Heard about your channel from Stefan Milo. This is the first of yours I have seen and I am hooked. Intellectually stimulating and visually pleasing stuff! Plus, what an important and extremely underrepresented genre/theme to explore, I bet lots of casual history buffs have a deep well of unsatisfied curiosity about ancient African civilizations. Can't wait to dig in!
Yeah It's interesting to see so many parallels throughout the continent. It goes to show that either trade was more extensive than we previously thought, or that some traditions were preserved for a very very long time.
Another great video! Along with the Aroko and Lukasa memory boards you mentioned. I would also like to mention the benin kingdom's ideographic art as a personal opinionated writing system. I'm not an archeologist, but the edo peoples way of recording history on their plaques and ivory tusks, seems to be similar to the nok civilizations terracotta figurines. Both civilizations have similar ancestry in Nigeria. I also went to a museum once and saw a benin kingdom ivory tusk, and at the exhibits information counter, it said the tusk recorded the oba's accomplishments and could be read from left to right starting from the bottom and ending at the top. Looking at the carvings on the tusks, each individual carving did a different gesture with different armaments on them and never the same. The oba had a specific guild to do this, known as the Igbesanmwan guild. Unfortunately, just like you said in the video, only the most elite in the society had access or exclusive knowledge of this, so who knows what it could actually mean. I could be looking too deep into this too😅. Keep up the great work!!!
Good video. Very educational. I have always had questions as a younger adult that didn't fit main stream programming. I'm 50 years old now and traveled the world. Bottom line in my personal experience is that no country or continent can take credit for being superior in making the world a better place. Human thought and creativity is not regulated to a certain land or region. The land or region we live in doesn't make us smarter. Most of our definition of a successful continent or country is flawed by greed. Life is not in a hurry.
It's good that you are not stuck in your ways, typically once people get to 30+ it's harder to change their minds about their perception of Africa or anything in general. I myself and 30+ and it's a never ending battle to make sure my mind stays open.
I can imagine an indoor or fenced in garden being used to preserve certain longford messages for generations. I only say so because I have the idea of the "201 sacred groves" of Benin in my recent memory from reading parts of "At the Back of the Black Man's Mind" by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906],
Did they detail how they kept the flowers alive during the journey?Any information on that would be very interesting. Also,are these secret societies still there?
Interesting, I have never heard of this writing system. If only the secret societies on the continent gave use at least a little bit of information on these systems. I've noticed that so many means of storing information and communication were practised all over. I remember you even shed light on the communication system of my ancestors in Zimbabwe a few months ago. Just goes to show there is so much we have yet to learn. I really do hope this stuff I explored more as the countries develop.
Yo. I heard about you from Mr.Beat and I’m already loving ur content. Always wanted to learn more about Africa and ur channel looks like a treasure trove
I say the same thing all the time. The only thing that makes writing better than word of mouth is that it doesn't depend on human memory and thus remains consistent. You just have to assure that it's not a "consistent lie"
i use a threefold emphasis for human selfhood too, which can be changed to four by a different perspective. like three triangles arranged in a triangle make a fourth triangle of equal size in the middle. also, the first large civilizations could've avoided longform writing for privacy reasons to avoid having their communication cryptographically decoded. transparency isn't always best especially when invasions are a threat and unwanted cultural syncretism is too.
Hi there. Is there a way to contact you directly? A business email or anything like that? I have a project I'm putting together, and I would love to ask for your help to ensure the quality of the research, since it has to do with African history. I've always found you very unbiased in your sources and argumentation, which is why I'm contacting you. Thanks
Thanks for reaching out, and thanks again for the shoutout in your African weapons video. I too appreciate your unbiased approach towards the culture vultures. I'd be happy to take part in your project. My email is theempire@fromnothing.info You can find the rest of my contact links in the link tree in the description.
@@FromNothingI really hope you're not talking about Kuelimika when you mention "culture vulture" because even though there do have many of them on YT, Kuelimika is definitely not one of them.
@@FromNothing Oh thank God you don't know about it. Kuelimika is a (kenyan, I think) youtuber mainly focused on ancient Egypt history. And even though his work is not perfect (I mean, Egypt is such a complex topic), it is actually based on actual research and studies. His videos are really interesting, you should check them. But a big drama recently occured between Metatron and Kuelimika, and both got attacked by each other's fanbases. Especially Kuelimika, since Metatron fanbase is way bigger than his. So I would have really found sad that another black history youtuber categorise him as "culture vulture", despite his overall good work.
If I might ask, do you have a video or a link to a form of stone writing such as cuneiform tablets? I know there were centralized and lasting kingdoms in these areas. What I find hard to believe is that something as sophisticated could last long without long lasting record keeping. Only recently learned of them, what do you make of the Mauretanian kingdom? I've read them being called 'Western Ethiopian' in reference of their skin color from some antiquity sources Your video on the literacy of medieval south african city does great justice, and I'll be visiting that website.
12:35 This is a myth at least by the classical era and in the ancient era, who were all those stele with stuff written on supposed to communicate with if not an audience wider than a secretive class?. By the middle ages, something like 10% or more of Europeans could read their own language tho, we're talking basic literacy here as the cut off, like being able to read a sign board not being able to read a book. Native writing systems continuing to remain secretive was certainly a unique handicap of Africa compared to the rest of the old world that developed writing or something close enough to it.
@FromNothing Ethiopia has a written text, nothing to do with religions, you discounted it, claiming religions as making them non African. Ethiopia is a proud african country, that has a long history and a written script 😊
@@wildflower7925 With all do respect I think you are being a little too sensitive. I never discredited them or said they were "non-African." I specifically said that they were sub-saharan African and simply mentioned that the Christian and Muslim states are the only ones that are literate. I said that because it's true. The Christian and Muslim states are literate. If at any point I ever discredited them then I'd appreciate a direct quote or timestamp where I did so. I've made numerous videos praising these civilizations as shining examples of African civilizations.
@FromNothing I am not being sensitive, am correcting misinformation. I am from east Africa I know my history Ethiopia had a written script before abrahamic religions arrived on our continent. There's no sub-Saharan Africa, this is a racist labelling to divide our continent and also steal our history. Abrahamic religions did not be bring writing to Africa. You tried to slide it in by linking Ethiopia and Mali history of writing to Islam.
Another convergence, obvious convergence, and bullshit convergence, the language of flowers. I should be happy, but I really hate things like "language of flowers". Seems like a bull excuse to spend a lot on weddings.
Projecting your insecurities I see. Just because they did not develop a writing system does not mean they're backward, as shown by various African civilizations and even Mesoamerican civilizations. But sure, keep moaning on how "CoPe CauSe No WrItiNg", it's hilarious, and shows your intellectual bankruptcy.
