The Ghana Empire is not the oldest known Empire at all brother 😅. We have the Nok Civilization, Benin Empire, Tichitt-Walata Civilization, Sao Civilization, & Gajiganna -Zilum
Nok is not "known" to be an Empire. A civilization yes, empire, no. The same goes for Tichitt, Sao, and Gajigana. Benin was only s small city-state or kingdom until it became imperial in the 15th century.
I am Greek and also a son of Ghanian father. In history class, they used to talk about this method of trade and how it helped ancient Greeks to trade and spread and creating colonies and philosophy, alexander the great and yada yada yada. No one said that this trading method was developed in Africa. Damn, all these years feeling like a stranger in my own country, because I am black, but at the same time not even being able to feel good about my blackness and my long connection to Africa. The only times they mentioned Africa, it had to do with slavery or hunger. How different my life would be if I was allowed that, i'll never know. Eurocentrism - racism sucks and it has so deep effects... Thank you for reminding me, I don't come from nothing 🙏🏾
@@FromNothing We are our ancestors. When you see us woth big gold chains, gold teeth, and jewelry this is a perversion of of ancestral memory. All we have to do is look back to chart a productive course forward.
Very interesting video , Control of the gold trade road was the key point for growth and collapse of the western Sahelian kingdoms. Things started to go south when Europeans learned Atlantic navigation and broke this kingdom monopoly to directly trade with gold producers.But And when the American gold flooded the market and Europeans were now more interested in slaves which dramatically changed the western African economy. It's a tragic reminder to note confuse wealthy and rich.
When you were talking about the gold nuggets in Ghana that reminded me that I recalled reading about a massive one inthe book When We Ruled by Robin Walker. Here's a line from the book --- One of these golden nuggets was world famous, attracting the attention of the chroniclers of the time. Dr J. S. Trimingham informs is with considerable irony that: "The size of this nugget keeps on increasing. With al-Idrissi ... it reaches the size of a boulder, now in the possession of the king of Mali, weighed a ton".
The Gold lands are awesome and rich but, a huge burden especially when powers outside of Africa want to control supply of that beautiful shiny rock. I digress lol, this was an excellent video on the early gold trade of western Africa. I remember reading that the Matiernus and Flaccus expeditions you highlighted mention an Aethiopian kingdom they entered called Agisymba. From what I've read this kingdom may have been the antecedent of the Kanem empire which we know as the Sao civilization. Someone on Wikipedia changed it to say Zimbabwe and the Zambezi rivers. I doubt the Romans went that deep towards the land of my ancestors in these two expeditions. Would be interesting to know how far back the Zimbabwean gold trade goes though. Anyway I believe Agisymba may be the Sao civilization but we may never know for sure. When it comes to Sao I don't know very much about their trade activities, if only only more excavations were done to shed more light on this
@@justepourlacheruncom8393 They had skill in blacksmithing, too. I'm talking about the modern era not antiquity, the medieval eras or the pre European renaissance era.
I wonder how the "gold dust" industry would have worked. When you think about it, one specific industry operates at an expense to make gold less valauable... yet also gatekeeps the entire gold trade of the wide world region! That would have made for some interesting economic dynamics.
I haven't heard about this. I've never seen any adornments that looked heavy enough for this though so I'm skeptical. However based on the description of the one that I mentioned in the video, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case in the past.
Interesting, the Ashanti royalty still practice the gold jewelry production and fashion of their ancestors who founded the Ashanti Kingdom. Was The Ashanti a Kingdom or Empire, they seem to operate more like an Empire back than?
Making gold dust the currency is very interesting. I don't really understand how that allows for more control though, people can just melt the dust into chunks
Because there is more gold in total quantity concentrated in the nuggets whereas it takes longer to accumulate the same amount of gold into the market when you are only allowed to keep dust. Therefore there is less total gold in circulation. It's like how only the government is allowed to print money, so they can control how much there is. The nuggets are where most of the gold exists.
One very interesting aspect of West African (known as Atlantis, the land of gold) history that never gets discussed is the trade the Phoenicians had with the West African kings. This trade, which merely began with agricultural goods, expanded to gold, reaching almost all four corners of the globe. In his book, “They Came Before Colombus”, Ivan Van Sertima asserts that both the Phoenicians and the West Africans sailed alongside each other to the Americas. He also asserts that the Olmec culture was heavily influenced by the agricultural goods brought by the sailors.
