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Author Topic: OT: 100 things you SHOULD know about Africa
Sundjata
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Saw this on another forum and thought that it would be a good thing to share and remind people of..

100 things that you did not know about Africa


1. The human race is of African origin. The oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens) were excavated at sites in East Africa. Human remains were discovered at Omo in Ethiopia that were dated at 195,000 years old, the oldest known in the world.

2. Skeletons of pre-humans have been found in Africa that date back between 4 and 5 million years. The oldest known ancestral type of humanity is thought to have been the australopithecus ramidus, who lived at least 4.4 million years ago.

3. Africans were the first to organise fishing expeditions 90,000 years ago. At Katanda, a region in northeastern Zaïre (now Congo), was recovered a finely wrought series of harpoon points, all elaborately polished and barbed. Also uncovered was a tool, equally well crafted, believed to be a dagger. The discoveries suggested the existence of an early aquatic or fishing based culture.

4. Africans were the first to engage in mining 43,000 years ago. In 1964 a hematite mine was found in Swaziland at Bomvu Ridge in the Ngwenya mountain range. Ultimately 300,000 artefacts were recovered including thousands of stone-made mining tools. Adrian Boshier, one of the archaeologists on the site, dated the mine to a staggering 43,200 years old.

5. Africans pioneered basic arithmetic 25,000 years ago. The Ishango bone is a tool handle with notches carved into it found in the Ishango region of Zaïre (now called Congo) near Lake Edward. The bone tool was originally thought to have been over 8,000 years old, but a more sensitive recent dating has given dates of 25,000 years old. On the tool are 3 rows of notches. Row 1 shows three notches carved next to six, four carved next to eight, ten carved next to two fives and finally a seven. The 3 and 6, 4 and 8, and 10 and 5, represent the process of doubling. Row 2 shows eleven notches carved next to twenty-one notches, and nineteen notches carved next to nine notches. This represents 10 + 1, 20 + 1, 20 - 1 and 10 - 1. Finally, Row 3 shows eleven notches, thirteen notches, seventeen notches and nineteen notches. 11, 13, 17 and 19 are the prime numbers between 10 and 20.

6. Africans cultivated crops 12,000 years ago, the first known advances in agriculture. Professor Fred Wendorf discovered that people in Egypt’s Western Desert cultivated crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, dates, legumes, lentils and wheat. Their ancient tools were also recovered. There were grindstones, milling stones, cutting blades, hide scrapers, engraving burins, and mortars and pestles.

7. Africans mummified their dead 9,000 years ago. A mummified infant was found under the Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter in south western Libya. The infant was buried in the foetal position and was mummified using a very sophisticated technique that must have taken hundreds of years to evolve. The technique predates the earliest mummies known in Ancient Egypt by at least 1,000 years. Carbon dating is controversial but the mummy may date from 7438 (±220) BC.

8. Africans carved the world’s first colossal sculpture 7,000 or more years ago. The Great Sphinx of Giza was fashioned with the head of a man combined with the body of a lion. A key and important question raised by this monument was: How old is it? In October 1991 Professor Robert Schoch, a geologist from Boston University, demonstrated that the Sphinx was sculpted between 5000 BC and 7000 BC, dates that he considered conservative.

9. On the 1 March 1979, the New York Times carried an article on its front page also page sixteen that was entitled Nubian Monarchy called Oldest. In this article we were assured that: “Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern Egypt.)

10. The ancient Egyptians had the same type of tropically adapted skeletal proportions as modern Black Africans. A 2003 paper appeared in American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Dr Sonia Zakrzewski entitled Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions where she states that: “The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the ‘super-Negroid’ body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many ‘African’ populations .”

11. The ancient Egyptians had Afro combs. One writer tells us that the Egyptians “manufactured a very striking range of combs in ivory: the shape of these is distinctly African and is like the combs used even today by Africans and those of African descent.”

12. The Funerary Complex in the ancient Egyptian city of Saqqara is the oldest building that tourists regularly visit today. An outer wall, now mostly in ruins, surrounded the whole structure. Through the entrance are a series of columns, the first stone-built columns known to historians. The North House also has ornamental columns built into the walls that have papyrus-like capitals. Also inside the complex is the Ceremonial Court, made of limestone blocks that have been quarried and then shaped. In the centre of the complex is the Step Pyramid, the first of 90 Egyptian pyramids.

13. The first Great Pyramid of Giza, the most extraordinary building in history, was a staggering 481 feet tall - the equivalent of a 40-storey building. It was made of 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite, some weighing 100 tons.

14. The ancient Egyptian city of Kahun was the world’s first planned city. Rectangular and walled, the city was divided into two parts. One part housed the wealthier inhabitants – the scribes, officials and foremen. The other part housed the ordinary people. The streets of the western section in particular, were straight, laid out on a grid, and crossed each other at right angles. A stone gutter, over half a metre wide, ran down the centre of every street.

15. Egyptian mansions were discovered in Kahun - each boasting 70 rooms, divided into four sections or quarters. There was a master’s quarter, quarters for women and servants, quarters for offices and finally, quarters for granaries, each facing a central courtyard. The master’s quarters had an open court with a stone water tank for bathing. Surrounding this was a colonnade.

16 The Labyrinth in the Egyptian city of Hawara with its massive layout, multiple courtyards, chambers and halls, was the very largest building in antiquity. Boasting three thousand rooms, 1,500 of them were above ground and the other 1,500 were underground.

17. Toilets and sewerage systems existed in ancient Egypt. One of the pharaohs built a city now known as Amarna. An American urban planner noted that: “Great importance was attached to cleanliness in Amarna as in other Egyptian cities. Toilets and sewers were in use to dispose waste. Soap was made for washing the body. Perfumes and essences were popular against body odour. A solution of natron was used to keep insects from houses . . . Amarna may have been the first planned ‘garden city’.”

18. Sudan has more pyramids than any other country on earth - even more than Egypt. There are at least 223 pyramids in the Sudanese cities of Al Kurru, Nuri, Gebel Barkal and Meroë. They are generally 20 to 30 metres high and steep sided.

19. The Sudanese city of Meroë is rich in surviving monuments. Becoming the capital of the Kushite Empire between 590 BC until AD 350, there are 84 pyramids in this city alone, many built with their own miniature temple. In addition, there are ruins of a bath house sharing affinities with those of the Romans. Its central feature is a large pool approached by a flight of steps with waterspouts decorated with lion heads.

20. Bling culture has a long and interesting history. Gold was used to decorate ancient Sudanese temples. One writer reported that: “Recent excavations at Meroe and Mussawwarat es-Sufra revealed temples with walls and statues covered with gold leaf”.

21. In around 300 BC, the Sudanese invented a writing script that had twenty-three letters of which four were vowels and there was also a word divider. Hundreds of ancient texts have survived that were in this script. Some are on display in the British Museum.

22. In central Nigeria, West Africa’s oldest civilisation flourished between 1000 BC and 300 BC. Discovered in 1928, the ancient culture was called the Nok Civilisation, named after the village in which the early artefacts were discovered. Two modern scholars, declare that “[a]fter calibration, the period of Nok art spans from 1000 BC until 300 BC”. The site itself is much older going back as early as 4580 or 4290 BC.

23. West Africans built in stone by 1100 BC. In the Tichitt-Walata region of Mauritania, archaeologists have found “large stone masonry villages” that date back to 1100 BC. The villages consisted of roughly circular compounds connected by “well-defined streets”.

24. By 250 BC, the foundations of West Africa’s oldest cities were established such as Old Djenné in Mali.

25. Kumbi Saleh, the capital of Ancient Ghana, flourished from 300 to 1240 AD. Located in modern day Mauritania, archaeological excavations have revealed houses, almost habitable today, for want of renovation and several storeys high. They had underground rooms, staircases and connecting halls. Some had nine rooms. One part of the city alone is estimated to have housed 30,000 people.

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26. West Africa had walled towns and cities in the pre-colonial period. Winwood Reade, an English historian visited West Africa in the nineteenth century and commented that: “There are . . . thousands of large walled cities resembling those of Europe in the Middle Ages, or of ancient Greece.”

27. Lord Lugard, an English official, estimated in 1904 that there were 170 walled towns still in existence in the whole of just the Kano province of northern Nigeria.

28. Cheques are not quite as new an invention as we were led to believe. In the tenth century, an Arab geographer, Ibn Haukal, visited a fringe region of Ancient Ghana. Writing in 951 AD, he told of a cheque for 42,000 golden dinars written to a merchant in the city of Audoghast by his partner in Sidjilmessa.

29. Ibn Haukal, writing in 951 AD, informs us that the King of Ghana was “the richest king on the face of the earth” whose pre-eminence was due to the quantity of gold nuggets that had been amassed by the himself and by his predecessors.

30. The Nigerian city of Ile-Ife was paved in 1000 AD on the orders of a female ruler with decorations that originated in Ancient America. Naturally, no-one wants to explain how this took place approximately 500 years before the time of Christopher Columbus!

31. West Africa had bling culture in 1067 AD. One source mentions that when the Emperor of Ghana gives audience to his people: “he sits in a pavilion around which stand his horses caparisoned in cloth of gold: behind him stand ten pages holding shields and gold-mounted swords: and on his right hand are the sons of the princes of his empire, splendidly clad and with gold plaited into their hair . . . The gate of the chamber is guarded by dogs of an excellent breed . . . they wear collars of gold and silver.”

32. Glass windows existed at that time. The residence of the Ghanaian Emperor in 1116 AD was: “A well-built castle, thoroughly fortified, decorated inside with sculptures and pictures, and having glass windows.”

33. The Grand Mosque in the Malian city of Djenné, described as “the largest adobe [clay] building in the world”, was first raised in 1204 AD. It was built on a square plan where each side is 56 metres in length. It has three large towers on one side, each with projecting wooden buttresses.

34. One of the great achievements of the Yoruba was their urban culture. “By the year A.D. 1300,” says a modern scholar, “the Yoruba people built numerous walled cities surrounded by farms”. The cities were Owu, Oyo, Ijebu, Ijesa, Ketu, Popo, Egba, Sabe, Dassa, Egbado, Igbomina, the sixteen Ekiti principalities, Owo and Ondo.

35. Yoruba metal art of the mediaeval period was of world class. One scholar wrote that Yoruba art “would stand comparison with anything which Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece and Rome, or Renaissance Europe had to offer.”

36. In the Malian city of Gao stands the Mausoleum of Askia the Great, a weird sixteenth century edifice that resembles a step pyramid.

37. Thousands of mediaeval tumuli have been found across West Africa. Nearly 7,000 were discovered in north-west Senegal alone spread over nearly 1,500 sites. They were probably built between 1000 and 1300 AD.

38. Excavations at the Malian city of Gao carried out by Cambridge University revealed glass windows. One of the finds was entitled: “Fragments of alabaster window surrounds and a piece of pink window glass, Gao 10th – 14th century.”

39. In 1999 the BBC produced a television series entitled Millennium. The programme devoted to the fourteenth century opens with the following disclosure: “In the fourteenth century, the century of the scythe, natural disasters threatened civilisations with extinction. The Black Death kills more people in Europe, Asia and North Africa than any catastrophe has before. Civilisations which avoid the plague thrive. In West Africa the Empire of Mali becomes the richest in the world.”

40. Malian sailors got to America in 1311 AD, 181 years before Columbus. An Egyptian scholar, Ibn Fadl Al-Umari, published on this sometime around 1342. In the tenth chapter of his book, there is an account of two large maritime voyages ordered by the predecessor of Mansa Musa, a king who inherited the Malian throne in 1312. This mariner king is not named by Al-Umari, but modern writers identify him as Mansa Abubakari II.

41. On a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 AD, a Malian ruler, Mansa Musa, brought so much money with him that his visit resulted in the collapse of gold prices in Egypt and Arabia. It took twelve years for the economies of the region to normalise.

42. West African gold mining took place on a vast scale. One modern writer said that: “It is estimated that the total amount of gold mined in West Africa up to 1500 was 3,500 tons, worth more than $****30 billion in today’s market.”

43. The old Malian capital of Niani had a 14th century building called the Hall of Audience. It was an surmounted by a dome, adorned with arabesques of striking colours. The windows of an upper floor were plated with wood and framed in silver; those of a lower floor were plated with wood, framed in gold.

44. Mali in the 14th century was highly urbanised. Sergio Domian, an Italian art and architecture scholar, wrote the following about this period: “Thus was laid the foundation of an urban civilisation. At the height of its power, Mali had at least 400 cities, and the interior of the Niger Delta was very densely populated”.

45. The Malian city of Timbuktu had a 14th century population of 115,000 - 5 times larger than mediaeval London. Mansa Musa, built the Djinguerebere Mosque in the fourteenth century. There was the University Mosque in which 25,000 students studied and the Oratory of Sidi Yayia. There were over 150 Koran schools in which 20,000 children were instructed. London, by contrast, had a total 14th century population of 20,000 people.

46. National Geographic recently described Timbuktu as the Paris of the mediaeval world, on account of its intellectual culture. According to Professor Henry Louis Gates, 25,000 university students studied there.

47. Many old West African families have private library collections that go back hundreds of years. The Mauritanian cities of Chinguetti and Oudane have a total of 3,450 hand written mediaeval books. There may be another 6,000 books still surviving in the other city of Walata. Some date back to the 8th century AD. There are 11,000 books in private collections in Niger. Finally, in Timbuktu, Mali, there are about 700,000 surviving books.

48. A collection of one thousand six hundred books was considered a small library for a West African scholar of the 16th century. Professor Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu is recorded as saying that he had the smallest library of any of his friends - he had only 1600 volumes.

49. Concerning these old manuscripts, Michael Palin, in his TV series Sahara, said the imam of Timbuktu “has a collection of scientific texts that clearly show the planets circling the sun. They date back hundreds of years . . . Its convincing evidence that the scholars of Timbuktu knew a lot more than their counterparts in Europe. In the fifteenth century in Timbuktu the mathematicians knew about the rotation of the planets, knew about the details of the eclipse, they knew things which we had to wait for 150 almost 200 years to know in Europe when Galileo and Copernicus came up with these same calculations and were given a very hard time for it.”

50. The Songhai Empire of 16th century West Africa had a government position called Minister for Etiquette and Protocol.

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51. The mediaeval Nigerian city of Benin was built to “a scale comparable with the Great Wall of China”. There was a vast system of defensive walling totalling 10,000 miles in all. Even before the full extent of the city walling had become apparent the Guinness Book of Records carried an entry in the 1974 edition that described the city as: “The largest earthworks in the world carried out prior to the mechanical era.”

52. Benin art of the Middle Ages was of the highest quality. An official of the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde once stated that: “These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique. Benvenuto Cellini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him . . . Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

53. Winwood Reade described his visit to the Ashanti Royal Palace of Kumasi in 1874: “We went to the king’s palace, which consists of many courtyards, each surrounded with alcoves and verandahs, and having two gates or doors, so that each yard was a thoroughfare . . . But the part of the palace fronting the street was a stone house, Moorish in its style . . . with a flat roof and a parapet, and suites of apartments on the first floor. It was built by Fanti masons many years ago. The rooms upstairs remind me of Wardour Street. Each was a perfect Old Curiosity Shop. Books in many languages, Bohemian glass, clocks, silver plate, old furniture, Persian rugs, Kidderminster carpets, pictures and engravings, numberless chests and coffers. A sword bearing the inscription From Queen Victoria to the King of Ashantee. A copy of the Times, 17 October 1843. With these were many specimens of Moorish and Ashanti handicraft.”

54. In the mid-nineteenth century, William Clarke, an English visitor to Nigeria, remarked that: “As good an article of cloth can be woven by the Yoruba weavers as by any people . . . in durability, their cloths far excel the prints and home-spuns of Manchester.”

55. The recently discovered 9th century Nigerian city of Eredo was found to be surrounded by a wall that was 100 miles long and seventy feet high in places. The internal area was a staggering 400 square miles.

56. On the subject of cloth, Kongolese textiles were also distinguished. Various European writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wrote of the delicate crafts of the peoples living in eastern Kongo and adjacent regions who manufactured damasks, sarcenets, satins, taffeta, cloth of tissue and velvet. Professor DeGraft-Johnson made the curious observation that: “Their brocades, both high and low, were far more valuable than the Italian.”

57. On Kongolese metallurgy of the Middle Ages, one modern scholar wrote that: “There is no doubting . . . the existence of an expert metallurgical art in the ancient Kongo . . . The Bakongo were aware of the toxicity of lead vapours. They devised preventative and curative methods, both pharmacological (massive doses of pawpaw and palm oil) and mechanical (exerting of pressure to free the digestive tract), for combating lead poisoning.”

