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Writing and the wheel in Africa
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by PreColonialAfrica13: [QB] Do you think that African societies and civilizations are unceremoniously dismissed unfairly if they lack these two elements of "civilization"? I think so, I think that is exactly what people have against African history, that it is not a history of civilized peoples but a history of people who should be ignored. The part about writing is bogus, obviously, Tifinagh, yoruba carvings, nsbidi(which is a completely independent writing system), ancient egyptian, meriotic, ge'ez, amharic, ancient somali script,etc. Variations of Arabic in the Sahel: Ajami, Sudani,etc. Alfonso of Kongo in the 15th century adopted the Latin alphabet, so Africans are obviously capable of both creating their own writing systems, as well as adopting and ADAPTING new scripts in their local languages. There are other scripts i am not entirely sure of as to their origin(bassa script,etc), so I'll leave em out. But besides that, there are plenty to chose from. Even societies without writing were sophisticated and advanced, we've learned so much from the benin kingdom for example, whose beautiful bronzes tells us so much about their society. History can be expressed thru art as well as writing, people need to accept that. If you look at Africa without looking at it through the eyes of a African, you will never truly understand Africa. Stop comparing them to Europe, Asia, or the Americas, all that does is cause everything to become convoluted. Especially when you try to measure Africa up to the standards of European or Asian civilizations. This is not to say Africa is inferior, Africa is different, simply put. It is as unique from Europe as Europe is from Asia and as Asia is from the Americas, despite whatever diffusion may have occured. As for the wheel, here is where things get tricky, ancient egypt and nubia are both documented with using the well, but I've found little info on the maghreb, the Sahel, East Africa, Ethiopia, or Southern/Central Africa. Obviously the wheel was invented in a few scarce locations and spread from there, like writing, but diffusion in Africa was limited, apparently. I don't know this for sure, the wheel may have been present in other parts of Africa, as most of the continent has had load bearing animals for thousands of years. Here's the thing, topography may prevent diffusion, deserts, tropical forests(with crippling diseases), mountain ranges, large bodies of water, so that may just be the answer. If I'm wrong, and if anyone knows of the wheel being used outside of Egypt and Nubia(I do know of saharan rock paintings that are thousands of years old depicting chariots and the wheel, as well as the Garamentes civilization using them as well) please feel free to add to what I hope will be a stimulating and long-lasting thread. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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