspirations would be if you if you really studied hard and you did well you might go up to timbuktu and that was like the phd the heart of timbuktu's intellectual life was its libraries between the 14th and the 17th centuries they acquired hundreds of thousands of books mostly written by african authors working in the city the first time i visited timbuktu and saw those astonishing libraries with their wealth of scholarly text i wanted to cry i grew up being told that africans never wrote books yet here was this astonishing treasure trove of extraordinary handwritten manuscripts many of them were religious but there were also books about math astronomy philosophy i felt incredible pride and vindication books produced in timbuktu became valuable objects in themselves prized all over africa and beyond leo africanus he talks about timbuktu when he mentions how it's a such an important center for the book trade and how books are sold and they sold for very high prices and and so on there's a manual that has everything that a learned scholar in the bend of the niger river in the 1400s needs to know how to keep your wife happy how to get in and out of a canoe how to help a woman who isn't producing enough milk to nurse her her child it's a window on to all of the concerns and preoccupations of an african muslim society in the 1400s timbuktu became one of the principal cities of a rising new power in west africa the empire of mali mali was founded around the year 1240 by a legendary warrior king called sanjata who grew his small provincial kingdom into the largest state that has ever existed in west africa when king sanjata assembled his army he ordered his local chiefs to surrender their titles such was the reverence according to the king that his subjects were said to approach him on their knees molly would become a great empire with political military and religious power concentrated in the figure of the emperor empire of mali takes the mantle from the empire of ghana insofar as it comes to control the gold trade from west africa but it doesn't just take over it expands so this is the time when the gold trade really reaches its height and when the kind of wealth and opulence of the west african imperial states are our greatest through its control of the gold trade molly became the superpower of the medieval world but gold was just one of its products exchanged through a complex commercial network that transversed the desert even though sohair desert looks empty it's actually they've got trading communities located within the desert and there are stages of trade that go back and forth when we talk about the trans-saharan tree it gives the sense of the impression that goods were transiting through the sahara to get to markets to the north but the sense in which the sahara was a world in its own and a very integrated world one of the most valuable items in the trade originated within the desert itself salt salt is the refrigeration of the ancient world right so that you can't you know have meat or fish or any kind of you know protein products last more than a couple of days unless you salt them and smoke them salt is almost impossible to find in sub-saharan west africa except when when people are making sea salt in the sahara salt was mine and mine in forms that were like slabs it could be carried for hundreds of miles on the back of camels [Music] another commonly traded commodity made salt mining even more profitable slaves slaves were captured as a result of military action such as war or sometimes raids then sold to berber traders there were some slaves that were incorporated in the trans-saharan trade in the early period there's actually not just an export of trade of slaves from sub-saharan africa in small numbers but there's also an import of slaves into sub-saharan africa from north africa and europe also in small numbers they would settle the slaves around oasis to grow cereals and other crops slaves also worked in gold nights much of the settlers that went into long distance street was actually production based on sleep it wasn't only commodities like gold salt or slaves that moved across the desert traders also carried with them treasured personal possessions the british library in london holds one such object a saddlebag quran because what's a saddlebag quran a saddlebag quran is it's a loose-leafed quran that would fit into a bag so that it could be it could be carried with you wherever you went who would have produced this created this beautiful edition of the koran well this is by one hand these are breaks to particular bits in the quran and so they have illustrations in them so it's someone who understood that this had to be not just accurate but also incredibly beautiful because it's about uplifting people not just through words but also aesthetically so this was for families for people who would travel abroad and they wanted to have a koran but they also wanted something where they could take leaves out they could refer to it they could look at it and share them and share them exactly this would be something that through its accumulated use could become more important so like the gates family bible which was started by my great-grandmother exactly [Music] merchants could afford such luxury objects in part because of the ever-increasing global demand for molly's gold probably something like three quarters of the gold that's going