58. In Nigeria, the royal palace in the city of Kano dates back to the fifteenth century. Begun by Muhammad Rumfa (ruled 1463-99) it has gradually evolved over generations into a very imposing complex. A colonial report of the city from 1902, described it as “a network of buildings covering an area of 33 acres and surrounded by a wall 20 to 30 feet high outside and 15 feet inside . . . in itself no mean citadel”.

59. A sixteenth century traveller visited the central African civilisation of Kanem-Borno and commented that the emperor’s cavalry had golden “stirrups, spurs, bits and buckles.” Even the ruler’s dogs had “chains of the finest gold”.

60. One of the government positions in mediaeval Kanem-Borno was Astronomer Royal.

61. Ngazargamu, the capital city of Kanem-Borno, became one of the largest cities in the seventeenth century world. By 1658 AD, the metropolis, according to an architectural scholar housed “about quarter of a million people”. It had 660 streets. Many were wide and unbending, reflective of town planning.

62. The Nigerian city of Surame flourished in the sixteenth century. Even in ruin it was an impressive sight, built on a horizontal vertical grid. A modern scholar describes it thus: “The walls of Surame are about 10 miles in circumference and include many large bastions or walled suburbs running out at right angles to the main wall. The large compound at Kanta is still visible in the centre, with ruins of many buildings, one of which is said to have been two-storied. The striking feature of the walls and whole ruins is the extensive use of stone and tsokuwa (laterite gravel) or very hard red building mud, evidently brought from a distance. There is a big mound of this near the north gate about 8 feet in height. The walls show regular courses of masonry to a height of 20 feet and more in several places. The best preserved portion is that known as sirati (the bridge) a little north of the eastern gate . . . The main city walls here appear to have provided a very strongly guarded entrance about 30 feet wide.”

63. The Nigerian city of Kano in 1851 produced an estimated 10 million pairs of sandals and 5 million hides each year for export.

64. In 1246 AD Dunama II of Kanem-Borno exchanged embassies with Al-Mustansir, the king of Tunis. He sent the North African court a costly present, which apparently included a giraffe. An old chronicle noted that the rare animal “created a sensation in Tunis”.

65. By the third century BC the city of Carthage on the coast of Tunisia was opulent and impressive. It had a population of 700,000 and may even have approached a million. Lining both sides of three streets were rows of tall houses six storeys high.

66. The Ethiopian city of Axum has a series of 7 giant obelisks that date from perhaps 300 BC to 300 AD. They have details carved into them that represent windows and doorways of several storeys. The largest obelisk, now fallen, is in fact “the largest monolith ever made anywhere in the world”. It is 108 feet long, weighs a staggering 500 tons, and represents a thirteen-storey building.

67. Ethiopia minted its own coins over 1,500 years ago. One scholar wrote that: “Almost no other contemporary state anywhere in the world could issue in gold, a statement of sovereignty achieved only by Rome, Persia, and the Kushan kingdom in northern India at the time.”

68. The Ethiopian script of the 4th century AD influenced the writing script of Armenia. A Russian historian noted that: “Soon after its creation, the Ethiopic vocalised script began to influence the scripts of Armenia and Georgia. D. A. Olderogge suggested that Mesrop Mashtotz used the vocalised Ethiopic script when he invented the Armenian alphabet.”

69. “In the first half of the first millennium CE,” says a modern scholar, Ethiopia “was ranked as one of the world’s greatest empires”. A Persian cleric of the third century AD identified it as the third most important state in the world after Persia and Rome.

70. Ethiopia has 11 underground mediaeval churches built by being carved out of the ground. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD, Roha became the new capital of the Ethiopians. Conceived as a New Jerusalem by its founder, Emperor Lalibela (c.1150-1230), it contains 11 churches, all carved out of the rock of the mountains by hammer and chisel. All of the temples were carved to a depth of 11 metres or so below ground level. The largest is the House of the Redeemer, a staggering 33.7 metres long, 23.7 metres wide and 11.5 metres deep.

71. Lalibela is not the only place in Ethiopia to have such wonders. A cotemporary archaeologist reports research that was conducted in the region in the early 1970’s when: “startling numbers of churches built in caves or partially or completely cut from the living rock were revealed not only in Tigre and Lalibela but as far south as Addis Ababa. Soon at least 1,500 were known. At least as many more probably await revelation.”

72. In 1209 AD Emperor Lalibela of Ethiopia sent an embassy to Cairo bringing the sultan unusual gifts including an elephant, a hyena, a zebra, and a giraffe.

73. In Southern Africa, there are at least 600 stone built ruins in the regions of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. These ruins are called Mazimbabwe in Shona, the Bantu language of the builders, and means great revered house and “signifies court”.

74. The Great Zimbabwe was the largest of these ruins. It consists of 12 clusters of buildings, spread over 3 square miles. Its outer walls were made from 100,000 tons of granite bricks. In the fourteenth century, the city housed 18,000 people, comparable in size to that of London of the same period.

75. Bling culture existed in this region. At the time of our last visit, the Horniman Museum in London had exhibits of headrests with the caption: “Headrests have been used in Africa since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. Remains of some headrests, once covered in gold foil, have been found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and burial sites like Mapungubwe dating to the twelfth century after Christ.”

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76. Dr Albert Churchward, author of Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, pointed out that writing was found in one of the stone built ruins: “Lt.-Col. E. L. de Cordes . . . who was in South Africa for three years, informed the writer that in one of the ‘Ruins’ there is a ‘stone-chamber,’ with a vast quantity of Papyri, covered with old Egyptian hieroglyphics. A Boer hunter discovered this, and a large quantity was used to light a fire with, and yet still a larger quantity remained there now.”

77. On bling culture, one seventeenth century visitor to southern African empire of Monomotapa, that ruled over this vast region, wrote that: “The people dress in various ways: at court of the Kings their grandees wear cloths of rich silk, damask, satin, gold and silk cloth; these are three widths of satin, each width four covados [2.64m], each sewn to the next, sometimes with gold lace in between, trimmed on two sides, like a carpet, with a gold and silk fringe, sewn in place with a two fingers’ wide ribbon, woven with gold roses on silk.”

78. Southern Africans mined gold on an epic scale. One modern writer tells us that: “The estimated amount of gold ore mined from the entire region by the ancients was staggering, exceeding 43 million tons. The ore yielded nearly 700 tons of pure gold which today would be valued at over $******7.5 billion.”

79. Apparently the Monomotapan royal palace at Mount Fura had chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. An eighteenth century geography book provided the following data: “The inside consists of a great variety of sumptuous apartments, spacious and lofty halls, all adorned with a magnificent cotton tapestry, the manufacture of the country. The floors, cielings [sic], beams and rafters are all either gilt or plated with gold curiously wrought, as are also the chairs of state, tables, benches &c. The candle-sticks and branches are made of ivory inlaid with gold, and hang from the cieling by chains of the same metal, or of silver gilt.”

80. Monomotapa had a social welfare system. Antonio Bocarro, a Portuguese contemporary, informs us that the Emperor: “shows great charity to the blind and maimed, for these are called the king’s poor, and have land and revenues for their subsistence, and when they wish to pass through the kingdoms, wherever they come food and drinks are given to them at the public cost as long as they remain there, and when they leave that place to go to another they are provided with what is necessary for their journey, and a guide, and some one to carry their wallet to the next village. In every place where they come there is the same obligation.”

81. Many southern Africans have indigenous and pre-colonial words for ‘gun’. Scholars have generally been reluctant to investigate or explain this fact.

82. Evidence discovered in 1978 showed that East Africans were making steel for more than 1,500 years: “Assistant Professor of Anthropology Peter Schmidt and Professor of Engineering Donald H. Avery have found as long as 2,000 years ago Africans living on the western shores of Lake Victoria had produced carbon steel in preheated forced draft furnaces, a method that was technologically more sophisticated than any developed in Europe until the mid-nineteenth century.”

83. Ruins of a 300 BC astronomical observatory was found at Namoratunga in Kenya. Africans were mapping the movements of stars such as Triangulum, Aldebaran, Bellatrix, Central Orion, etcetera, as well as the moon, in order to create a lunar calendar of 354 days.

84. Autopsies and caesarean operations were routinely and effectively carried out by surgeons in pre-colonial Uganda. The surgeons routinely used antiseptics, anaesthetics and cautery iron. Commenting on a Ugandan caesarean operation that appeared in the Edinburgh Medical Journal in 1884, one author wrote: “The whole conduct of the operation . . . suggests a skilled long-practiced surgical team at work conducting a well-tried and familiar operation with smooth efficiency.”

85. Sudan in the mediaeval period had churches, cathedrals, monasteries and castles. Their ruins still exist today.

86. The mediaeval Nubian Kingdoms kept archives. From the site of Qasr Ibrim legal texts, documents and correspondence were discovered. An archaeologist informs us that: “On the site are preserved thousands of documents in Meroitic, Latin, Greek, Coptic, Old Nubian, Arabic and Turkish.”

87. Glass windows existed in mediaeval Sudan. Archaeologists found evidence of window glass at the Sudanese cities of Old Dongola and Hambukol.

88. Bling culture existed in the mediaeval Sudan. Archaeologists found an individual buried at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in the city of Old Dongola. He was clad in an extremely elaborate garb consisting of costly textiles of various fabrics including gold thread. At the city of Soba East, there were individuals buried in fine clothing, including items with golden thread.

89. Style and fashion existed in mediaeval Sudan. A dignitary at Jebel Adda in the late thirteenth century AD was interned with a long coat of red and yellow patterned damask folded over his body. Underneath, he wore plain cotton trousers of long and baggy cut. A pair of red leather slippers with turned up toes lay at the foot of the coffin. The body was wrapped in enormous pieces of gold brocaded striped silk.

90. Sudan in the ninth century AD had housing complexes with bath rooms and piped water. An archaeologist wrote that Old Dongola, the capital of Makuria, had: “a[n] . . . eighth to . . . ninth century housing complex. The houses discovered here differ in their hitherto unencountered spatial layout as well as their functional programme (water supply installation, bathroom with heating system) and interiors decorated with murals.”

91. In 619 AD, the Nubians sent a gift of a giraffe to the Persians.

92. The East Coast, from Somalia to Mozambique, has ruins of well over 50 towns and cities. They flourished from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries AD.

93. Chinese records of the fifteenth century AD note that Mogadishu had houses of “four or five storeys high”.

94. Gedi, near the coast of Kenya, is one of the East African ghost towns. Its ruins, dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, include the city walls, the palace, private houses, the Great Mosque, seven smaller mosques, and three pillar tombs.

95. The ruined mosque in the Kenyan city of Gedi had a water purifier made of limestone for recycling water.

96. The palace in the Kenyan city of Gedi contains evidence of piped water controlled by taps. In addition it had bathrooms and indoor toilets.

97. A visitor in 1331 AD considered the Tanzanian city of Kilwa to be of world class. He wrote that it was the “principal city on the coast the greater part of whose inhabitants are Zanj of very black complexion.” Later on he says that: “Kilwa is one of the most beautiful and well-constructed cities in the world. The whole of it is elegantly built.”

98. Bling culture existed in early Tanzania. A Portuguese chronicler of the sixteenth century wrote that: “[T]hey are finely clad in many rich garments of gold and silk and cotton, and the women as well; also with much gold and silver chains and bracelets, which they wear on their legs and arms, and many jewelled earrings in their ears”.

99. In 1961 a British archaeologist, found the ruins of Husuni Kubwa, the royal palace of the Tanzanian city of Kilwa. It had over a hundred rooms, including a reception hall, galleries, courtyards, terraces and an octagonal swimming pool.

100. In 1414 the Kenyan city of Malindi sent ambassadors to China carrying a gift that created a sensation at the Imperial Court. It was, of course, a giraffe.

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Marc Washington
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Just to note that not only 100 things we should know about Africa, but "The 50 Greatest Africans," can be found at the same site:

http://www.whenweruled.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=90

This material is from Robin Walker who has just published a book that contains much of the essential information by black scholars that's been written on the subject of African history to date entitled WHEN WE RULED. Many of you know about that.

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The nature of homelife is the fate of the nation.

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Whatbox
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They SURE had alot on west and east africa.They could have added a couple more tidbits concerning kemet (blacks [Razz] ), but then it would've been a hundred and three things you should know about Africa!
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Mustafino
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Half the claims are debatable as fact, firsts, or just that memorable, the others are quite valid. That is the problem when you mix fact with speculation. A lot of bling going around as well. lol.
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Whatbox
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Can you tell me which ones are speculation? [Roll Eyes]
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Bettyboo
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There is no such thing as "pre-humans" and there is no evidence that our world is 4-5 millions years old or older. Too much science makes you lose common sense.
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Djehuti
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^Actually there are 'pre-humans' in the sense of early homonids that preceeded modern humans.

Also, I don't think one of the things Sundiata listed ever said anything about the entire world being 4-5 million years old considering dinosaurs have been around for hundreds of millions of years and many animals even longer than that. The earth itself is dated to be in the billions of years.

quote:
Too much science makes you lose common sense.
Actually, as a science major I would say it should be the opposite-- too much science makes you gain too much sense. [Razz]

But anyway "Betty" from the way you talk, I don't think you are who you claim to be. [Wink]

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Bettyboo
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There is no such thing as "pre-human" "Neanderthals" or everyones favorite "dinosaurs". It doesn't matter if believed the entire world is 4-5 million years old. There is no evidence at all the world or anything in it is 4-5 million years old. Too much science makes one lose common sense.

[ 06. April 2007, 12:26 PM: Message edited by: Horus_Den_1 ]

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Yom
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Lol, you know the neanderthals lived only a few tens of thousands of years ago, right? The Theory of Evolution is about as doubted as the Theory of Gravity. The concept is undoubtedly true, only the very specific details are in question.

--------------------
"Oh the sons of Ethiopia; observe with care; the country called Ethiopia is, first, your mother; second, your throne; third, your wife; fourth, your child; fifth, your grave." - Ras Alula Aba Nega.

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Djehuti
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^I think this 'girl' lost all credibility when she started doubting the existence of dinosaurs!!

As if all of these species of dinosaurs was fiction made only for the movie Jurassic Park! LOL

If dinosaurs and Neanderthals did not exist then where did all these fossilize bones come from, outer space?! [Big Grin]

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Bettyboo
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quote:
Originally posted by Yom:
Lol, you know the neanderthals lived only a few tens of thousands of years ago, right? The Theory of Evolution is about as doubted as the Theory of Gravity. The concept is undoubtedly true, only the very specific details are in question.

Cut it out with this mumbo jumbo gargage. There is no theory. There's no such thing as Neanderthal, pre-humans, or dinosaurs. End of conversation~~.
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Bettyboo
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quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^I think this 'girl' lost all credibility when she started doubting the existence of dinosaurs!!

As if all of these species of dinosaurs was fiction made only for the movie Jurassic Park! LOL

If dinosaurs and Neanderthals did not exist then where did all these fossilize bones come from, outer space?! [Big Grin]

I never "doubted" the existence of dinosaurs. I am no way "unsure" that dinosaurs "maybe" existed. Dinosaurs never existed and there is no such evidence whatsoever!
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Macawiis
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Nay-Sayer
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quote:
Originally posted by Bettyboo:
There is no such thing as "pre-humans" and there is no evidence that our world is 4-5 millions years old or older. Too much science makes you lose common sense.

The Bible will only scramble your brain like so many eggs. Did you know that religion and drug addiction have much in common? Get help now!!
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neokem
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I think she(or he) is just playin around messin with yall.

--------------------
http://www.saywordradio.com/
http://www.neo-kem.com/
http://www.libradio.com/

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Bettyboo
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quote:
Originally posted by Nay-Sayer:
quote:
Originally posted by Bettyboo:
There is no such thing as "pre-humans" and there is no evidence that our world is 4-5 millions years old or older. Too much science makes you lose common sense.

The Bible will only scramble your brain like so many eggs. Did you know that religion and drug addiction have much in common? Get help now!!
This is so weak and sound so corny.
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Djehuti
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quote:
Originally posted by Nay-Sayer:

The Bible will only scramble your brain like so many eggs. Did you know that religion and drug addiction have much in common? Get help now!!

Hey, I read the Bible too but my brains are not scrambled. Also, if one were to read the Bible from it's original Hebrew perspective (getting rid of mistranslations, extra influence, etc.) and not take certain things literally but symbolically, then one would realize that the Bible is not as silly as some think it to be.
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Djehuti
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quote:
Originally posted by Bettyboo:

I never "doubted" the existence of dinosaurs. I am no way "unsure" that dinosaurs "maybe" existed. Dinosaurs never existed and there is no such evidence whatsoever!

