Medieval Islamic science had practical purposes as well as the
goal of understanding. For example, astronomy was useful for determining
the Qibla, the direction in which to pray, botany had practical application in agriculture, as in the works of Ibn Bassal and Ibn al-'Awwam, and geography enabled Abu Zayd al-Balkhi to make accurate maps. Islamic mathematicians such as al-Khwarizmi, Avicenna and Jamshīd al-Kāshī developed methods in algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Islamic doctors described diseases like smallpox and measles and challenged classical Greek medical theory. Al-Biruni, Avicenna and others described the preparation of hundreds of drugs made from medicinal plants and chemical compounds. Islamic physicists studied optics and mechanics (as well as astronomy) and criticised Aristotle's view of motion.
The significance of medieval Islamic science has been debated by
historians. The traditionalist view holds that it lacked innovation, and
was mainly important for handing on ancient knowledge to medieval Europe.
The revisionist view holds that it constituted a scientific revolution.
Whatever the case, science flourished across a wide area around the
Mediterranean and further afield, for several centuries, in a wide range
of institutions.
The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–1261 (and later in Egypt) at its height, c. 850
The Islamic era began in 622. Islamic armies conquered Arabia, Egypt and Mesopotamia, eventually displacing the Persian and Byzantine Empires
from the region. Within a century, Islam had reached the area of
present-day Portugal in the west and Central Asia in the east. The Islamic Golden Age (roughly between 692 and 945) spanned the periods of the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750) and, in particular, the early phase of the succeeding Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), with stable political structures and flourishing trade. Major religious and cultural works of the Islamic empire were translated into Arabic. Islamic culture inherited Greek, Indic, Assyrian and Persian influences. A new common civilisation formed, based on Islam. An era of high culture and innovation ensued, with rapid growth in population and cities. The Arab Agricultural Revolution in the countryside brought more crops and improved agricultural technology, especially irrigation. This supported the larger population and enabled culture to flourish. From the 8th century onwards, scholars such as Al-Kindi translated Indian, Assyrian, Sasanian (Persian) and Greek knowledge, including the works of Aristotle, into Arabic. These translations supported advances by scientists across the Islamic world.
Islamic science survived the initial Christian reconquest of Spain,
including the fall of Seville in 1248, as work continued in the eastern
centres (such as in Persia). After the completion of the Spanish
reconquest in 1492, the Islamic world went into an economic and cultural
decline. The Abbasid caliphate was followed by the Ottoman Empire (c. 1299–1922), centred in Turkey, and the Safavid Empire (1501–1736), centred in Persia, where work in the arts and sciences continued.
Alchemy was already well established before the rise of Islam. It was
based on the belief that substances were made up of the four
Aristotelian elements, fire, earth, air, and water in different
proportions. Alchemists supposed that gold was the noblest metal, and
that other metals formed a series down to the basest, such as lead. They
believed, too, that a fifth element, the elixir, could transform a base
metal into gold. Jabir ibn Hayyan
(8th–9th centuries) wrote on alchemy, based on his own experiments. He
described laboratory techniques and experimental methods that would
continue to be used when alchemy had transformed into chemistry. Ibn
Hayyan identified many substances including sulphuric and nitric acids.
He described processes such as sublimation, reduction and distillation. He made use of equipment such as the alembic and the retort stand.
Astronomy was a major discipline within Islamic science. Effort was
devoted both towards understanding the nature of the cosmos and to
practical purposes. One of these was determining the Qibla, the direction in which to pray. Another was astrology, predicting events affecting human life and selecting suitable times for actions such as going to war or founding a city. Al-Battani (850–922) accurately determined the length of the solar year. He contributed to the Tables of Toledo,
used by astronomers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and
planets across the sky. Some of his astronomic tables were later used by
Copernicus.
Al-Zarqali (1028–1087) developed a more accurate astrolabe, used for centuries afterwards. He constructed a water clock in Toledo. He discovered that the Sun's apogee moves slowly relative to the fixed stars, and obtained a good estimate of its motion for its rate of change. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
(1201–1274) wrote an important revision to Ptolemy's celestial model.