Ivan Sertima's book is full of psuedo-history. All of his data is speculative or conjectural at best. He has no concrete evidence of anything. For example he mentions a stone found in South America with Islamic inscriptions. I've found no data about this stone anywhere aside from his book.
Kilawa sultanate is still African even under the control of oman the local inhabitants and ruler were granted a lot of freedom with from as I tell pay oman tribute
@@tompossessed1729what? It was founded by a persian shirazi the Sultanate started out as only persian but gradually became a melting pot of bantu, Arabic and persian cultures which is what lead to the Swahili language and identity.
@@tompossessed1729lso should be worth noting hey considered the interior bantu tribes as heretics but still traded with them for goods to sell to the India Ocean. And before you say that this story is merely a myth why would the shirazi people keep the same history for themselves for over 1000 years till the modern day and keep on claiming persian ancestry? Also this story has now been proven as a recent 2023 study on the shirazi genetics found dna from Asia specifically iran from males which means the very same merchants that founded the Sultanate.
The idea that the Gorillas in the account were the animal we know of as gorillas is kinda weird to take for granted. They were described as a tribe of hairy people and the animal is named after this legendary tribe. The crew wanted to take one of the women captive, which is more in line with what people would do with a human than an ape
Different sources debate whether or not they were referring to humans or apes. I personally think that they were referring to apes: 1) They described them acting very wild and fleeing and that they attacked and bit them. 2) They mention them being covered in hair which most Africans have relatively little body hair compared to Mediterranean people who are among the hairiest people in the world. 3) They mentioned how they flayed them, something that I doubt they could have or would have accomplished with a society of intellectual humans. 4) They made a clear distinction between the "Gorillas" and the "Ethiopians." If the gorillas were simply a tribe then I don't think they'd have made such a sharp distinction between them and the Ethiopians. Lastly they mentioned hearing the sounds of musical instruments and seeing campfires in the forest and it frightened them so they left. Clearly they were afraid of the prospect of running into intelligent/advanced humans contrary to their approach towards the gorillas which they didn't seem bothered by.
@@FromNothing They may have called them gorillas, but maybe they misnamed them, and they were actually chimpanzees. This is pure speculation, but I have a few reasons: 1. Gorillas are massively larger than humans, and their body proportions, muscularity, and overall shape are more distinct and "beast like" when compared to humans. This would also make them much more intimidating, I would imagine someone seeing a 6-foot tall 500 pound silver back gorilla for the first time being scared out of their mind, which would probably overpower their curiosity, and while chimps are arguably more dangerous, a 5-foot tall, 80 pound ape with a human like face is less physically intimidating to an uninitiated observer. 2. Chimps are a bit smaller than us, but they are the most similar great ape to us in terms of their body size, and shape. Another thing to consider, is that they have very human like faces, arguably more so than gorillas, with wide and expressive eyes, and many of them have lighter tan or pink faces which contrasts with their dark fur, bringing more attention to their face, which might cause us to perceive them as more human like. It's reasonable that they could maybe be mistaken for smaller, hairy humans. 3. They mention the creatures being very wild, fleeing, and resorting to biting, but gorillas are relatively sedentary, calm, and peaceful, It is extremely rare for a gorilla to attack, let alone bite a human, and they aren't very excitable when compared to chimps. Gorillas have more of a neutral, laid back, but defensive disposition, whereas chimps are more aggressive, flighty, and hysterical. Because of the size and strength difference between gorillas and humans, if one did attack a person, it could quite easily just one shot them, so it's unlikely the person would walk away with just a few bites. Chimps on the other hand are much more likely to try and bite a human, and while they can, and have killed humans, being bigger gives humans a good chance at surviving or defending themselves from the attack, the same can't be said for a gorilla attack. Gorillas have a ridiculous bite force of 1300 psi, so If you walked away alive from an ape attack, with just some bites, it probably wasn't a gorilla that did it. 4. When facing a threat, a silver back gorilla will beat on his chest, making a bongo like sound as an intimidation tactic, and doing a bluff charge. This is a very distinct behavior, and something that almost certainly would have happened if they ran into a troupe of gorillas, and if it did happen, I couldn't imagine them not recording an account of this specific interaction. A chimpanzee, on the other hand, will just go apeshit and start screaming, howling, and running.