So I take it that the skeleton below being exhibited in a natural history museum is totally made up and wasn't discovered buried in the ground like the countless other fossilized organisms(?) LMAO [Big Grin]

 -

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Sundjata
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quote:
Originally posted by Mustafino:
Half the claims are debatable as fact, firsts, or just that memorable, the others are quite valid. That is the problem when you mix fact with speculation. A lot of bling going around as well. lol.

You're insane! Would you like to address the speculative claims from the article/overview? What's with the constant criticism of Africa, why are you such a hate-monger? Musta, you get owned in like every thread, just chill for a second..
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Whatbox
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quote:
Sundiata:
You're insane! Would you like to address the speculative claims from the article/overview?

No.^

Atleast not until he consults that Boss of, I mean friend of his!

I already asked him this anyway.

quote:
Originally posted by Nay-Sayer:

The Bible will only scramble your brain like so many eggs. Did you know that religion and drug addiction have much in common? Get help now!!

Hey, man.. .
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
Hey, I read the Bible too but my brains are not scrambled. Also, if one were to read the Bible from it's original Hebrew perspective (getting rid of mistranslations, extra influence, etc.) and not take certain things literally but symbolically, then one would realize that the Bible is not as silly as some think it to be.

Whoa, exactly! That's weird, that's exactly what I say!
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Mustafino
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quote:
Pacal:

Regarding the 100 here are my comments.

1, Unexceptional,although I'm not aware that Homo Sapiens was found at Omo.

2, I am not sure of the date of Australopithecus Ramidus otherwise unremarkable.

3, I've heard about such discoveries in Africa involving early Homo Sapiens.

4, Interesting if True.

5, Such notched artifacts have also been discovered in Europe. I think there may be a bit of over interpretation here.

6, Interesting if true. However the date of about 12,000 years ago is still about c. 10,000 B.C.E. which is about the time cultivation began in the Fertile Crescent.

7, Lots of People practice mummification. This seems to assume that it spread from that area

of Africa to other places.

8, Not the old date of the Sphinx nonsense.
Lets just say its disputable.

9, Dubious, and we all know about the reliability of Newspaper articles.

10, Wow! studies show that the Ancient Egyptians are Africans. just what anyone would expect. Thats not the question the question is the closeness with Sub-Saharan Africans.

11, And? Combs don't exactly have a huge range of shapes.

12, Unexceptional comment.

13, I would disagree with the hyperbole, but again unexceptional.

14, Interesting if true.

15, Sounds like a typical Egyptian Nobles Mansion.

16, Is this true or misrepresented?

17, Toilets and sewage Systems existed in Manjo Daro in India 1000 years earlier to say nothing of the Palace at Knossos.

18, Really, what about Peru and Mexico? But I guess its about how you define Pyramid.

19, I believe Meroe became capital after 590 B.C.E. Since Meroe was capital well into the Roman pyramid nothing exceptional about a Roman style Bath house.

20, Again hardly unique to Meroe although I believe the Gold was stripped by the times Archaeologists got to it.

21, I'm not sure about the date but it sounds like it was inspired by the alphabet. I wonder if the presence of Jewish mercenaries at Elephantine using the Hebrew alphabet played any role?

22, I suspect that the early date is too early.

23, Interesting.

24, I,m not sure about the date but certainly by C.E. 1 there was a settlement at Jhenne.

25, I have my doubts about the pop. figure but Ghana's wealth and trading connections are well known to Archaeologists anyway.

26, Again unexceptional although I suspect by "cities" the writer was including walled villages also if he says "thousands".

27, Interesting but the point?

28, Interesting if true. But such banking practices existed in Islamic countries, Even in Europe crude versions of these practices existed. (Carrying large amounts of cold cash could be dangerous). In China such practices including Paper money existed by then in there then most advanced form.

29, Hyperbole by an author isn't much evidence. Ghana despite its wealth in gold was almost certainly far less wealthy than China for example or for Fatimid Egypt.

30, Sure! Extremely dubious.

31, Interesting but the point?

32, The Romans had glass windows.

33, Interesting.

34, Interesting.

35, I would like to know the source of the
Quote. Otherwise its personal opinion. I agree that Yoruba metal work was indeed very good.

36, The point? lots of structures can be said to resemble step pyramids.

37, Interesting.

38, Again the Romans had glass windows.

39, More hyperbole. Although Mali was indeed very rich in gold. Again China was indisputably the wealthiest country on earth at the time.

40, There is lots to dispute about in this Mali ruler. His achievement have become encrusted with reams of legend. weather he ever sailed is disputed and there seems to be NO evidence of them getting to America.

41, Both interesting and amazingly apparently true!!

42, I would like to know the source of that quote. It reads like hyperbole besides how can you estimate that?

43, I believe this is from the Travels of Ian Buttana a Moslem traveler.

44, The Source for the Quote?

45, The Schools are known, the numbers I suspect are inflated.

46, sounds like hyperbole and numbers inflation although it is true that Timbuktu was a intellectual center.

47, A bit of hyperbole. Although it is true that a considerable number of old books are in private hands in parts of West Africa especially in Timbuktu. Conservation is urgently needed. The numbers are dubious.

48, Source?

49, I think Palin said something like that, but again the basis for this comment?

50, No big deal so did a lot of prior empires.

51, Interesting if true. Source?

52, Aside from the hyperbole Benin bronzes are indeed of very high quality.

53, Sounds accurate.

54, Source? Wouldn't be surprised if true. (After all what about ancient Peruvian textiles)

55, Sounds like hyperbole.

56, Source?

57, Source? Interesting if True?

58, Sounds about right.

59, I think this is correct.

60, Nothing unusual.

61, The quarter of a million figure sounds like hyperbole.

62, Quite believable. Source?

63, Dubious.

64, Possibly true.

65, Pop. figures are dubious.

66, Impressive, but I'm not sure if is in fact the largest.

67, Name of Scholar? I don't think gold coins are so rare.

68, I've heard this myself. It is far from proven.

69, Source of the Persian Clerics comment?

70, Lalibela is indeed a world wonder.

71, The figure sounds like hyperbole but rock cut churches are indeed found throughout Ethiopia.

72, I'm not sure if this is true.

73, The 600 figure here is reasonable but I'm unsure of the word origin given.

74, The 100,000 tons sounds like hyperbole, and London's pop. was more like 30,000.

75, Interesting.

76, Very dubious.

77, Likely true but the source?

78, They probably did mine gold on a massive scale. However the figures read like hyperbole.

79, Since Monamotapa traded with all sorts of people including the Portuguese this would not be unusual.

80, Interesting if true, but not unique.

81, No they havn't. Besides what do you mean by "precolonial"? If you mean before 18.00 C.E., well DUH!!

82, If true fasinating, source please.

83, Dubious. And a Lunar calendar of 354 days sounds terribly Muslim.

84, Interesting. Source please, not a vague reference.

85, True.

86, Wouldn't be surprised if true.

87, Sigh! The Romans had windows.

88, Probably true.

89, Probably true.

90, source please.

91, I'm not sure. Possible.

92, Would not be surprised.

93, So?

94, True.

95, Dubious.

96, Dubious.

97, Who is this person? Source?

98, Source?

99, Wouldn't be surprised if true. The name of

the archaeologist would be nice.

100, A Chinese explorer Cheung Hu brought the

giraffe.


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Sundjata
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quote:
Originally posted by Mustafino:
quote:
Pacal:

Regarding the 100 here are my comments.

1, Unexceptional,although I'm not aware that

Homo Sapiens was found at Omo.

2, I am not sure of the date of

Australopithecus Ramidus otherwise

unremarkable.

3, I've heard about such discoveries in Africa

involving early Homo Sapiens.

4, Interesting if True.

5, Such notched artifacts have also been

discovered in Europe. I think there may be a

bit of over interpretation here.

6, Interesting if true. However the date of

about 12,000 years ago is still about c.

10,000 B.C.E. which is about the time

cultivation began in the Fertile Crescent.

7, Lots of People practice mumification. This

seemsto assume that it spread from that area

of Africa to other places.

8, Not the old date of the Sphinx nonsense.

Lets just say its disputable.

9, Dubious, and we all know about the

reliability of Newspaper articles.

10, Wow! studies show that the Ancient

Egyptians are Africans. just what anyone

would expect. Thats not the question the

question is the closeness with Sub-Saharan

Africans.

11, And? Combs don't exactly have a huge

range of shapes.

12, Unexceptional comment.

13, I would disagree with the hyperboyle, but

again unexceptional.

14, Interesting if true.

15, Sounds like a typical Egyptian Nobles

Mansion.

16, Is this true or misrepresented?

17, Toilets and sewage Systems existed in

Manjo Daro in India 1000 years earlier to say

nothing of the Palace at Knossos.

18, Really, what about Peru and Mexico? But I

guess its about how you define Pyramid.

19, I believe Meroe became capital after 590

B.C.E. Since Meroe was capital well into the

Roman pyramid nothing exceptional about a

Roman style Bath house.

20, Again hardly unique to Meroe although I

believe the Gold was stripped by the times

Archaeologists got to it.

21, I'm not sure about the date but it sounds

like it was inspired by the alphabet. I wonder

if the presence of Jewish mercenaries at

Elphantine using the Hebrew alphabet played

any role?

22, I suspect that the early date is too

early.

23, Intersting.

24, I,m not sure about the date but certainly

by C.E. 1 there was a settlement at Jhenne.

25, I have my doubts about the pop. figure but

Ghana's wealth and trading connections are

well known to Archaeologists anyway.

26, Again uneceptional although I suspect by

"cities" the writer was including walled

villages also if he says "thousands".

27, Interesting but the point?

28, Interesting if true. But such banking

practices existed in Islamic countries, Even

in Europe crude versions of these practices

existed. (Carrying large amounts of cold cash

could be dangerous). In China such practices

including Paper money existed by then in there

then most advanced form.

29, Hyperboyle by an author isn't much

evidence. Ghana despite its wealth in gold was

almost certainly far less wealthy than China

for example or for Fatimid Egypt.

30, Sure! Extremely dubious.

31, Interesting but the point?

32, The Romans had glass windows.

33, Interesting.

34, Interesting.

35, I would like to know the source of the

Quote. Ottherwise its personal opinion. I

agree that Yoeuba metal work was indeed very

good.

36, The point? lots of structures can be said

to resemble step pyramids.

37, Intersting.

38, Again the Romans had glass windows.

39, More hyperboyle. Although Mali was indeed

very rich in gold. Again China was

indisputably the wealthest country on earth at

the time.

40, There is lots to dispute about in this

Mali ruler. His achievement have become

incrusted with reams of legend. weather he

ever sailed is disputed and there seems to be

NO evidence of them getting to America.

41, Both interesting and amazingly apparently

true!!

42, I would like to know the source of that

quote. It reads like hyperboyle besides how

can you estimate that?

43, I believe thisis from the Travels of Ian

Buttana a Moslem traveler.

44, The Source for the Quote?

45, The Schools are known, the numbers I

suspect are inflated.

46, sounds like hyperboyle and numbers

inflation although it is true that Timbuktu

was a intellectual center.

47, A bit of hyperboyle. Although it is true

that a considerable number of old books are in

private hands in parts of West Africa

esppecially in Timbuktu. Conservation is

urgently needed. The numbers are dubious.

48, Source?

49, I think Palin said something like that,

but again the basis for this comment?

50, No big deal so did a lot of prior empires.

51, Interesting if true. Source?

52, Aside from the hyperboyle Benin bronzesare

indeed of very high quality.

53, Sounds accurate.

54, Source? Wouldn't be surprised if true.

(Afterall what about ancient Peruvian

textiles)

55, Sounds like hyperboyle.

56, Source?

57, Source? Interesting if True?

58, Sounds about right.

59, I think this is correct.

60, Nothing unusual.

61, THe quater of a million figure sounds like

hyperboyle.

62, Quite believable. Source?

63, Dubious.

64, Possibly true.

65, Pop. figures are dubious.

66, Impressive, but I'm not sure if is in fact

the largest.

67, Name of Scholar? I don't think gold coins

are so rare.

68, I've heard this myself. It is farfrom

proven.

69, Source of the Persian Clerics comment?

70, Lalibela is indeed a world wonder.

71, The figure sounds like hyperboyle but rock

cut churches are indeed found throughout

Ethiopia.

72, I'm not sure if this is true.

73, The 600 figure here is reasonable but I'm

unsure of the word origin given.

74, THe 100,000 tons sounds like hyperboyle,

and Londons pop. was more like 30,000.

75, Interesting.

76, Very dubious.

77, Likely true but the source?

78, They probably did mine gold on a massive

scale. However the figures read like

hyperboyle.

79, Since Monamotapa traded with all sorts of

people including the Portuguese this would not

be unusual.

80, Interesting if true, but not unique.

81, No they havn't. Besides what do you mean

by "precolonial"? If you mean before 18.00

C.E., well DUH!!

82, If true fasinating, source please.

83, Dubious. And a Lunar calendar of 354 days

sounds terribly Muslim.

84, Intersting. Source please, not a vague

reference.

85, True.

86, Wouldn't be surprised if true.

87, Sigh! THe Romans had windows.

88, Probably true.

89, Probably true.

90, source please.

91, I'm not sure. Possible.

92, Would not be surprised.

93, So?

94, True.

95, Dubious.

96, Dubious.

97, Who is this person? Source?

98, Source?

99, Wouldn't be surprised if true. THe name of

the Archaeologist would be nice.

100, A Chinese explorer Cheung Hu brought the

giraffe.


Firstly, I just need to say that you have no life what so ever! HaHA! Now, I disagree about numbers 1 and 2 being unremarkable because these people later traveled across the entire planet, adapted, and survived in order to make way for coons like you.

#3 - #10

You'll have to show a source for your claim about #5, I think you're lying, Europeans weren't even white at the time anyways. I believe this to be the era of the Gramaldi Black Man..

#8 The Sphinx indeed is debatable, but evidence suggests that it goes back to predynastic times.

#9 Nubia has already been confirmed as the first Monarchy in history, this is indisputable. No need to obscure the facts.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/qustul.html

#10, this would seem to suggest a "sub-saharan" body plan, as north Africa is not in the "Tropics" idiot. You must of missed the phrase "Black African", even though we all know there were no "White" Africans at that time anyways. Here's the actual study.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/egyptian_body_proportions.pdf

I'm not going to go tit for tat because all that you're doing is undermining these accomplishments by giving your dry, uninformed opinion about how impressive or not it was, so I'll just stick to the ones that you need a source for or question.

#17. How do you figure that India did it 1,000 years earlier, and if so who cares? This is a list about Africa, and obviously it was an independent development, Europeans and Native Americans were shitting in caves at that time. I give the "Black' Dravidians props for their accomplishments.

#21. I have no idea, but to assume outside involvment with out direct evidence doesn't pass the test of Occam's razor and exposes you as a biased crab.

#25, no one cares about your undirected doubts, you're not an authority on ancient Ghana, debunk it or stay in the corner.

#28. Give me a source that says Europe or Arabia used Cheques as currency in 951 A.D., if you can't do that your ranting is worthless.

#29. This isn't "Hyperboyle" by the author, he quoted a medieval source, take it up with the source. And per capita I'm quite sure Ghana shitted all over China at that time. Besides, the claim was made about the King, and not Ghana its self, quit resorting to straw men.

#30. I admit it sounds a little far fetched, but if these elements were indigenous to America, maybe it should be looked into.

#32. Who cares about the Romans, they had legs too. This is about Africa, it isn't a contest as you make it out to be.


#35. You're such a vindicative creature.. This is the Yoruba's trade mark and what they're known for.
http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/outreach/pdfs/yoruba_teaching_kit.pdf


#39. Provide a source that states China was richer than Mali at the time. How?

#40. You fool, There's no way to know for sure if he made it or not, but the fact that Abubakari made a voyage across the Atlantic is well documented, the debate is rather he made it all the way across or not. You can speculate what you will, I can't say either way.

#42. Stop using the same terminology and expand your limited vocabulary, you're being repetitive. Anyways, Again, he quotes a source, this is not "hyperbole" idiot, these are not his words.

#44. Haha, what use is it to question the quote? How about you look him up yourself, then come back and debunk it if you find it dubious, for what I have no idea.

#45. Everything about Timbuktu is confirmed and documented, it would be a real stretch to say that these facts are fabricated, you can read about Timbuktu any where.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Timbuktu&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-29,GGGL:en


#46. I'm tired of that "Hyperbole" word, vary your speech pattern you ignorant drone. Again, he quotes a source, you're reaching..

