Africa

B

1

Ancient Egypt

Nubian concepts of kingship and religion spread northward to the Nile Delta region (known as Lower Egypt) as the desert encroached ever closer to the river. The navigability of the river from the delta to the first cataract allowed for easy communication and the expansion of political authority. Kingdoms along the Egyptian Nile merged until there were only two: Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. In about 3100 bc the two kingdoms were united by Narmer, king of Upper Egypt, who thus founded the earliest dynasty of Ancient Egypt. The old Nubian gods of the individual kingdoms became regional deities in a new polytheistic religion, and the creation of this regionally diverse religion helped cement the unification.

Egyptian unity prevailed for about 900 years. The first centuries saw a strengthening of central authority until, by the time of the Third Dynasty (about 2649 to 2575 bc), the king himself was recognized as a god. Egypt then entered the era referred to as the Old Kingdom (about 2575 to 2134 bc). Around the dawn of the Old Kingdom, Egyptians began constructing great burial pyramids for their kings. The Great Pyramid of Giza was built in about 2500 bc as a tomb for Khufu, the second king of the Fourth Dynasty (about 2575 to 2467 bc), and is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that survives intact today. Its construction required the mobilization of a huge, rotating labor force. The scope of manpower involved may have been the reason why the pyramids of Khufu’s successors were never quite as big. Grand pyramid building ceased by the end of the Sixth Dynasty (about 2323 to 2151 bc).

Farm labor by peasants, who made up the vast majority of the Egyptian population, formed the economic basis of Ancient Egypt. The annual flooding of the Nile renewed the soils of the valley with fertile silts carried down from the far-off Ethiopian Highlands. As the annual flood receded, the farmers moved back onto the floodplain, digging irrigation canals and planting their crops in the rejuvenated soil. They grew wheat, barley, flax, vegetables, and fruit. Peasants also herded cattle and goats, fished for Nile perch, and hunted wild birds in the marshes.

Every aspect of the peasants’ labor was overseen by government scribes and tax collectors, who developed hieroglyphs, possibly the earliest form of writing in the world. All agricultural surplus went to the state to support the king in luxury and to feed and clothe his huge army of government servants, artists, artisans, builders of pyramids and temples, priests, and guardians of religious shrines.

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During most of the Old Kingdom, trade remained a monopoly of the state. During the Sixth Dynasty, however, wealth became more widespread among regional princes, merchants, and priests. Around 2200 bc northeast Africa experienced several decades of cooler, drier climate. The Nile failed to flood and Egypt suffered a devastating famine. Central authority collapsed and regional princes asserted their independence.

In about 2040 bc the kings of Thebes in Upper Egypt reestablished Egyptian unity and Egypt entered what is known as the Middle Kingdom (about 2040 to 1640 bc). In this period, Egyptian trade expanded down the Red Sea coast of Africa. This time, however, the trade was run by professional merchants, and the central government taxed the trade instead of running it as a royal monopoly. Middle Kingdom kings revived pyramid building, though on a much smaller scale.

In about 1640 bc Middle Kingdom unity was destroyed by an invasion of the Nile Delta region by invaders from the Middle East known as Hyksos. These foreigners, who introduced horses to Egypt, established a rival dynasty in the delta. In about 1550 bc Ahmose I, king of Upper Egypt, defeated the Hyksos and founded the 18th Dynasty (about 1550 to 1307 bc). In doing so, he reestablished Egyptian unity and Egypt entered an era called the New Kingdom (about 1550 to 1070 bc). For the first time, Egyptian kings maintained a standing army, and military conquest was used to build an Egyptian empire from Palestine and Syria in the north to the fourth cataract of the Nile, the heart of Nubia, in the south. Pyramid building was not revived, but massive statues and temples were built. Kings, now known as pharaohs, were buried in elaborately decorated tombs cut into solid rock in the Valley of the Kings across the river from the royal capital of Thebes.

Egypt’s power declined during the 20th Dynasty (about 1196 to 1070 bc). The New Kingdom empire broke apart as Palestine and Nubia reclaimed their independence. There followed a succession of foreign invasions and rebellions by Libyan mercenaries. From this point on, native Egyptian dynasties were interspersed by Nubian, Assyrian, and Persian ones, until the last Egyptian dynasty fell to Greece in 332 bc.

B

2

Nubian Kingdoms

By the time of the unification of Egypt in 3100 bc, several Nubian kingdoms had already been established along the middle Nile between the first and fourth cataracts. After an Egyptian invasion of Nubia as far as the second cataract in about 1900 bc, the Nubian kingdoms formed a loose unity, centered on the city of Kerma, just south of the third cataract. Little is known about this kingdom until it was brought within the Egyptian New Kingdom empire about 1500 bc.