into north african and european markets in the medieval period is coming out of the empire of mali throughout most of the middle ages europe was on the gold standard and without african gold uh the whole currency of europe basically would fall they were already melting down roman coins in this period to try to make up in part for this lack molly's role in global commerce brought it recognition respect and envy from afar this is the catholic atlas a map dating from 1375 probably owned by king charles v of france on its southern edge is mali personified by its greatest ruler the legendary emperor mansa musa [Music] because it's such a surprise to see a black man on a map from the 14th century how did matsumusa get on this atlas this was a known figure in europe this was someone who had influence not just within africa but beyond and he was interested himself in seeing beyond his own kingdom and he's represented with this the gold orb gold crown girl gold scepter yes and it's a fantastically wealthy kingdom it has some of the biggest gold mines in the region um it also has copper it also has salt if you look at this map it gives a sense of how it's right at the center of a nexus of trade routes that link it right across the continent but it's not just a con it's beyond molly's control of a large share of the world's gold supply especially europe's gave mansa musa wealth beyond compare it's often claimed that mansa musa is the richest man who has ever lived newspapers constructing top ten lists of the wealthiest people of all time they almost always put mansa musa first and some of them you know will will say that his net worth adjusted for inflation is something like 400 billion in today's money in 1324 mansa moussa's notoriety grew exponentially thanks to reports of his largest and generosity during his hajj the pilgrimage to the muslim holy city of mecca his pilgrimage that he makes in 13 24 13 25 you know the different accounts but the usual account is something like 300 camels laden with gold in addition to all the people that are traveling with him ibn kaldun the great author working at fez's carowing library wrote an account of a person in manzamusa's entourage we used to keep the sultan company during his progress and converse to his enjoyment at each halt he would regale us with rare foods and confectionery his equipment and furnishings were carried by twelve thousand private slave women wearing gowns of brocade and yemeni silk [Music] manta musa in his retinue stopped at every town between mali and mecca it was said that mansa musa's largest do no bounds as he made his way to mecca he handed out extravagant amounts of gold high-ranking officials and working people alike and according to legend his generosity inadvertently destabilized the economy of cairo he distributed so much gold that its market value collapsed and took years to recover [Music] as he traveled he purchased camel loads of books and recruited respected scholars to bring back home when he comes back is when he begins to invest especially in the construction of mosques and schools in the town of timbuktu mansa musa he's trying to invest in learning and schooling and knowledge in order to diversify the economic and social basis for what he's trying to do in the empire of mali [Music] a thousand miles along the niger river in modern-day nigeria another great civilization traded with the empire of mao it was called ife and it was the site of a remarkable explosion of creativity at about the same time as mali's rise the national museum of nigeria and lagos houses an extensive collection of ife art [Music] this astonishing sculpture is the mask of the oni oba luffan ii monarch of one of the most important kingdoms in all of west africa in the middle ages the kingdom of ife this is one of 40 or so brass and copper sculptures executed with dazzling naturalism under the king's patronage [Music] they are technically among the most truly remarkable works of art created any place in the world these are striking heads that are quite naturalistic but they're also this idealized naturalism so that none of the warts and wrinkles of the face are shown if you look at them there's almost this serenity and calmness in them and give a sense of of timelessness which are really really beautiful [Music] while european artists were still grappling with perspective and often struggling with the human form these african artists were making magnificent life-like sculptures it's not just the technical achievement of these sculptures that's so impressive it's also their sheer artistry their capacity to capture human spirit these classic masterworks of world art date from the late 13th and early 14th centuries the artists that produced them lived in a powerful and handsome city-state it just must have been an amazingly thrilling city to live in a city of great hierarchy the king and others in the court being very distinguished by the kinds of attire that they would wear crowns of uh glass beads and and other things that that would have made it a really remarkable place ife or ele ife as it's properly known had paved courtyards and a flourishing trade in high value manufactured goods like textiles and glass beads which were a symbol of authority throughout the world at that time i would say if there's one place in the world that i would love to be able to visit uh circa 1300 it would be ife efe's