Ok, this is where I stop for now, because all you're doing is lazily asking for sources for things that have already been confirmed or you try and undermine it by saying someone else did it, or it isn't a big deal. You're playing games right now and are literally trying to cast as much doubt on African achievement as possible, but where you fail is in your obvious and blatant approach. Also your repetitive and unwitty semantics, the facts still stand because you've done nothing to refute any of the claims, you either doubt them (probably since it shatters your previous notions of white/brown supremacy) or downgrade them. Your strategy is pathetic and non-effective.

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ArtistFormerlyKnownAsHeru
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quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
quote:
Originally posted by Nay-Sayer:

The Bible will only scramble your brain like so many eggs. Did you know that religion and drug addiction have much in common? Get help now!!

Hey, I read the Bible too but my brains are not scrambled. Also, if one were to read the Bible from it's original Hebrew perspective (getting rid of mistranslations, extra influence, etc.) and not take certain things literally but symbolically, then one would realize that the Bible is not as silly as some think it to be.
Hey, could you point me to where I can get my hands on such a Bible?

Cheers.

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Djehuti
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^Unfortunately the only such Bible at least for the Old Testament would be Hebrew Tanakh. Other than that, I had to do lots of research on the many mistranslations as well as misinterpretations based on non-Biblical influence.
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Supercar
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quote:
Originally posted by Sundiata:


#9 Nubia has already been confirmed as the first Monarchy in history, this is indisputable. No need to obscure the facts.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/qustul.html

I agree with your general position that Mustafino's post offers little in way of 'real' rebuttals. Having said that, the 1979 piece was right about the status quo at that time; however, in 1998 Dreyer found tombs in what is dubbed as the "Nagadan complex", tombs that appear to be contemporaneous with those in lower Ta-Seti - the A Group. Your intro post says:

9. On the 1 March 1979, the New York Times carried an article on its front page also page sixteen that was entitled Nubian Monarchy called Oldest. In this article we were assured that: “Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern Egypt.)

Still, the earliest attestations to the "white crown" is in the Ta-Seti [so-called "Nubian"] tomb regalia. Early Nagadan royal figures seem to commonly sport the 'red' crown type before the likes of the late "King Scorpion". King scorpion was shown wearing both crowns, the 'red' one and the 'white' one. The same is true for Narmer, and pharaonic kings thereafter, wearing the 'white' crown. Amongst the contemporaneous royal tombs in Nagada with those of Ta-Seti, is said to be that which belonged to an earlier "King Scorpion".

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BrandonP
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As someone who loves dinosaurs even more than he does ancient Egypt, I have to take offense at Bettyboo's insistence that dinosaurs did not exist. As a matter of fact, they still exist. Suffice to say that most of them have lost their teeth and have a different type of skin covering.

Oh, and Bettyboo owes me an apology for calling me a racist.

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Whatbox
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^I think she was projecting.

Read her posts, she's the one that's racist.

I think she's trying to make us look bad, especially if she called you a racist for no reason.

--------------------
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Mustafino
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quote:
Originally posted by Sundiata:
Firstly, I just need to say that you have no life what so ever! HaHA! Now, I disagree about numbers 1 and 2 being unremarkable because these people later traveled across the entire planet, adapted, and survived in order to make way for coons like you.

And coons like you. Doesn't change the fact that they didn't look like you or me.

quote:
You'll have to show a source for your claim about #5, I think you're lying, Europeans weren't even white at the time anyways. I believe this to be the era of the Gramaldi Black Man.
One, Grimaldi man was actually a boy and his mother. They were found among Cor-Magnon. An outlier. So they were hardly the majority. Finally we have no clue as to Grimaldi's skin color. Back on topic. Whatever colors Europeans had at the time, they were still European.

quote:
#8 The Sphinx indeed is debatable, but evidence suggests that it goes back to predynastic times.
Geologic Study of the Sphinx
More Sphinx Debate: He said, I say... James Harrell responds to Robert Schoch
Comments on the Geological Evidence for the Sphinx's Age
More Sphinx Debate: He Said ... I Say
The Sphinx Controversy: Another Look at the Geological Evidence
Age of the Sphinx
Notes and Photographs on the West-Schoch Sphinx Hypothesis
Deterioration of the Stone of the Great Sphinx
The ARCE Sphinx Project - A Preliminary Report

quote:
#9 Nubia has already been confirmed as the first Monarchy in history, this is indisputable. No need to obscure the facts. " target="_blank">http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/qustul.html[/quote]
Not quite
Abydos and Naqada predate Qustul
http://xoomer.alice.it/francescoraf/hesyra/dynasty00.htm
http://www.narmer.pl/dyn/00en.htm
Also read [url= http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2968(198507)44%3A3%3C185%3ADAT%22P%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J]here[/url]
While you are at it, look up:
Bruce B. Williams, The Qustul Incense Burner and the Case for a Nubian Origin of Ancient Egyptian Kingship; Joseph W. Wegner
or just read this response

quote:
#10, this would seem to suggest a "sub-saharan" body plan, as north Africa is not in the "Tropics" idiot. You must of missed the phrase "Black African", even though we all know there were no "White" Africans at that time anyways. Here's the actual study.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/egyptian_body_proportions.pdf

Already read the study.
I remember a part in the abstract. "The change found in body plan is suggested to be the result of the later groups having a more tropical (Nilotic) form than the preceding populations."
The White claim is of course a strawman. The fact remains earlier groups had a less tropical form.
Also, let's not forget that Dr. Kamal from the Cairo Med school sampled DNA from construction workers at the pyramids and stated they were similar in pattern to that of modern Egyptians. Multi ethnic.

quote:
#17. How do you figure that India did it 1,000 years earlier, and if so who cares? This is a list about Africa, and obviously it was an independent development, Europeans and Native Americans were shitting in caves at that time. I give the "Black' Dravidians props for their accomplishments.
I'm not Pacal. But I am sure he had his sources. Props to all shitters.[/quote]

quote:
#21. I have no idea, but to assume outside involvment with out direct evidence doesn't pass the test of Occam's razor and exposes you as a biased crab.
I don't agree with Pacal on the Jewish angle. But trade does create sharing of ideas.
quote:
The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic origin that was used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë by at least c. 200 BC — and possibly also the Nubian language of the successor Nubian kingdoms, that was later written in a Greek uncial alphabet which adopted three of the old Meroitic glyphs.

Being primarily alphabetic, the Meroitic script worked in quite a different way from Egyptian hieroglyphs. Some scholars, e.g. Haarmann, believe that the Greek alphabet played a role in its development, primarily because Meroitic had letters for vowels; although in other respects it did not function much like Greek.

The Meroitic script was essentially alphabetic, but with a default vowel /a/ assumed unless another vowel was written. A consonant by itself was indicated by the vowel /e/ (schwa) following the symbol. That is, the two letters me represented both the syllable /me/ and the consonant /m/ by itself, while the syllable ma was written with one letter, and mi with two. Some other syllables had special glyphs. In this sense, it is properly a 'semi-syllabic' script, only vaguely reminiscent of the Indian abugida alphabets that arose around the same time. Several syllable-final consonants, such as /n/ and /s/, were often omitted.

quote:
#25, no one cares about your undirected doubts, you're not an authority on ancient Ghana, debunk it or stay in the corner.
Again, I am not Pacal, but here goes.

The claim:
quote:
25. Kumbi Saleh, the capital of Ancient Ghana, flourished from 300 to 1240 AD. Located in modern day Mauritania, archaeological excavations have revealed houses, almost habitable today, for want of renovation and several storeys high. They had underground rooms, staircases and connecting halls. Some had nine rooms. One part of the city alone is estimated to have housed 30,000 people.
What others claim:
quote:
The empire's capital was built at Kumbi Saleh on the edge of the Sahara. The capital was actually two cities six miles apart separated by a six-mile road. But settlements between the cities became so dense due to the influx of people coming to trade, that it merged into one. Most of the houses were built of wood and clay, but wealthy and important residents lived in homes of wood and stone. This large metropolis of over 30,000 people remained divided after its merger forming two distinct areas within the city.
While he claims one part of the city alone had 30,000+ people, it seems the reality is that ot was the merging of two cities in their entirety that led to a population of 30,000+ people.

quote:
#28. Give me a source that says Europe or Arabia used Cheques as currency in 951 A.D., if you can't do that your ranting is worthless.
The modern cheque comes from the Persian چک chek,, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. During the third century AD, banks in Persia and other territories in the Persian empire under Sassanid Empire also issued letters of credit known as Sakks and is the root of the word cheque.
http://www.businesspme.com/uk/articles/finance/14/cheque.html

quote:
#29. This isn't "Hyperboyle" by the author, he quoted a medieval source, take it up with the source. And per capita I'm quite sure Ghana shitted all over China at that time. Besides, the claim was made about the King, and not Ghana its self, quit resorting to straw men.
It is a hyperbole by the person quoted. Nice try.
That doesn't mean it is evidence, and that is exactly what Pacal said. Where is the evidence the king of Ghana was the "richest king on the face of the earth?"

quote:
#30. I admit it sounds a little far fetched, but if these elements were indigenous to America, maybe it should be looked into.
Of course a source would have been good and mention of the evidence of these indigenous elements.

quote:
#32. Who cares about the Romans, they had legs too. This is about Africa, it isn't a contest as you make it out to be.
Robin sure does make it sound lke he is claiming firsts. Pacal was probably just responding to that.

quote:
#35. You're such a vindicative creature.. This is the Yoruba's trade mark and what they're known for. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/outreach/pdfs/yoruba_teaching_kit.pdf
LOL. All he asked for was a source. Many places have been known for similar things. But the quote claims a direct comparison. Where is the evidence of being better than the other cultures mentioned?

quote:
#39. Provide a source that states China was richer than Mali at the time. How?
Again that is Pacal, but I can say it was one of the wealthiest. I can give examples of it. Can you give examples of Mali's Wealth to juxtapose in supporting Robins claim based on a TV show that it was the wealthiest?
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/webcourse/key_points/kp_6.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4593717.stm
http://www.colby.edu/ming/Recent_Trends.doc

quote:
#40. You fool, There's no way to know for sure if he made it or not, but the fact that Abubakari made a voyage across the Atlantic is well documented, the debate is rather he made it all the way across or not. You can speculate what you will, I can't say either way.
That he started a voyage toward someplace in the Atlantic is documented. That he made it there or sank is not. No evidence of his arrival in the Americas.

quote:
#42. Stop using the same terminology and expand your limited vocabulary, you're being repetitive. Anyways, Again, he quotes a source, this is not "hyperbole" idiot, these are not his words.
They are a hyperbole of the person quoted.
I will relay your complaint of his paucity of words to Pacal. [Big Grin]

quote:
#44. Haha, what use is it to question the quote? How about you look him up yourself, then come back and debunk it if you find it dubious, for what I have no idea.
Again, that would be Pacal.
The quote comes from:
 -
Written in 1989. I make no claims as to it's accuracy or innacuracy.

quote:
#45. Everything about Timbuktu is confirmed and documented, it would be a real stretch to say that these facts are fabricated, you can read about Timbuktu any where.
Interesting how it reached it's zenith in the 16th century bot only a population of 40,000
http://worldheritage.heindorffhus.dk/frame-MaliTimbuktu.htm
While London has been estimated from 50 to 100 thousand during the 14th century
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_200506/ai_n15845444/pg_4
quote:
#46. I'm tired of that "Hyperbole" word, vary your speech pattern you ignorant drone. Again, he quotes a source, you're reaching.
Again, the source was using hyperbole.

Any more?

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Sundjata
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quote:
Originally posted by Supercar:
quote:
Originally posted by Sundiata:


#9 Nubia has already been confirmed as the first Monarchy in history, this is indisputable. No need to obscure the facts.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/qustul.html

I agree with your general position that Mustafino's post offers little in way of 'real' rebuttals. Having said that, the 1979 piece was right about the status quo at that time; however, in 1998 Dreyer found tombs in what is dubbed as the "Nagadan complex", tombs that appear to be contemporaneous with those in lower Ta-Seti - the A Group. Your intro post says:

9. On the 1 March 1979, the New York Times carried an article on its front page also page sixteen that was entitled Nubian Monarchy called Oldest. In this article we were assured that: “Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern Egypt.)

Still, the earliest attestations to the "white crown" is in the Ta-Seti [so-called "Nubian"] tomb regalia. Early Nagadan royal figures seem to commonly sport the 'red' crown type before the likes of the late "King Scorpion". King scorpion was shown wearing both crowns, the 'red' one and the 'white' one. The same is true for Narmer, and pharaonic kings thereafter, wearing the 'white' crown. Amongst the contemporaneous royal tombs in Nagada with those of Ta-Seti, is said to be that which belonged to an earlier "King Scorpion".

Thanx for the clarification, it's something to think about. It seems that there was shared culture in the "predynastic" Nile Valley leading up to the unifications of Lower Egypt and Ta-Seti. A lot more than Mustafino's biased doubts and nonobjective arguments.
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Mustafino
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repost
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Sundjata
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^I don't feel like debating your alternate ego (Pacal) right now and you've used a whole new array of Straw Man arguments again anyways, so I won't bother.
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Mustafino
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Translation, you have no response.
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Supercar
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quote:
Originally posted by Mustafino:

quote:
You'll have to show a source for your claim about #5, I think you're lying, Europeans weren't even white at the time anyways. I believe this to be the era of the Gramaldi Black Man.
One, Grimaldi man was actually a boy and his mother. They were found among Cor-Magnon. An outlier. So they were hardly the majority. Finally we have no clue as to Grimaldi's skin color. Back on topic. Whatever colors Europeans had at the time, they were still European.
Do you think that the Cro-magnon crania look like those of contemporary Europeans?


quote:
Mustafino:

quote:
#9 Nubia has already been confirmed as the first Monarchy in history, this is indisputable. No need to obscure the facts. http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/qustul.html
Not quite
Abydos and Naqada predate Qustul
http://xoomer.alice.it/francescoraf/hesyra/dynasty00.htm

http://www.narmer.pl/dyn/00en.htm


The Abydos royal tomps are in what was part of the "Nagadan complex". You use them separately as if you didn't know that; but then, you likely didn't.

Those Royal Tombs are 'contemporaneous' with those found in Ta-Seti group burials at Qustul. The former doesn't precede the latter.


quote:
Mustafino:

While you are at it, look up:
Bruce B. Williams, The Qustul Incense Burner and the Case for a Nubian Origin of Ancient Egyptian Kingship; Joseph W. Wegner
or just read this response

Actually Wegner offered very little rebuttal in way of William's claim, and in fact, William even responded to such critiques by demonstrating how they misquote him, and engage in strawman argumentation. You can read Bruce William in his own words here: http://wysinger.homestead.com/menes.pdf

...instead of reading critiques who have no clue about what they are talking about.

From the horse's mouth:

At the heart of Adams’s objections is his assertion that “Lost Pharaohs” claimed a Nubian origin for the “immemorial” pharaonic monarchy. No such claim was made in that article or in any other publication which has had my advance approval. More specifically, the words “participation” and “helped” fashion pharaonic civilization” were used.

- Bruce Williams, Forebears of Menes in Nubia: Myth or Reality?

That the Ta-Seti elites would have been instrumental in the lead up to the formation of the Egyptian state, is without doubt; the importance of the "white crown" regalia throughout dynastic Egypt is evidence enough of this. This point, as raised by Williams, has not been refuted!

^It is supported by studies like:

"A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries and that the nonelite samples are not significantly different from each other.

A comparison with neighboring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the [b]high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, which is more closely related to populations in northern Nubia than to neighboring populations in southern Egypt.


Extract from: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 101, Issue 2, October 1996, Pages: 237-246


quote:
Mustafino:

quote:
#10, this would seem to suggest a "sub-saharan" body plan, as north Africa is not in the "Tropics" idiot. You must of missed the phrase "Black African", even though we all know there were no "White" Africans at that time anyways. Here's the actual study.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/egyptian_body_proportions.pdf

Already read the study.
I remember a part in the abstract. "The change found in body plan is suggested to be the result of the later groups having a more tropical (Nilotic) form than the preceding populations."
The White claim is of course a strawman. The fact remains earlier groups had a less tropical form.

It's relative, and nothing to do with earlier Nile Valley groups not having tropical body plans. Simply put, S. Zakrzewski said that:

The nature of the body plan was also investigated by comparing the intermembral, brachial, and crural indices for these samples with values obtained from the literature. No significant differences were found in either index through time for either sex. The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many “African” populations ( data from Aiello and Dean, 1990 ). This pattern is supported by Figure 7 ( a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994 ), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, **all samples** lie relatively **clustered together** as compared to the other populations."


quote:
Mustafino:

Also, let's not forget that Dr. Kamal from the Cairo Med school sampled DNA from construction workers at the pyramids and stated they were similar in pattern to that of modern Egyptians. Multi ethnic.