As Egyptian control weakened after 1100 bc, Nubia reasserted its independence and became known as Kush. A new capital and religious center was established at Napata, near the fourth cataract, and Kushite culture flourished. Kush’s agricultural economy was based on cattle herding and cultivation of sorghum and millet. Through payments from subject provinces and trade in ivory, skins, and ebony from the south, the kings of Kush grew wealthy and powerful. In about 770 bc they invaded Egypt and established what is known as the 25th Dynasty (about 770 to 657 bc) at Thebes.

The Kushites were ousted from Egypt in the 7th century bc by an Assyrian invasion from the Middle East. The Assyrians wielded weapons of iron, a metal until that time unknown in North Africa. The Kushites withdrew to Napata, and again farther south to Meroë, following an Egyptian invasion in 593 bc (although Napata would remain the Kushite capital until 300 bc). At Meroë, between the fifth and sixth cataracts, the Nubians would found a new kingdom based in large part upon the new technology of ironworking (see the Meroë section of this article).

C

Dawn of the Iron Age

The first metal worked in Africa was copper, smelted and forged in Egypt before its unification in 3100 bc. Copper and stone remained the main tool-making materials in Egypt until the 17th century bc, when the Hyksos invasion from the Middle East brought bronze, a harder alloy, to North Africa. During Egypt’s New Kingdom, gold was forged into jewelry and elaborate furniture to decorate the pharaohs’ palaces and tombs. Far to the west of Egypt, in the Aïr Mountains of what is now Niger, copper working was independently invented some time after 3000 bc. These early metalworkers probably spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, perhaps ancestral to modern Songhai. By 1500 bc their copper-working techniques and furnaces were well developed and the technology had spread to other copper-bearing areas of the southern Sahara.

Iron is a much harder metal to smelt than copper, requiring larger quantities of charcoal and much higher temperatures. Its invention, therefore, required considerable expertise in furnace building. While the knowledge of ironworking was first brought to northeast Africa from the Middle East after 670 bc, the techniques had been independently invented in sub-Saharan Africa some 300 years earlier. Presumably building upon furnace techniques developed for the smelting of copper, metalworkers were smelting iron in Chad and the Great Lakes region (an area in East Africa between and around Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika) by 1000 bc. From these centers of development, ironworking spread among the agricultural peoples of West, Central, and East Africa, reaching southern Africa in the early centuries ad.

C

1

Development of Farming Communities in West Africa

The increasing use of iron tools and weapons helped West Africans clear woodland for cultivation and improved hunting efficiency. This accelerated the development and spread of farming communities. In the inland delta of the Niger River—where the river divides and spreads into a complex pattern of waterways—clusters of villages formed into larger settlements. Many of these Mande-speaking villagers specialized in the production of dried fish, rice, or cotton. Producing far more than they needed for themselves, they traded their surplus with their neighbors at large central markets. By about 250 bc Djenné, in present-day southern Mali, was perhaps the largest of these commercial centers.

Rice growing spread to the tidal estuaries of what is now Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. In these areas local farmers developed special water-control techniques that used tidal salt water to clear the land of weeds and fresh water from rivers to irrigate the rice crop. Centuries later, slaves taken from this region would introduce similar techniques to the plantations of South Carolina in what is now the United States.

Throughout the Niger-Congo societies of West Africa, craftspeople specialized in wood carving, producing dugout canoes and three-legged stools, as well as masks for use in festivals and religions rituals. A thriving, ironworking community, referred to as the Nok culture, established itself on the Jos Plateau of central Nigeria by 500 bc. Nok craftsmen combined carving and pottery-making skills in the production of finely sculpted terracotta clay heads.

C

2

Bantu Migration

By 2000 bc Bantu-speaking farmers of the Niger-Congo culture had begun to migrate from what is now Cameroon and eastern Nigeria into the forest regions of the Congo River Basin. Traveling in dugout canoes along the region’s numerous waterways, they established riverside settlements and supplemented yam and oil palm farming with hunting and fishing. By 1000 bc they had crossed the forests to reach the southern savanna lands of what is now Angola and reached the Great Lakes region in the east. In the Great Lakes region they adopted ironworking and learned techniques of cattle keeping and grain cultivation from their Sudanic- and Cushitic-speaking neighbors.

Bantu-speaking farmers thus developed a unique and wide-ranging combination of technological skills: planting yams, sowing grain, herding livestock, working iron, and making pottery. This adaptable set of skills enabled them to spread, in a series of small movements, over most of East, Central, and southern Africa between 300 bc and ad 300. In the process, they interacted with and absorbed existing, mostly Khoisan, populations. The only region the Bantu did not penetrate was the far southwestern corner of Africa, which was too dry for their agricultural practices.

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