Clarification of Answer by
journalist-ga
on
26 Jul 2003 14:19 PDT
Greetings again Moytoy:
You have already covered one of Africa's culrtural legacies by your
reference to Egypt.
"Africa’s great civilisations made an immense contribution to the
world, which are still marvelled at by people today. Ancient Egypt,
which first developed over 5000 years ago is one of the most notable
of these civilisations and one of the first monarchies anywhere in the
world. However even before the rise of this civilisation, the earlier
monarchy of Ta Seti was founded in Nubia, in what is today the Sudan.
Egypt of the pharaohs is best known for its great monuments and feats
of engineering (such as the Pyramids), but it also made great advances
in many other fields too. The Egyptians produced early forms of paper
and a written script. They developed the calendar too and made
important contributions in various branches of mathematics, such as
geometry and algebra, and it seems likely that they understood and
perhaps invented the use of zero. They made important contributions in
mechanics, philosophy, irrigation and architecture. In medicine, the
Egyptians understood the body’s dependence on the brain over 1000
years before the Greek scholar Democritus."
From http://www.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/main/briefings/1.%20Africa%20before%20the%20Transatlantic%20Slave%20Trade.doc
Also from the same paper comes:
"Some of the world’s other great civilisations, such as Kush, Axum,
Ghana, Mali, and Great Zimbabwe, also flourished in Africa and some
major scientific advances were known in Africa long before they were
known in Europe...Africans were certainly involved in trans-oceanic
travel long before Europeans and there is some evidence to suggest
that Africans crossed the Atlantic and reached the American continent,
perhaps even north America, as early as 500 BC."
The paper concludes by stating "Africans and the African continent
have made enormous contributions to human history just as other
peoples and continents have. It is the development of Eurocentric and
racist views in Europe that have denied this fact and sought to negate
the history of Africa and its peoples."
You may read more about ancient African culture at "Ancient History
Sourcebook: Accounts of Meröe, Kush, and Axum, c. 430 BCE - 550 CE"
and the URL is http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/nubia1.html
Another article you may find of interest is "Scholar extols Africa's
contributions to civilization" by Meghan Erica Irons, Northeastern
Voice (Feb. 29, 1996} Located at
http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/fyi/feb1199/ivan/africa.htm it reads
in part
"Like most students educated in the European tradition, renowned
African-American scholar Ivan Van Sertima grew up believing that the
Greeks, Romans and British built the greatest civilizations in the
world. But years of archeological research have led Van Sertima to a
different conclusion. He now asserts that Africa tops the list."
Please read the entire article as I think it will be of interest to
you.
Best regards,
journalist-ga
SEARCH STRATEGY:
contributions from africa to world