...and what specific lineages did Dr. Kamal find from "ancient Specimens", which remarkably survived DNA contamination?


quote:
Mustafino:

quote:
The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic origin that was used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë by at least c. 200 BC — and possibly also the Nubian language of the successor Nubian kingdoms, that was later written in a Greek uncial alphabet which adopted three of the old Meroitic glyphs.

Being primarily alphabetic, the Meroitic script worked in quite a different way from Egyptian hieroglyphs. Some scholars, e.g. Haarmann, believe that the Greek alphabet played a role in its development, primarily because Meroitic had letters for vowels; although in other respects it did not function much like Greek.


Greeks had no role whatsoever in the development of Meroitic script. It used Egyptic scripts as a basis, i.e. the demotic script, and remotely with the Heratic script, with local Meroitic developments infused to make it a unique and original script in its own right. The script has nothing to do with Europeans or Indians, and you haven't produced any shred of evidence of this.


quote:
Mustafino:

quote:


#45. Everything about Timbuktu is confirmed and documented, it would be a real stretch to say that these facts are fabricated, you can read about Timbuktu any where.

Interesting how it reached it's zenith in the 16th century bot only a population of 40,000
http://worldheritage.heindorffhus.dk/frame-MaliTimbuktu.htm
While London has been estimated from 50 to 100 thousand during the 14th century.

During the height of Mali's wealth, no European country could compare, and especially not London. Mali was so wealthy and on the map of the world then, that European artists actually painted cartoons of the Malian leader, identified as Mansa Musa. Mansa Musa was known in Southern Europe, and of course, the southwest Asian world, which was having a gloden era under the 'Arab' mantle. London was not quite on the economic map of known parts of the world during the height of Malian wealth.

BTW, on what "primary texts" dating back to the height of Malian wealth, are you basing the population numbers...written by whom, and where at the time?

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legeonas
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quote:
Originally posted by Supercar:
Do you think that the Cro-magnon crania look like those of contemporary Europeans?

As much as Grimaldi man looked like contemporary Africans

quote:
The Abydos royal tomps are in what was part of the "Nagadan complex". You use them separately as if you didn't know that; but then, you likely didn't.
Those Royal Tombs are 'contemporaneous' with those found in Ta-Seti group burials at Qustul. The former doesn't precede the latter.

Provide a source for your claim

quote:
Wegner offered very little rebuttal in way of William's claim, and in fact, William even responded to such critiques by demonstrating how they misquote him, and engage in strawman argumentation. You can read Bruce William in his own words here: http://wysinger.homestead.com/menes.pdf
That the Ta-Seti elites would have been instrumental in the lead up to the formation of the Egyptian state, is without doubt; the importance of the "white crown" regalia throughout dynastic Egypt is evidence enough of this. This point, as raised by Williams, has not been refuted!

Hardly.
quote:
One hears constantly that the ancient Egyptians were derived from the Nubians.
What's the evidence for this pray tell? Inscriptions, which ones? Rather, if you go back to Predynastic times, as long as human habitation is attested, there were some people in the Egyptian Nile Valley, as shown by stone tools discovered. These go back to Homo Erectus! Later, as the Sahara grew habitable during the Neolithic Wet Period, ca. 10,000 B.C., many Nile Valley and other
river valley dwelling Africans streamed onto the Sahara, after the game animals, as they were yet hunter-gatherers. On the Sahara, there are the rock paintings to document their presence, from ca. 8000 B.C. onwards. They depict a transition to cattle pastoralism, probably around 7000 B.C. Later still they adopted agriculture and pottery making. As the Sahara began to grow arid, after 5000 B.C., some of these people returned to the Nile Valley. There, they intermingled with the local folk, and out of this arose both
the Khartoum Neolithic (distinctly Nubian culture) and the Badarian and Delta Predynastic cultures in what is now Egypt. Early on their pottery is alike, but it traces back to both their Saharan ancestors. So also, their cattle pastoralism traces back to the Saharans.

The Khartoum Neolithic culture though later becomes distinct from those developing in Egypt. Thereafter, the Predynastic Egyptians of the Valley developed the Naqadan culture, that eventually unified the land. In Naqada II, some Egyptians moved south of the First Cataract into Lower Nubia. There they intermingled with the Abkan peoples and produced the A-Group culture. During Naqada III, when chieftains emerged, and writing appeared, the A-Group were depicted as wearing pharaonic symbols (white crown) as shown on the Qustul Incense Burner, and using the falcon and serekh, as depicted on the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman rock carving. While some have quibbled that the incense burner was imported from Egypt, there's no way that the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman rock scene was imported from anywhere, and William Murnane in JNES (1987) demonstrated beyond cavil that it was not King Djer's rock carving, but a product of much earlier A-Group, from the horizon of Serekhs without royal names. As for the incense burner, its material is not Egyptian, nor are decorated incense burners typical of the Egyptian Naqada culture. So, it probably is an A-Group document. Thus the A-Group was using pharaonic imagery, and writing in a very early state, just as were the Upper Egyptian Naqada III emerging chieftains.

So, where's the Nubian origin of Egyptian culture in all this? Khartoum Neolithic culture followed its own developmental track, but it had nothing to do with Naqada II-III Egypt.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Yurco
University of Chicago

quote:
It is supported by studies like:
"A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries and that the nonelite samples are not significantly different from each other.

A comparison with neighboring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the [b]high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, which is more closely related to populations in northern Nubia than to neighboring populations in southern Egypt.


Extract from: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 101, Issue 2, October 1996, Pages: 237-246

So it indicates an affinity of people. similar ancestry, not that one started the other. Furthermore, notice that other populattins in Southern Egypt were not the same. Which speaks to variwty in the region. Great post.

quote:
It's relative, and nothing to do with earlier Nile Valley groups not having tropical body plans. Simply put, S. Zakrzewski said that:

The nature of the body plan was also investigated by comparing the intermembral, brachial, and crural indices for these samples with values obtained from the literature. No significant differences were found in either index through time for either sex. The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many “African” populations ( data from Aiello and Dean, 1990 ). This pattern is supported by Figure 7 ( a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994 ), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, **all samples** lie relatively **clustered together** as compared to the other populations."

quote:
She gave the paper at a symposium at Poznan. Here is a published summary of the paper and the discussion, it was not received well:
S. Zakrzewski, "Human skeletal diversity in the Egyptian Nile Valley" - The speaker used the study of skeletal material in the absence of genetic evidence. She studied how diverse was the Predynastic Egyptian population. The source for this work were the collections in museums, not material from recent archaeological work. She found, not unexpectedly, that there were was a sexual differentiation being males taller than females. Also that through time, from the Badarian to the Early Dynastic, the stature increased. She said that if there was no significant change in the population, then there must have been dietary deficiencies. She concluded that from the Badarian, with a clear prognathism, there was a change because there were many broader crania in the Early Dynastic. The increasing variation could be due to population increase or the influx of outside individuals into the population (without involving migrations). J. J. Castillos objected to this paper's conclusions mainly because of the imprecise nature of the time periods (Badarian, Early Predynastic, Late Predynastic, Early Dynastic) which were taken from sometimes old and obsolete museum records and which are understood differently by different scholars. The speaker replied that she used the chronology as given in the museums and she could do nothing about that. Then J. J. Castillos objected to conclusions on height variation based on just a few examples (small samples), she replied that it was regulated in the statistical approach to make the results significant in spite of that. Finally, J. J. Castillos objected to the amount of variation in stature, for women of about 3 to 4 cm in 1,500 years, which he found hardly significant, she replied that it was nevertheless significant.
********
The conclusion of the paper as published in American Journal of Physical anthropology 121:228
This study found an increase in stature within Egyptians from the Predynastic until the start of the dynastic period, followed by a later decline in height. this increase in stature with intensification of agriculture was predicted as a result of greater reliability of food production, and the formation of social ranking. The later decreases in stature coincides with even greater social complexity, and is expected as it implies that the formation of social classes is allied to differential access to nutrition and health care, with higher ranked individuals being preferentially treated and fed. This change in stature was much greater in males than in females. Long bone lenghts also increased from the Badarian to the Early dynastic periods more for males than for females, and again decreased to a greater extent through the OK and MK periods among males than females. this greater response to changes in socioeconomic status by males was previously described in modern children (Malina et al., 1985; Stinson 1985). the present study thus supports the greater response to environmental stresses, including positive stresses, in males than in females.
The present study suggests that changes in stature and body size occurred in Egypt with the development of social ranking, through a reflection of differential access to food and other resources. These results must remain provisional due to the relatively small sample sizes and the lack of skeletal material that cross-cuts all social and economic groups within each time period. Further research on recently excavated skeletal material is therefore needed to further address the issues raised.

quote:
...and what specific lineages did Dr. Kamal find from "ancient Specimens", which remarkably survived DNA contamination?
You will have to ask her.

quote:
The script has nothing to do with Europeans or Indians, and you haven't produced any shred of evidence of this.
It was a hypothesis. Havew you presented any evidence to refute it? No.
quote:
During the height of Mali's wealth, no European country could compare, and especially not London.
In brute wealth? Maybe. Technology, maybe not. Still not China.

quote:
BTW, on what "primary texts" dating back to the height of Malian wealth, are you basing the population numbers...written by whom, and where at the time?
It was the same source I posted that link praising Timbuktu. As reliable as the claim and source of Robin's.
http://www.ecowas.info/timbuk.htm
This one claims 100,000 the same as London. But during the Songhai period. 16th century I believe.

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Mystery Solver
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quote:
Originally posted by legeonas:

quote:
Originally posted by Supercar:
Do you think that the Cro-magnon crania look like those of contemporary Europeans?

As much as Grimaldi man looked like contemporary Africans
I take it that you don't know the answer to the simple question?


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
The Abydos royal tomps are in what was part of the "Nagadan complex". You use them separately as if you didn't know that; but then, you likely didn't.
Those Royal Tombs are 'contemporaneous' with those found in Ta-Seti group burials at Qustul. The former doesn't precede the latter.

Provide a source for your claim

quote:
Wegner offered very little rebuttal in way of William's claim, and in fact, William even responded to such critiques by demonstrating how they misquote him, and engage in strawman argumentation. You can read Bruce William in his own words here: http://wysinger.homestead.com/menes.pdf
That the Ta-Seti elites would have been instrumental in the lead up to the formation of the Egyptian state, is without doubt; the importance of the "white crown" regalia throughout dynastic Egypt is evidence enough of this. This point, as raised by William, has not been refuted!

Hardly.
I take it that you didn't bother reading the link. If you did, then tell me what is wrong with William's assessements from the concrete evidence he studied.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
One hears constantly that the ancient Egyptians were derived from the Nubians.
What's the evidence for this pray tell? Inscriptions, which ones? Rather, if you go back to Predynastic times, as long as human habitation is attested, there were some people in the Egyptian Nile Valley, as shown by stone tools discovered. These go back to Homo Erectus! Later, as the Sahara grew habitable during the Neolithic Wet Period, ca. 10,000 B.C., many Nile Valley and other
river valley dwelling Africans streamed onto the Sahara, after the game animals, as they were yet hunter-gatherers. On the Sahara, there are the rock paintings to document their presence, from ca. 8000 B.C. onwards. They depict a transition to cattle pastoralism, probably around 7000 B.C. Later still they adopted agriculture and pottery making. As the Sahara began to grow arid, after 5000 B.C., some of these people returned to the Nile Valley. There, they intermingled with the local folk, and out of this arose both
the Khartoum Neolithic (distinctly Nubian culture) and the Badarian and Delta Predynastic cultures in what is now Egypt. Early on their pottery is alike, but it traces back to both their Saharan ancestors. So also, their cattle pastoralism traces back to the Saharans.

The Khartoum Neolithic culture though later becomes distinct from those developing in Egypt. Thereafter, the Predynastic Egyptians of the Valley developed the Naqadan culture, that eventually unified the land. In Naqada II, some Egyptians moved south of the First Cataract into Lower Nubia. There they intermingled with the Abkan peoples and produced the A-Group culture. During Naqada III, when chieftains emerged, and writing appeared, the A-Group were depicted as wearing pharaonic symbols (white crown) as shown on the Qustul Incense Burner, and using the falcon and serekh, as depicted on the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman rock carving. While some have quibbled that the incense burner was imported from Egypt, there's no way that the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman rock scene was imported from anywhere, and William Murnane in JNES (1987) demonstrated beyond cavil that it was not King Djer's rock carving, but a product of much earlier A-Group, from the horizon of Serekhs without royal names. As for the incense burner, its material is not Egyptian, nor are decorated incense burners typical of the Egyptian Naqada culture. So, it probably is an A-Group document. Thus the A-Group was using pharaonic imagery, and writing in a very early state, just as were the Upper Egyptian Naqada III emerging chieftains.

So, where's the Nubian origin of Egyptian culture in all this? Khartoum Neolithic culture followed its own developmental track, but it had nothing to do with Naqada II-III Egypt.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Yurco
University of Chicago

quote:
It is supported by studies like:
"A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries and that the nonelite samples are not significantly different from each other.

A comparison with neighboring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the [b]high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, which is more closely related to populations in northern Nubia than to neighboring populations in southern Egypt.


Extract from: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 101, Issue 2, October 1996, Pages: 237-246

So it indicates an affinity of people. similar ancestry, not that one started the other. Furthermore, notice that other populattins in Southern Egypt were not the same. Which speaks to variwty in the region. Great post.
The study *supports* the idea that Ta-Seti [in so-called "Nubia"] elites were integrated into Nagadan "elite social layer", as suggested by archeological evidence. If you understood this point, then "great" for you.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
It's relative, and nothing to do with earlier Nile Valley groups not having tropical body plans. Simply put, S. Zakrzewski said that:

The nature of the body plan was also investigated by comparing the intermembral, brachial, and crural indices for these samples with values obtained from the literature. No significant differences were found in either index through time for either sex. The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many “African” populations ( data from Aiello and Dean, 1990 ). This pattern is supported by Figure 7 ( a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994 ), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, **all samples** lie relatively **clustered together** as compared to the other populations."

quote:


She gave the paper at a symposium at Poznan. Here is a published summary of the paper and the discussion, it was not received well:

S. Zakrzewski, "Human skeletal diversity in the Egyptian Nile Valley" - The speaker used the study of skeletal material in the absence of genetic evidence. She studied how diverse was the Predynastic Egyptian population. The source for this work were the collections in museums, not material from recent archaeological work.

Apparently the person who wrote this so-called "critique" didn't bother to read the study in question; Zakrzewski mentioned in detail the tombs and burial sites [including periods they belong to] where the specimens came from.

quote:
legeonas:

She found, not unexpectedly, that there were was a sexual differentiation being males taller than females. Also that through time, from the Badarian to the Early Dynastic, the stature increased. She said that if there was no significant change in the population, then there must have been dietary deficiencies. She concluded that from the Badarian, with a clear prognathism, there was a change because there were many broader crania in the Early Dynastic. The increasing variation could be due to population increase or the influx of outside individuals into the population (without involving migrations). J. J. Castillos objected to this paper's conclusions mainly because of the imprecise nature of the time periods (Badarian, Early Predynastic, Late Predynastic, Early Dynastic) which were taken from sometimes old and obsolete museum records and which are understood differently by different scholars. The speaker replied that she used the chronology as given in the museums and she could do nothing about that. Then J. J. Castillos objected to conclusions on height variation based on just a few examples (small samples), she replied that it was regulated in the statistical approach to make the results significant in spite of that. Finally, J. J. Castillos objected to the amount of variation in stature, for women of about 3 to 4 cm in 1,500 years, which he found hardly significant, she replied that it was nevertheless significant.
********
The conclusion of the paper as published in American Journal of Physical anthropology 121:228
This study found an increase in stature within Egyptians from the Predynastic until the start of the dynastic period, followed by a later decline in height. this increase in stature with intensification of agriculture was predicted as a result of greater reliability of food production, and the formation of social ranking. The later decreases in stature coincides with even greater social complexity, and is expected as it implies that the formation of social classes is allied to differential access to nutrition and health care, with higher ranked individuals being preferentially treated and fed. This change in stature was much greater in males than in females. Long bone lenghts also increased from the Badarian to the Early dynastic periods more for males than for females, and again decreased to a greater extent through the OK and MK periods among males than females. this greater response to changes in socioeconomic status by males was previously described in modern children (Malina et al., 1985; Stinson 1985). the present study thus supports the greater response to environmental stresses, including positive stresses, in males than in females.
The present study suggests that changes in stature and body size occurred in Egypt with the development of social ranking, through a reflection of differential access to food and other resources. These results must remain provisional due to the relatively small sample sizes and the lack of skeletal material that cross-cuts all social and economic groups within each time period. Further research on recently excavated skeletal material is therefore needed to further address the issues raised.