role is so important in west african history that today the yoruba 40 million strong ethnic group in the region regard ifa as their spiritual capital the nobel laureate for literature wooly soyinka is an expert on europa culture and art what is the role of um ele ife historically for the yoruba people the face acknowledged universally as the origin of the black peoples the white people the yellow peoples they can decide which they are in origin we have decided that illyfe is where we all came from that's a spiritual home it's uh it's where those who believe in reincarnation or revitalization they believe that they will come back to ife and that's enough for us this origin myth lies at the heart of yorba culture after death the onis were worshiped as gods and the artworks that we call ife heads were probably used as icons of power ife sculptures are so naturalistic so human and those who encounter it for the first time you know it's mind-blowing that with that kind of complexity in the use of the material which is and yet what comes out is so it's just so beautiful they're so beautiful ife's greatest owning was obaloufon ii who came to power following a brutal civil war he rebuilt the city and sponsored the renaissance that produced the ife heads within a single generation obelu fall ii is is one of those remarkable figures in world history who came into power under really quite uh unfortunate circumstances his father had died in in a civil war that had hit the city but obama phones seem to have had the support of the population to come back onto the throne to really create a center that that would stand on its own as a remarkable place for centuries to come until the 20th century most of the world had little idea that the ife heads even existed several were found accidentally in 1938 by builders remodeling a house but the first european to unearth these heads was a german ethnographer called leo forbinius in fact he took these photographs when leo forbanius fell upon these works not only was he stunned by them but he tried to reference them within his own sense of the history of the world at that point they had assumed that africa really there was no complexity no wealth this was the high era of the introduction of colonialism incredibly frobenius found it easier to believe that they came from the lost city of atlantis and that black people could have created them [Music] he wanted to make himself famous and claimed he'd found the lost atlantis and telegraphed this off to the new york times the only thing that he could think about was that they must have been made by some kind of lost colony of greeks who somehow had made their way here probinius's theory of atlantis was quickly challenged by other scholars who understood that the ife heads could only have been made by africans the rediscovery of the ife heads in the 20th century changed how many people throughout the world regarded both african art and the african people themselves you really can't know african history unless you look closely at the arts because they complicate enrich and inform in new ways so much of what we know about the past the national museum of nigeria's collection of ife art gives us some insight into oba lufon ii's royal court normally you do not see the face of an honey and they use beets string beets to cover the mouth as well as part of the face so that's why you have the hose all over this is a max that can be worn and it has a slit when it was brought out of ife we had gold dusting by the ice and the red pigments all over it this one is that of the queen we see the crown the beaded crown on the head one of the most difficult crafts that ife artisans mastered was metal work was there a class of artists working for the king who made these pieces well if you look at the style it's like they are from a common artist who the artist was how they were grouped we do not know the conception of africans that um we are not that intelligent it shows the ingenuity of the africans it shows genius genus [Music] from elaife to timbuktu to marrakech this was an extraordinarily rich period when merchants and rulers and artists and scholars thrive and knowledge of their riches and cultural treasures spread across the world [Music] the great sahara desert was for millennia a vast ocean a seemingly impassable barrier but really for those who mastered it it was a conduit between lands to itself and lands to its north on the shores of this desert great cities arose to prominence driven by trade religious devotion and a love of learning kingdoms were linked for centuries to each other by trading networks across vast regions of africa reminding us that this continent has always been dynamic interconnected and an integral part of world history as europe's middle ages progress key regions in africa enter a golden age in the east the swahili coast will blossom as a new cosmopolitan center of islamic culture in the west the kingdom of benin will take art and royal authority to ever greater heights and in the south great zimbabwe will grow fabulously wealthy through trade while these key african civilizations would experience unprecedented growth and prosperity they would also encounter new conflict with each other and increasingly with the outside world

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Length: 153min 30sec (9210 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020