See post above. No one cares about a 'critique' that fails to 'refute' the findings in question, which would be to say that the specimens, as described as "tropical body plans", is inaccurate, and why.

quote:
legeonas:

quote:
...and what specific lineages did Dr. Kamal find from "ancient Specimens", which remarkably survived DNA contamination?
You will have to ask her.
In which case, you had no point in talking about those studies in the first place.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
The script has nothing to do with Europeans or Indians, and you haven't produced any shred of evidence of this.
It was a hypothesis. Havew you presented any evidence to refute it? No.
A hypothesis without basis. The burden is on you to produce evidence that "Meroitic" script develops from "Europeans" or "Indians", as opposed to the Meroites themselves, from pre-existing Nile-Valley developed scripts [demotic and heratic].

quote:
legeonas:

quote:
During the height of Mali's wealth, no European country could compare, and especially not London.
In brute wealth? Maybe. Technology, maybe not. Still not China.
What technology did Europe have at the height of Malian complex's wealth? However knowledge in Mali is well attested to in its wealth and the body of evidential material of literature, and other associated relics saved from that period. What was "London's" technology at the height of the Malian wealth?


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
BTW, on what "primary texts" dating back to the height of Malian wealth, are you basing the population numbers...written by whom, and where at the time?
It was the same source I posted that link praising Timbuktu. As reliable as the claim and source of Robin's.
http://www.ecowas.info/timbuk.htm
This one claims 100,000 the same as London. But during the Songhai period. 16th century I believe.

I ask again, what "primary texts", not "Ecowas" [Ecowas doesn't date to that period, nor is it a "primary text"], dating back to the period coinciding with the height of Malian complex, tells us about the population numbers of that complex?
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legeonas
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quote:
Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
I take it that you don't know the answer to the simple question?

Apparently you don't know what a relative comparison is.
quote:
I take it that you didn't bother reading the link. If you did, then tell me what is wrong with William's assessements from the concrete evidence he studied.
Apparently you did not read Frank Yurco.

quote:
The study *supports* the idea that Ta-Seti [in so-called "Nubia"] elites were integrated into Nagadan "elite social layer", as suggested by archeological evidence. If you understood this point, then "great" for you.
No it does not. It supports that they had similar phenotypes. That is it. Could be they had common ancestors 500 years before. It does not mean one derives from the other.

quote:
Apparently the person who wrote this so-called "critique" didn't bother to read the study in question; Zakrzewski mentioned in detail the tombs and burial sites [including periods they belong to] where the specimens came from.
Apparently he held questionable the sources of those places because of their lack of recency.

quote:
See post above. No one cares about a 'critique' that fails to 'refute' the findings in question, which would be to say that the specimens, as described as "tropical body plans", is inaccurate, and why.
Read the post again. It states that the sample was not comprehensive enough and that more studies had to be done.

quote:
In which case, you had no point in talking about those studies in the first place.
Hardly. The study took place. I just don't have it. Much like you guys claim Diop's studies.

quote:
A hypothesis without basis. The burden is on you to produce evidence that "Meroitic" script develops from "Europeans" or "Indians", as opposed to the Meroites themselves, from pre-existing Nile-Valley developed scripts [demotic and heratic].
Similar amount of lettering, is one coincidence that could be a basis for the hypothesis. As I did not write it, it is irrelevant to me. It is as valid as the one that it only evolved from Meroitic, especially considering their is no reson for the differentiation.

quote:
What technology did Europe have at the height of Malian complex's wealth? However knowledge in Mali is well attested to in its wealth and the body of evidential material of literature, and other associated relics saved from that period. What was "London's" technology at the height of the Malian wealth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
[quote]I ask again, what "primary texts", not "Ecowas" [Ecowas doesn't date to that period, nor is it a "primary text"], dating back to the period coinciding with the height of Malian complex, tells us about the population numbers of that complex?

First answer your own question. What primary sources do you have? Encarta is the one that states that it was 40,000 in the 16th century.
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Mystery Solver
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quote:
Originally posted by legeonas:

quote:
Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
I take it that you don't know the answer to the simple question?

Apparently you don't know what a relative comparison is.
Immaterial. You didn't answer a direct/concise question asked, which says that you are incapable of answering it.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
I take it that you didn't bother reading the link. If you did, then tell me what is wrong with William's assessements from the concrete evidence he studied.
Apparently you did not read Frank Yurco.
You evaded the question asked again. You proclaimed to have read the link to a publication from the William himself, and yet failed to act on the request made of you. Thus you have no case, until you address this. Do you have to have Yurco read the link in question for you, before you actually have the backbone to answer a simple question?


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
The study *supports* the idea that Ta-Seti [in so-called "Nubia"] elites were integrated into Nagadan "elite social layer", as suggested by archeological evidence. If you understood this point, then "great" for you.
No it does not. It supports that they had similar phenotypes. That is it. Could be they had common ancestors 500 years before. It does not mean one derives from the other.
You've acknowledge yourself that the Nagada elites in question are deemed to be distinct from other specimens from "ordinary" local burials dating to that period. Again, you have no case; "denial" is not a form of case, addressing the evidence objectively to the contrary, however, is.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
Apparently the person who wrote this so-called "critique" didn't bother to read the study in question; Zakrzewski mentioned in detail the tombs and burial sites [including periods they belong to] where the specimens came from.
Apparently he held questionable the sources of those places because of their lack of recency.
He hasn't refuted the findings. Having said that, questioning in itself in of no relevance; the real question is whether his question has any material value, which in this case, you haven't yet demonstrated that he did.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
See post above. No one cares about a 'critique' that fails to 'refute' the findings in question, which would be to say that the specimens, as described as "tropical body plans", is inaccurate, and why.
Read the post again. It states that the sample was not comprehensive enough and that more studies had to be done.
Immaterial. Samples were enough, since they all correspond to the same findings: "Tropical body plan" time and again...just as other researchers noted in the study had observed prior to Zakrzewski.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
[QUOTE]In which case, you had no point in talking about those studies in the first place.
Hardly. The study took place. I just don't have it. Much like you guys claim Diop's studies.
But we have Diop's studies, and the specifics involved. You don't for your source, and so, your post is pointless - it was posted just for the sake of arguing without material value.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
A hypothesis without basis. The burden is on you to produce evidence that "Meroitic" script develops from "Europeans" or "Indians", as opposed to the Meroites themselves, from pre-existing Nile-Valley developed scripts [demotic and heratic].
Similar amount of lettering, is one coincidence that could be a basis for the hypothesis.
It is immaterial. Show me genetically, and structurally/gramatically and etmologically, how Meroitic is developed from European or Indian scripts, as opposed to pre-existing indigenous Nile Valley ones.


quote:
legeonas:

As I did not write it, it is irrelevant to me.

Hence, it was a pointless post, because you had no clue about what you were posting.


quote:
legeonas:

It is as valid as the one that it only evolved from Meroitic, especially considering their is no reson for the differentiation.

It isn't. Meroitic is easily shown to be a derivative of Demotic, which it structurally also resembles, albeit with unique Meroitic characteristics.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
What technology did Europe have at the height of Malian complex's wealth? However knowledge in Mali is well attested to in its wealth and the body of evidential material of literature, and other associated relics saved from that period. What was "London's" technology at the height of the Malian wealth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
[quote]I ask again, what "primary texts", not "Ecowas" [Ecowas doesn't date to that period, nor is it a "primary text"], dating back to the period coinciding with the height of Malian complex, tells us about the population numbers of that complex?

First answer your own question. What primary sources do you have? Encarta is the one that states that it was 40,000 in the 16th century.
I can't, because it is responding to your baseless charges.
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lego-nut's posts and material there in are so short and un-informative that I wouldn't consider them critiques, only petty cinics.

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legeonas
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quote:
Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
Immaterial. You didn't answer a direct/concise question asked, which says that you are incapable of answering it.

Nice try. Your question was a scapegoat. As you are defending a claim based on Grimaldi, you shof first that it is closer to modern Africans than Cromagnon is to modern Europeans. Nice scapegoat though.

quote:
You evaded the question asked again. You proclaimed to have read the link to a publication from the William himself, and yet failed to act on the request made of you. Thus you have no case, until you address this. Do you have to have Yurco read the link in question for you, before you actually have the backbone to answer a simple question?
Nice try. Yurco is dead. And his response post date Williams rebuttal. Show that Williams addressed what Yurco stated.

quote:
You've acknowledge yourself that the Nagada elites in question are deemed to be distinct from other specimens from "ordinary" local burials dating to that period. Again, you have no case; "denial" is not a form of case, addressing the evidence objectively to the contrary, however, is.
Again, nice scapegoat. Feel free to show how that study makes any claim of relationship other than skeletal phenotype similarity.

quote:
He hasn't refuted the findings. Having said that, questioning in itself in of no relevance; the real question is whether his question has any material value, which in this case, you haven't yet demonstrated that he did.
Lack of a quantitative sampling that is statistically representative of the population claimed.

quote:
Immaterial. Samples were enough, since they all correspond to the same findings: "Tropical body plan" time and again...just as other researchers noted in the study had observed prior to Zakrzewski.
Again, show that the samplings were sufficient. Neither you or I saw the sampling group. But obviously one peer at least called her on it.

quote:
But we have Diop's studies, and the specifics involved. You don't for your source, and so, your post is pointless - it was posted just for the sake of arguing without material value.
Show me Diop's study on melanin in mummies. Not his subsequent summary.
I'll await your evidence.

quote:
It is immaterial. Show me genetically, and structurally/gramatically and etmologically, how Meroitic is developed from European or Indian scripts, as opposed to pre-existing indigenous Nile Valley ones.
Strawman, no one said the language was influenced. They said the alphabet was. Much like syllabaries in Africa and Native America sprung when exposed to European or other syllabaries.

quote:
Hence, it was a pointless post, because you had no clue about what you were posting.
Wrong, relevant, but no more important to me as the other quote is to you. As both are lacking substantiation.

quote:
It isn't. Meroitic is easily shown to be a derivative of Demotic, which it structurally also resembles, albeit with unique Meroitic characteristics.
Then you can show that the alphabetic system exists in Demotic.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
What technology did Europe have at the height of Malian complex's wealth? However knowledge in Mali is well attested to in its wealth and the body of evidential material of literature, and other associated relics saved from that period. What was "London's" technology at the height of the Malian wealth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
I noticed you didn't address it.

quote:
quote:
[quote]I ask again, what "primary texts", not "Ecowas" [Ecowas doesn't date to that period, nor is it a "primary text"], dating back to the period coinciding with the height of Malian complex, tells us about the population numbers of that complex?
First answer your own question. What primary sources do you have? Encarta is the one that states that it was 40,000 in the 16th century.
I can't, because it is responding to your baseless charges.
Which is responding to the baseless claims without documentation you are defending.
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Ru2religious
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quote:
Originally posted by Sundiata:
quote:
Originally posted by Mustafino:
Half the claims are debatable as fact, firsts, or just that memorable, the others are quite valid. That is the problem when you mix fact with speculation. A lot of bling going around as well. lol.

You're insane! Would you like to address the speculative claims from the article/overview? What's with the constant criticism of Africa, why are you such a hate-monger? Musta, you get owned in like every thread, just chill for a second..
LOL ...

Yes he does ... every single thread that he post in he gets man handled ... ITS A SHAME!!!

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Ru2religious
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quote:
Originally posted by Achillobator:
As someone who loves dinosaurs even more than he does ancient Egypt, I have to take offense at Bettyboo's insistence that dinosaurs did not exist. As a matter of fact, they still exist. Suffice to say that most of them have lost their teeth and have a different type of skin covering.

Oh, and Bettyboo owes me an apology for calling me a racist.

I don't know about that Achillobator but I will take your word on that FOR THIS MOMENT...

Anyways, I was watching the discovery channel and they stated that the sharks, Crocodiles & Alligators are much older then dinosaurs which would in turn make them dinosaurs.

This is why I said I will have to take your word for this moment ... They have proven the three creatures I've named to be millions of years old.

Peace!

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Ausarian
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quote:
Originally posted by legeonas:

quote:
Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
Immaterial. You didn't answer a direct/concise question asked, which says that you are incapable of answering it.

Nice try. Your question was a scapegoat. As you are defending a claim based on Grimaldi, you shof first that it is closer to modern Africans than Cromagnon is to modern Europeans. Nice scapegoat though.
Citation for my "defense", please. I questioned based on this...from you:

legeonas wrote:

One, Grimaldi man was actually a boy and his mother. They were found among Cor-Magnon. An outlier. So they were hardly the majority. Finally we have no clue as to Grimaldi's skin color. Back on topic. Whatever colors Europeans had at the time, they were still European.

^This is what prompted my question.

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
You evaded the question asked again. You proclaimed to have read the link to a publication from the William himself, and yet failed to act on the request made of you. Thus you have no case, until you address this. Do you have to have Yurco read the link in question for you, before you actually have the backbone to answer a simple question?
Nice try. Yurco is dead.
Don’t look at me, you are the one who suggested that I look at Yurco's comment which doesn’t address the question pertaining to your obligation to tell us what is wrong with what William said therein...i.e. in the link.

quote:
legeonas:
And his response post date Williams rebuttal. Show that Williams addressed what Yurco stated.

Immaterial. Tell me what is wrong with what William’s said in the link provided. Are you saying you don’t know what is wrong with what is said in the link? This is the third time you’ve been requested, and you failed to deliver.

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
You've acknowledge yourself that the Nagada elites in question are deemed to be distinct from other specimens from "ordinary" local burials dating to that period. Again, you have no case; "denial" is not a form of case, addressing the evidence objectively to the contrary, however, is.
Again, nice scapegoat. Feel free to show how that study makes any claim of relationship other than skeletal phenotype similarity.
The study was already posted. Did you not understand it? You want me to spoon feed you ? Sure, why not…


"A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are** significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries and that the nonelite samples are not significantly different from each other.**

A comparison with neighboring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, **which is more closely related to populations in** northern Nubia** than to neighboring populations in southern Egypt.**


Extract from: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 101, Issue 2, October 1996, Pages: 237-246

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
He hasn't refuted the findings. Having said that, questioning in itself in of no relevance; the real question is whether his question has any material value, which in this case, you haven't yet demonstrated that he did.
Lack of a quantitative sampling that is statistically representative of the population claimed.
What specific samples did Zakrzewski study; did she specify them, the locations they were found, and the dates they belong to…and what bearing does this have on the consistent findings of ‘tropical body plans’ of the specimens?

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
Immaterial. Samples were enough, since they all correspond to the same findings: "Tropical body plan" time and again...just as other researchers noted in the study had observed prior to Zakrzewski.
Again, show that the samplings were sufficient. Neither you or I saw the sampling group. But obviously one peer at least called her on it.
I know what samples she used and the numbers; the question is: do you? I also know that this has no bearings on the validity of her findings, and that the so-called ‘peer’s’ review doesn’t refute or even address this. So the question is: can you?

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
But we have Diop's studies, and the specifics involved. You don't for your source, and so, your post is pointless - it was posted just for the sake of arguing without material value.
Show me Diop's study on melanin in mummies. Not his subsequent summary.
I'll await your evidence.

Has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Your post was pointless – you had no clue what it entailed.

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
It is immaterial. Show me genetically, and structurally/gramatically and etmologically, how Meroitic is developed from European or Indian scripts, as opposed to pre-existing indigenous Nile Valley ones.
Strawman, no one said the language was influenced. They said the alphabet was.
Can’t even recognize a contradiction right on your nose: you claim ‘no one’ said the language was influenced, only to then say that the “alphabet’ was. Is the alphabet of the Meroitic script not part of the script? Produce evidence that the Merotic alphabet structurally and genetically derive from European or Indian scripts rather than indigenous development.

quote:
legeonas:
Much like syllabaries in Africa and Native America sprung when exposed to European or other syllabaries.

Which native African writings are you referring to?

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
Hence, it was a pointless post, because you had no clue about what you were posting.
Wrong, relevant, but no more important to me as the other quote is to you. As both are lacking substantiation.
Which quote of mine are you referring to, and how is it lacking substantiation as it pertains to this discussion? You, on the other hand, have confirmed that your post was pointless, because you don’t even know what it entails.

quote:
legeonas:

quote:
It isn't. Meroitic is easily shown to be a derivative of Demotic, which it structurally also resembles, albeit with unique Meroitic characteristics.
Then you can show that the alphabetic system exists in Demotic.
The alphabetic part is the local Meroitic development, along with additional elements, but the structure of basic letters closely resembles Demotic, and then Heratic script. It doesn’t resemble Greek, Roman or Indian, as it closely does with pre-existing Nile Valley scripts. The burden is on “you” to produce the development of Meroitic from European or Indian scripts as opposed to pre-existing Nile Valley scripts, not me.


quote:
legeonas:

quote:
What technology did Europe have at the height of Malian complex's wealth? However knowledge in Mali is well attested to in its wealth and the body of evidential material of literature, and other associated relics saved from that period. What was "London's" technology at the height of the Malian wealth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
I noticed you didn't address it.

Well, lay out the specifics of technology that London had [developed by the people of London at the time], at the height of Malian complex’s wealth. A link to wiki doesn’t do this. Layout the timeframes of technology, and how this correlates with the developments in ancient Malia, at the height of its wealth, i.e. the same time frames, and how London was even on the “economic” map of the world during the height of the Malian complex.

quote:
legeonas:
quote:
quote:
quote:
I ask again, what "primary texts", not "Ecowas" [Ecowas doesn't date to that period, nor is it a "primary text"], dating back to the period coinciding with the height of Malian complex, tells us about the population numbers of that complex?
First answer your own question. What primary sources do you have? Encarta is the one that states that it was 40,000 in the 16th century.
I can't, because it is responding to your baseless charges.
Which is responding to the baseless claims without documentation you are defending.
Please cite the “baseless” claim that I’m defending, and why it is supposed to relieve you from substantiating the above. Thanx.
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Sundjata
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^OMG, hahaha, you are pathetic Mustafino! Why don't you just stay banned you damn bucket crab?
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Whatbox
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He does have one thing on his side:

Mustafino/lego nut sure knows hows how to get ran over and keep idiotically running out in front of the train again.  - [Smile]


Nothing but good 'ol plain 'ol
Stupid, blatantly, idiotic cynicist-modus-operundi driven bass-ackwards - plain old persistence, pure and sImPlE. [Smile]  - - Almost inspiring if it were not for my doggon normal functioning brain. [Mad] [Smile]

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kenndo
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quote:
Originally posted by Sundiata:
Saw this on another forum and thought that it would be a good thing to share and remind people of..

100 things that you did not know about Africa


1. The human race is of African origin. The oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens) were excavated at sites in East Africa. Human remains were discovered at Omo in Ethiopia that were dated at 195,000 years old, the oldest known in the world.

2. Skeletons of pre-humans have been found in Africa that date back between 4 and 5 million years. The oldest known ancestral type of humanity is thought to have been the australopithecus ramidus, who lived at least 4.4 million years ago.

3. Africans were the first to organise fishing expeditions 90,000 years ago. At Katanda, a region in northeastern Zaïre (now Congo), was recovered a finely wrought series of harpoon points, all elaborately polished and barbed. Also uncovered was a tool, equally well crafted, believed to be a dagger. The discoveries suggested the existence of an early aquatic or fishing based culture.

4. Africans were the first to engage in mining 43,000 years ago. In 1964 a hematite mine was found in Swaziland at Bomvu Ridge in the Ngwenya mountain range. Ultimately 300,000 artefacts were recovered including thousands of stone-made mining tools. Adrian Boshier, one of the archaeologists on the site, dated the mine to a staggering 43,200 years old.

5. Africans pioneered basic arithmetic 25,000 years ago. The Ishango bone is a tool handle with notches carved into it found in the Ishango region of Zaïre (now called Congo) near Lake Edward. The bone tool was originally thought to have been over 8,000 years old, but a more sensitive recent dating has given dates of 25,000 years old. On the tool are 3 rows of notches. Row 1 shows three notches carved next to six, four carved next to eight, ten carved next to two fives and finally a seven. The 3 and 6, 4 and 8, and 10 and 5, represent the process of doubling. Row 2 shows eleven notches carved next to twenty-one notches, and nineteen notches carved next to nine notches. This represents 10 + 1, 20 + 1, 20 - 1 and 10 - 1. Finally, Row 3 shows eleven notches, thirteen notches, seventeen notches and nineteen notches. 11, 13, 17 and 19 are the prime numbers between 10 and 20.

6. Africans cultivated crops 12,000 years ago, the first known advances in agriculture. Professor Fred Wendorf discovered that people in Egypt’s Western Desert cultivated crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, dates, legumes, lentils and wheat. Their ancient tools were also recovered. There were grindstones, milling stones, cutting blades, hide scrapers, engraving burins, and mortars and pestles.

7. Africans mummified their dead 9,000 years ago. A mummified infant was found under the Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter in south western Libya. The infant was buried in the foetal position and was mummified using a very sophisticated technique that must have taken hundreds of years to evolve. The technique predates the earliest mummies known in Ancient Egypt by at least 1,000 years. Carbon dating is controversial but the mummy may date from 7438 (±220) BC.

8. Africans carved the world’s first colossal sculpture 7,000 or more years ago. The Great Sphinx of Giza was fashioned with the head of a man combined with the body of a lion. A key and important question raised by this monument was: How old is it? In October 1991 Professor Robert Schoch, a geologist from Boston University, demonstrated that the Sphinx was sculpted between 5000 BC and 7000 BC, dates that he considered conservative.

9. On the 1 March 1979, the New York Times carried an article on its front page also page sixteen that was entitled Nubian Monarchy called Oldest. In this article we were assured that: “Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern Egypt.)

10. The ancient Egyptians had the same type of tropically adapted skeletal proportions as modern Black Africans. A 2003 paper appeared in American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Dr Sonia Zakrzewski entitled Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions where she states that: “The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the ‘super-Negroid’ body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many ‘African’ populations .”

11. The ancient Egyptians had Afro combs. One writer tells us that the Egyptians “manufactured a very striking range of combs in ivory: the shape of these is distinctly African and is like the combs used even today by Africans and those of African descent.”

12. The Funerary Complex in the ancient Egyptian city of Saqqara is the oldest building that tourists regularly visit today. An outer wall, now mostly in ruins, surrounded the whole structure. Through the entrance are a series of columns, the first stone-built columns known to historians. The North House also has ornamental columns built into the walls that have papyrus-like capitals. Also inside the complex is the Ceremonial Court, made of limestone blocks that have been quarried and then shaped. In the centre of the complex is the Step Pyramid, the first of 90 Egyptian pyramids.

13. The first Great Pyramid of Giza, the most extraordinary building in history, was a staggering 481 feet tall - the equivalent of a 40-storey building. It was made of 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite, some weighing 100 tons.

14. The ancient Egyptian city of Kahun was the world’s first planned city. Rectangular and walled, the city was divided into two parts. One part housed the wealthier inhabitants – the scribes, officials and foremen. The other part housed the ordinary people. The streets of the western section in particular, were straight, laid out on a grid, and crossed each other at right angles. A stone gutter, over half a metre wide, ran down the centre of every street.

15. Egyptian mansions were discovered in Kahun - each boasting 70 rooms, divided into four sections or quarters. There was a master’s quarter, quarters for women and servants, quarters for offices and finally, quarters for granaries, each facing a central courtyard. The master’s quarters had an open court with a stone water tank for bathing. Surrounding this was a colonnade.

16 The Labyrinth in the Egyptian city of Hawara with its massive layout, multiple courtyards, chambers and halls, was the very largest building in antiquity. Boasting three thousand rooms, 1,500 of them were above ground and the other 1,500 were underground.

17. Toilets and sewerage systems existed in ancient Egypt. One of the pharaohs built a city now known as Amarna. An American urban planner noted that: “Great importance was attached to cleanliness in Amarna as in other Egyptian cities. Toilets and sewers were in use to dispose waste. Soap was made for washing the body. Perfumes and essences were popular against body odour. A solution of natron was used to keep insects from houses . . . Amarna may have been the first planned ‘garden city’.”

18. Sudan has more pyramids than any other country on earth - even more than Egypt. There are at least 223 pyramids in the Sudanese cities of Al Kurru, Nuri, Gebel Barkal and Meroë. They are generally 20 to 30 metres high and steep sided.

19. The Sudanese city of Meroë is rich in surviving monuments. Becoming the capital of the Kushite Empire between 590 BC until AD 350, there are 84 pyramids in this city alone, many built with their own miniature temple. In addition, there are ruins of a bath house sharing affinities with those of the Romans. Its central feature is a large pool approached by a flight of steps with waterspouts decorated with lion heads.

20. Bling culture has a long and interesting history. Gold was used to decorate ancient Sudanese temples. One writer reported that: “Recent excavations at Meroe and Mussawwarat es-Sufra revealed temples with walls and statues covered with gold leaf”.

21. In around 300 BC, the Sudanese invented a writing script that had twenty-three letters of which four were vowels and there was also a word divider. Hundreds of ancient texts have survived that were in this script. Some are on display in the British Museum.

22. In central Nigeria, West Africa’s oldest civilisation flourished between 1000 BC and 300 BC. Discovered in 1928, the ancient culture was called the Nok Civilisation, named after the village in which the early artefacts were discovered. Two modern scholars, declare that “[a]fter calibration, the period of Nok art spans from 1000 BC until 300 BC”. The site itself is much older going back as early as 4580 or 4290 BC.

23. West Africans built in stone by 1100 BC. In the Tichitt-Walata region of Mauritania, archaeologists have found “large stone masonry villages” that date back to 1100 BC. The villages consisted of roughly circular compounds connected by “well-defined streets”.

24. By 250 BC, the foundations of West Africa’s oldest cities were established such as Old Djenné in Mali.

25. Kumbi Saleh, the capital of Ancient Ghana, flourished from 300 to 1240 AD. Located in modern day Mauritania, archaeological excavations have revealed houses, almost habitable today, for want of renovation and several storeys high. They had underground rooms, staircases and connecting halls. Some had nine rooms. One part of the city alone is estimated to have housed 30,000 people.

NEXT 26 to 50


26. West Africa had walled towns and cities in the pre-colonial period. Winwood Reade, an English historian visited West Africa in the nineteenth century and commented that: “There are . . . thousands of large walled cities resembling those of Europe in the Middle Ages, or of ancient Greece.”

27. Lord Lugard, an English official, estimated in 1904 that there were 170 walled towns still in existence in the whole of just the Kano province of northern Nigeria.

28. Cheques are not quite as new an invention as we were led to believe. In the tenth century, an Arab geographer, Ibn Haukal, visited a fringe region of Ancient Ghana. Writing in 951 AD, he told of a cheque for 42,000 golden dinars written to a merchant in the city of Audoghast by his partner in Sidjilmessa.

29. Ibn Haukal, writing in 951 AD, informs us that the King of Ghana was “the richest king on the face of the earth” whose pre-eminence was due to the quantity of gold nuggets that had been amassed by the himself and by his predecessors.

30. The Nigerian city of Ile-Ife was paved in 1000 AD on the orders of a female ruler with decorations that originated in Ancient America. Naturally, no-one wants to explain how this took place approximately 500 years before the time of Christopher Columbus!

31. West Africa had bling culture in 1067 AD. One source mentions that when the Emperor of Ghana gives audience to his people: “he sits in a pavilion around which stand his horses caparisoned in cloth of gold: behind him stand ten pages holding shields and gold-mounted swords: and on his right hand are the sons of the princes of his empire, splendidly clad and with gold plaited into their hair . . . The gate of the chamber is guarded by dogs of an excellent breed . . . they wear collars of gold and silver.”

32. Glass windows existed at that time. The residence of the Ghanaian Emperor in 1116 AD was: “A well-built castle, thoroughly fortified, decorated inside with sculptures and pictures, and having glass windows.”

33. The Grand Mosque in the Malian city of Djenné, described as “the largest adobe [clay] building in the world”, was first raised in 1204 AD. It was built on a square plan where each side is 56 metres in length. It has three large towers on one side, each with projecting wooden buttresses.

34. One of the great achievements of the Yoruba was their urban culture. “By the year A.D. 1300,” says a modern scholar, “the Yoruba people built numerous walled cities surrounded by farms”. The cities were Owu, Oyo, Ijebu, Ijesa, Ketu, Popo, Egba, Sabe, Dassa, Egbado, Igbomina, the sixteen Ekiti principalities, Owo and Ondo.

35. Yoruba metal art of the mediaeval period was of world class. One scholar wrote that Yoruba art “would stand comparison with anything which Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece and Rome, or Renaissance Europe had to offer.”

36. In the Malian city of Gao stands the Mausoleum of Askia the Great, a weird sixteenth century edifice that resembles a step pyramid.

37. Thousands of mediaeval tumuli have been found across West Africa. Nearly 7,000 were discovered in north-west Senegal alone spread over nearly 1,500 sites. They were probably built between 1000 and 1300 AD.

38. Excavations at the Malian city of Gao carried out by Cambridge University revealed glass windows. One of the finds was entitled: “Fragments of alabaster window surrounds and a piece of pink window glass, Gao 10th – 14th century.”

39. In 1999 the BBC produced a television series entitled Millennium. The programme devoted to the fourteenth century opens with the following disclosure: “In the fourteenth century, the century of the scythe, natural disasters threatened civilisations with extinction. The Black Death kills more people in Europe, Asia and North Africa than any catastrophe has before. Civilisations which avoid the plague thrive. In West Africa the Empire of Mali becomes the richest in the world.”

40. Malian sailors got to America in 1311 AD, 181 years before Columbus. An Egyptian scholar, Ibn Fadl Al-Umari, published on this sometime around 1342. In the tenth chapter of his book, there is an account of two large maritime voyages ordered by the predecessor of Mansa Musa, a king who inherited the Malian throne in 1312. This mariner king is not named by Al-Umari, but modern writers identify him as Mansa Abubakari II.

41. On a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 AD, a Malian ruler, Mansa Musa, brought so much money with him that his visit resulted in the collapse of gold prices in Egypt and Arabia. It took twelve years for the economies of the region to normalise.

42. West African gold mining took place on a vast scale. One modern writer said that: “It is estimated that the total amount of gold mined in West Africa up to 1500 was 3,500 tons, worth more than $****30 billion in today’s market.”

43. The old Malian capital of Niani had a 14th century building called the Hall of Audience. It was an surmounted by a dome, adorned with arabesques of striking colours. The windows of an upper floor were plated with wood and framed in silver; those of a lower floor were plated with wood, framed in gold.

44. Mali in the 14th century was highly urbanised. Sergio Domian, an Italian art and architecture scholar, wrote the following about this period: “Thus was laid the foundation of an urban civilisation. At the height of its power, Mali had at least 400 cities, and the interior of the Niger Delta was very densely populated”.

45. The Malian city of Timbuktu had a 14th century population of 115,000 - 5 times larger than mediaeval London. Mansa Musa, built the Djinguerebere Mosque in the fourteenth century. There was the University Mosque in which 25,000 students studied and the Oratory of Sidi Yayia. There were over 150 Koran schools in which 20,000 children were instructed. London, by contrast, had a total 14th century population of 20,000 people.

46. National Geographic recently described Timbuktu as the Paris of the mediaeval world, on account of its intellectual culture. According to Professor Henry Louis Gates, 25,000 university students studied there.

47. Many old West African families have private library collections that go back hundreds of years. The Mauritanian cities of Chinguetti and Oudane have a total of 3,450 hand written mediaeval books. There may be another 6,000 books still surviving in the other city of Walata. Some date back to the 8th century AD. There are 11,000 books in private collections in Niger. Finally, in Timbuktu, Mali, there are about 700,000 surviving books.

48. A collection of one thousand six hundred books was considered a small library for a West African scholar of the 16th century. Professor Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu is recorded as saying that he had the smallest library of any of his friends - he had only 1600 volumes.

49. Concerning these old manuscripts, Michael Palin, in his TV series Sahara, said the imam of Timbuktu “has a collection of scientific texts that clearly show the planets circling the sun. They date back hundreds of years . . . Its convincing evidence that the scholars of Timbuktu knew a lot more than their counterparts in Europe. In the fifteenth century in Timbuktu the mathematicians knew about the rotation of the planets, knew about the details of the eclipse, they knew things which we had to wait for 150 almost 200 years to know in Europe when Galileo and Copernicus came up with these same calculations and were given a very hard time for it.”

50. The Songhai Empire of 16th century West Africa had a government position called Minister for Etiquette and Protocol.

NEXT 51 to 75


51. The mediaeval Nigerian city of Benin was built to “a scale comparable with the Great Wall of China”. There was a vast system of defensive walling totalling 10,000 miles in all. Even before the full extent of the city walling had become apparent the Guinness Book of Records carried an entry in the 1974 edition that described the city as: “The largest earthworks in the world carried out prior to the mechanical era.”

52. Benin art of the Middle Ages was of the highest quality. An official of the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde once stated that: “These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique. Benvenuto Cellini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him . . . Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

53. Winwood Reade described his visit to the Ashanti Royal Palace of Kumasi in 1874: “We went to the king’s palace, which consists of many courtyards, each surrounded with alcoves and verandahs, and having two gates or doors, so that each yard was a thoroughfare . . . But the part of the palace fronting the street was a stone house, Moorish in its style . . . with a flat roof and a parapet, and suites of apartments on the first floor. It was built by Fanti masons many years ago. The rooms upstairs remind me of Wardour Street. Each was a perfect Old Curiosity Shop. Books in many languages, Bohemian glass, clocks, silver plate, old furniture, Persian rugs, Kidderminster carpets, pictures and engravings, numberless chests and coffers. A sword bearing the inscription From Queen Victoria to the King of Ashantee. A copy of the Times, 17 October 1843. With these were many specimens of Moorish and Ashanti handicraft.”

54. In the mid-nineteenth century, William Clarke, an English visitor to Nigeria, remarked that: “As good an article of cloth can be woven by the Yoruba weavers as by any people . . . in durability, their cloths far excel the prints and home-spuns of Manchester.”

55. The recently discovered 9th century Nigerian city of Eredo was found to be surrounded by a wall that was 100 miles long and seventy feet high in places. The internal area was a staggering 400 square miles.

56. On the subject of cloth, Kongolese textiles were also distinguished. Various European writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wrote of the delicate crafts of the peoples living in eastern Kongo and adjacent regions who manufactured damasks, sarcenets, satins, taffeta, cloth of tissue and velvet. Professor DeGraft-Johnson made the curious observation that: “Their brocades, both high and low, were far more valuable than the Italian.”

57. On Kongolese metallurgy of the Middle Ages, one modern scholar wrote that: “There is no doubting . . . the existence of an expert metallurgical art in the ancient Kongo . . . The Bakongo were aware of the toxicity of lead vapours. They devised preventative and curative methods, both pharmacological (massive doses of pawpaw and palm oil) and mechanical (exerting of pressure to free the digestive tract), for combating lead poisoning.”

58. In Nigeria, the royal palace in the city of Kano dates back to the fifteenth century. Begun by Muhammad Rumfa (ruled 1463-99) it has gradually evolved over generations into a very imposing complex. A colonial report of the city from 1902, described it as “a network of buildings covering an area of 33 acres and surrounded by a wall 20 to 30 feet high outside and 15 feet inside . . . in itself no mean citadel”.

59. A sixteenth century traveller visited the central African civilisation of Kanem-Borno and commented that the emperor’s cavalry had golden “stirrups, spurs, bits and buckles.” Even the ruler’s dogs had “chains of the finest gold”.

60. One of the government positions in mediaeval Kanem-Borno was Astronomer Royal.

61. Ngazargamu, the capital city of Kanem-Borno, became one of the largest cities in the seventeenth century world. By 1658 AD, the metropolis, according to an architectural scholar housed “about quarter of a million people”. It had 660 streets. Many were wide and unbending, reflective of town planning.

62. The Nigerian city of Surame flourished in the sixteenth century. Even in ruin it was an impressive sight, built on a horizontal vertical grid. A modern scholar describes it thus: “The walls of Surame are about 10 miles in circumference and include many large bastions or walled suburbs running out at right angles to the main wall. The large compound at Kanta is still visible in the centre, with ruins of many buildings, one of which is said to have been two-storied. The striking feature of the walls and whole ruins is the extensive use of stone and tsokuwa (laterite gravel) or very hard red building mud, evidently brought from a distance. There is a big mound of this near the north gate about 8 feet in height. The walls show regular courses of masonry to a height of 20 feet and more in several places. The best preserved portion is that known as sirati (the bridge) a little north of the eastern gate . . . The main city walls here appear to have provided a very strongly guarded entrance about 30 feet wide.”

63. The Nigerian city of Kano in 1851 produced an estimated 10 million pairs of sandals and 5 million hides each year for export.

64. In 1246 AD Dunama II of Kanem-Borno exchanged embassies with Al-Mustansir, the king of Tunis. He sent the North African court a costly present, which apparently included a giraffe. An old chronicle noted that the rare animal “created a sensation in Tunis”.

65. By the third century BC the city of Carthage on the coast of Tunisia was opulent and impressive. It had a population of 700,000 and may even have approached a million. Lining both sides of three streets were rows of tall houses six storeys high.

66. The Ethiopian city of Axum has a series of 7 giant obelisks that date from perhaps 300 BC to 300 AD. They have details carved into them that represent windows and doorways of several storeys. The largest obelisk, now fallen, is in fact “the largest monolith ever made anywhere in the world”. It is 108 feet long, weighs a staggering 500 tons, and represents a thirteen-storey building.

67. Ethiopia minted its own coins over 1,500 years ago. One scholar wrote that: “Almost no other contemporary state anywhere in the world could issue in gold, a statement of sovereignty achieved only by Rome, Persia, and the Kushan kingdom in northern India at the time.”

68. The Ethiopian script of the 4th century AD influenced the writing script of Armenia. A Russian historian noted that: “Soon after its creation, the Ethiopic vocalised script began to influence the scripts of Armenia and Georgia. D. A. Olderogge suggested that Mesrop Mashtotz used the vocalised Ethiopic script when he invented the Armenian alphabet.”

69. “In the first half of the first millennium CE,” says a modern scholar, Ethiopia “was ranked as one of the world’s greatest empires”. A Persian cleric of the third century AD identified it as the third most important state in the world after Persia and Rome.

70. Ethiopia has 11 underground mediaeval churches built by being carved out of the ground. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD, Roha became the new capital of the Ethiopians. Conceived as a New Jerusalem by its founder, Emperor Lalibela (c.1150-1230), it contains 11 churches, all carved out of the rock of the mountains by hammer and chisel. All of the temples were carved to a depth of 11 metres or so below ground level. The largest is the House of the Redeemer, a staggering 33.7 metres long, 23.7 metres wide and 11.5 metres deep.

71. Lalibela is not the only place in Ethiopia to have such wonders. A cotemporary archaeologist reports research that was conducted in the region in the early 1970’s when: “startling numbers of churches built in caves or partially or completely cut from the living rock were revealed not only in Tigre and Lalibela but as far south as Addis Ababa. Soon at least 1,500 were known. At least as many more probably await revelation.”

72. In 1209 AD Emperor Lalibela of Ethiopia sent an embassy to Cairo bringing the sultan unusual gifts including an elephant, a hyena, a zebra, and a giraffe.

73. In Southern Africa, there are at least 600 stone built ruins in the regions of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. These ruins are called Mazimbabwe in Shona, the Bantu language of the builders, and means great revered house and “signifies court”.

74. The Great Zimbabwe was the largest of these ruins. It consists of 12 clusters of buildings, spread over 3 square miles. Its outer walls were made from 100,000 tons of granite bricks. In the fourteenth century, the city housed 18,000 people, comparable in size to that of London of the same period.

75. Bling culture existed in this region. At the time of our last visit, the Horniman Museum in London had exhibits of headrests with the caption: “Headrests have been used in Africa since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. Remains of some headrests, once covered in gold foil, have been found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and burial sites like Mapungubwe dating to the twelfth century after Christ.”

NEXT 76 to 100

76. Dr Albert Churchward, author of Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, pointed out that writing was found in one of the stone built ruins: “Lt.-Col. E. L. de Cordes . . . who was in South Africa for three years, informed the writer that in one of the ‘Ruins’ there is a ‘stone-chamber,’ with a vast quantity of Papyri, covered with old Egyptian hieroglyphics. A Boer hunter discovered this, and a large quantity was used to light a fire with, and yet still a larger quantity remained there now.”

77. On bling culture, one seventeenth century visitor to southern African empire of Monomotapa, that ruled over this vast region, wrote that: “The people dress in various ways: at court of the Kings their grandees wear cloths of rich silk, damask, satin, gold and silk cloth; these are three widths of satin, each width four covados [2.64m], each sewn to the next, sometimes with gold lace in between, trimmed on two sides, like a carpet, with a gold and silk fringe, sewn in place with a two fingers’ wide ribbon, woven with gold roses on silk.”

78. Southern Africans mined gold on an epic scale. One modern writer tells us that: “The estimated amount of gold ore mined from the entire region by the ancients was staggering, exceeding 43 million tons. The ore yielded nearly 700 tons of pure gold which today would be valued at over $******7.5 billion.”

79. Apparently the Monomotapan royal palace at Mount Fura had chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. An eighteenth century geography book provided the following data: “The inside consists of a great variety of sumptuous apartments, spacious and lofty halls, all adorned with a magnificent cotton tapestry, the manufacture of the country. The floors, cielings [sic], beams and rafters are all either gilt or plated with gold curiously wrought, as are also the chairs of state, tables, benches &c. The candle-sticks and branches are made of ivory inlaid with gold, and hang from the cieling by chains of the same metal, or of silver gilt.”

80. Monomotapa had a social welfare system. Antonio Bocarro, a Portuguese contemporary, informs us that the Emperor: “shows great charity to the blind and maimed, for these are called the king’s poor, and have land and revenues for their subsistence, and when they wish to pass through the kingdoms, wherever they come food and drinks are given to them at the public cost as long as they remain there, and when they leave that place to go to another they are provided with what is necessary for their journey, and a guide, and some one to carry their wallet to the next village. In every place where they come there is the same obligation.”

81. Many southern Africans have indigenous and pre-colonial words for ‘gun’. Scholars have generally been reluctant to investigate or explain this fact.

82. Evidence discovered in 1978 showed that East Africans were making steel for more than 1,500 years: “Assistant Professor of Anthropology Peter Schmidt and Professor of Engineering Donald H. Avery have found as long as 2,000 years ago Africans living on the western shores of Lake Victoria had produced carbon steel in preheated forced draft furnaces, a method that was technologically more sophisticated than any developed in Europe until the mid-nineteenth century.”

83. Ruins of a 300 BC astronomical observatory was found at Namoratunga in Kenya. Africans were mapping the movements of stars such as Triangulum, Aldebaran, Bellatrix, Central Orion, etcetera, as well as the moon, in order to create a lunar calendar of 354 days.

84. Autopsies and caesarean operations were routinely and effectively carried out by surgeons in pre-colonial Uganda. The surgeons routinely used antiseptics, anaesthetics and cautery iron. Commenting on a Ugandan caesarean operation that appeared in the Edinburgh Medical Journal in 1884, one author wrote: “The whole conduct of the operation . . . suggests a skilled long-practiced surgical team at work conducting a well-tried and familiar operation with smooth efficiency.”

85. Sudan in the mediaeval period had churches, cathedrals, monasteries and castles. Their ruins still exist today.

86. The mediaeval Nubian Kingdoms kept archives. From the site of Qasr Ibrim legal texts, documents and correspondence were discovered. An archaeologist informs us that: “On the site are preserved thousands of documents in Meroitic, Latin, Greek, Coptic, Old Nubian, Arabic and Turkish.”

87. Glass windows existed in mediaeval Sudan. Archaeologists found evidence of window glass at the Sudanese cities of Old Dongola and Hambukol.

88. Bling culture existed in the mediaeval Sudan. Archaeologists found an individual buried at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in the city of Old Dongola. He was clad in an extremely elaborate garb consisting of costly textiles of various fabrics including gold thread. At the city of Soba East, there were individuals buried in fine clothing, including items with golden thread.

89. Style and fashion existed in mediaeval Sudan. A dignitary at Jebel Adda in the late thirteenth century AD was interned with a long coat of red and yellow patterned damask folded over his body. Underneath, he wore plain cotton trousers of long and baggy cut. A pair of red leather slippers with turned up toes lay at the foot of the coffin. The body was wrapped in enormous pieces of gold brocaded striped silk.

90. Sudan in the ninth century AD had housing complexes with bath rooms and piped water. An archaeologist wrote that Old Dongola, the capital of Makuria, had: “a[n] . . . eighth to . . . ninth century housing complex. The houses discovered here differ in their hitherto unencountered spatial layout as well as their functional programme (water supply installation, bathroom with heating system) and interiors decorated with murals.”

my comment - this was in the kingdom of alwa too in southern nubia and this went on in both kingdoms after the 9 cen. as well -kenndo


91. In 619 AD, the Nubians sent a gift of a giraffe to the Persians.

92. The East Coast, from Somalia to Mozambique, has ruins of well over 50 towns and cities. They flourished from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries AD.

93. Chinese records of the fifteenth century AD note that Mogadishu had houses of “four or five storeys high”.

94. Gedi, near the coast of Kenya, is one of the East African ghost towns. Its ruins, dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, include the city walls, the palace, private houses, the Great Mosque, seven smaller mosques, and three pillar tombs.

95. The ruined mosque in the Kenyan city of Gedi had a water purifier made of limestone for recycling water.

96. The palace in the Kenyan city of Gedi contains evidence of piped water controlled by taps. In addition it had bathrooms and indoor toilets.

97. A visitor in 1331 AD considered the Tanzanian city of Kilwa to be of world class. He wrote that it was the “principal city on the coast the greater part of whose inhabitants are Zanj of very black complexion.” Later on he says that: “Kilwa is one of the most beautiful and well-constructed cities in the world. The whole of it is elegantly built.”

98. Bling culture existed in early Tanzania. A Portuguese chronicler of the sixteenth century wrote that: “[T]hey are finely clad in many rich garments of gold and silk and cotton, and the women as well; also with much gold and silver chains and bracelets, which they wear on their legs and arms, and many jewelled earrings in their ears”.

99. In 1961 a British archaeologist, found the ruins of Husuni Kubwa, the royal palace of the Tanzanian city of Kilwa. It had over a hundred rooms, including a reception hall, galleries, courtyards, terraces and an octagonal swimming pool.

100. In 1414 the Kenyan city of Malindi sent ambassadors to China carrying a gift that created a sensation at the Imperial Court. It was, of course, a giraffe.

i did not see this one.very good
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alTakruri
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You know what they say about all work and no play
so on I go with my sillies today ... sorry so sorry

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080304120710.ad7gm7i6&show_article=1

Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.
Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.


Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

quote:
Originally posted by Nay-Sayer:
quote:
Originally posted by Bettyboo:
There is no such thing as "pre-humans" and there is no evidence that our world is 4-5 millions years old or older. Too much science makes you lose common sense.

The Bible will only scramble your brain like so many eggs. Did you know that religion and drug addiction have much in common? Get help now!!

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alTakruri
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Feedback from an orthodox Jewish friend on the above:
quote:
I think this author is on to something. The Egyptians
experienced the plagues right. Well this was
obviously a mass hallucination brought on by "Purple
Haze" that Moses dropped into the Nile, their source
of drinking water. Did you ever see a cane on LSD.
Looks just like a snake right. It wasn't God who slew
their first born. It was the Egyptians on drugs.
Also when their armies got to the Red Sea after
chasing Moses they were very hot. They hallucinated
Moses in the middle of the sea calling out "come on in
boys the waters fine".
The author also discovered thru his research the title
of the second chapter of the Bible was not Exodus but
Ecstacy.
We all thought that Moses brought down two Tablets of
the Law but it was really two Tabs of Acid. (good
stuff too. keeps you high 40 days). Hey they weren't
called High Priests for nothing.


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fellati achawi
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no wonder they were gased in europe. Stuff like that is too disrepectful.

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لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله

Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
fellati achawi
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quote:
But whenever good came to them, they said: "Ours is this." And if evil afflicted them, they ascribed it to evil omens connected with Mûsa (moses) and those with him. Be informed! Verily, their evil omens are with Allâh but most of them know not. (Al-A'raf 7:131)
curses, shame, and miserable life are for those who speak such about messengers of God who has done no harm to these vile speakers.
quote:
Allâh) said: "O Mûsa (moses) I have chosen you above men by My Messages, and by My speaking (to you). So hold that which I have given you and be of the grateful." (Al-A'raf 7:144)
quote:
And mention in the Book (this Qur'ân) Mûsa (moses). Verily! He was chosen and he was a Messenger (and) a Prophet. (Maryam 19:51)
This is the real disposition of God's messenger and prophet(upon him be peace) he is honored with the title the one who talked directly to God the chosen of God. Honored with prophethood and as a messenger.

let this ignorant person beware
quote:
"Whoever is an enemy to Allâh, His Angels, His messengers, Jibrael (Gabriel) and Mikael (Michael), then verily, Allâh is an enemy to the disbelievers." (Al-Baqarah 2:98)


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لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله

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fellati achawi
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im sorry, what do you expect from people who killed prophets. my bad.

--------------------
لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله

Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
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