When he became Helagu's astrologer, he was given an observatory and
gained access to Chinese techniques and observations. He developed trigonometry as a separate field, and compiled the most accurate astronomical tables available up to that time.
The study of the natural world extended to a detailed examination of
plants. The work done was directly useful in the unprecedented growth of
pharmacology across the Islamic world. Al-Dinawari popularised botany in the Islamic world with his six-volume Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants).
Only volumes 3 and 5 have survived, with part of volume 6 reconstructed
from quoted passages. In what survives, 637 plants are described in
alphabetical order from the letters sin to ya, so the whole book must have covered several thousand kinds of plants. Al-Dinawari described the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit. Zakariya al-Qazwini's thirteenth century encyclopedia ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt (The Wonders of Creation)
contained, among many other topics, both realistic botany and fantastic
accounts. For example, he described trees which grew birds on their
twigs in place of leaves, but which could only be found in the
far-distant British Isles. The use and cultivation of plants was documented in the 11th century by Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm Ibn Bassāl of Toledo in his book Dīwān al-filāha (The Court of Agriculture), and Ibn al-'Awwam al-Ishbīlī of Seville in his 12th century book Kitāb al-Filāha (Treatise on Agriculture).
Ibn Bassāl had travelled widely across the Islamic world, returning
with a detailed knowledge of agronomy. His practical and systematic book
describes over 180 plants and how to propagate and care for them. It
covered leaf and root vegetables, herbs, spices and trees.
Abū l-Khayr described in minute detail how olive trees should be grown,
grafted, treated for disease, and harvested. He gave similar detail for
crops such as cotton.
The swift spread of Islam across Western Asia and North Africa
encouraged an unprecedented growth in trade and travel by land and sea
as far away as Southeast Asia, China, much of Africa, Scandinavia and
even Iceland. Geographers worked to create increasingly accurate maps of
the known world, starting from many existing but fragmentary sources. Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (850–934), founder of the Balkhī school of cartography in Baghdad, wrote an atlas called Figures of the Regions (Suwar al-aqalim).
Al-Biruni (973–1048) measured the radius of the earth using a new method. It involved observing the height of a mountain at Nandana (now in Pakistan). Al-Idrisi (1100–1166) created a map of the world for Roger, the Norman King of Sicily. He also wrote the Tabula Rogeriana
(Book of Roger), a geographic study of the peoples, climates, resources
and industries of the whole of the world known at that time. The OttomanadmiralPiri Reis
(c. 1470–1553) made a map of the New World and West Africa in 1513. He
made use of maps from Greece, Portugal, Muslim sources, and perhaps one
made by Christopher Columbus. He was part of a major tradition of Ottoman cartography.
Islamic mathematicians gathered, organised and clarified the
mathematics they inherited from ancient Egypt, Greece, India,
Mesopotamia and Persia, and went on to make innovations of their own.
Islamic mathematics can be divided into algebra, geometry and arithmetic.
Algebra was mainly used for recreation: it had few practical
applications at that time. Geometry was studied at different levels. Some texts contain practical geometrical rules for surveying and for
measuring figures. Theoretical geometry was a necessary prerequisite for
understanding astronomy and optics, and it required years of
concentrated work. Early in the Abbasid caliphate, soon after Baghdad
was founded in the mid-eighth century, some mathematical knowledge was
assimilated from the pre-Islamic Persian tradition in astronomy.
Astronomers from India were invited to the court of the caliph in the
late eighth century; they explained the rudimentary trigonometrical techniques used in Indian astronomy. Ancient Greek works such as Ptolemy's Almagest and Euclid's Elements
were translated into Arabic. By the second half of the ninth century,
Islamic mathematicians were already making contributions to the most
sophisticated parts of Greek geometry. Islamic mathematics reached its
apogee in the Eastern part of the Islamic world between the tenth and
twelfth centuries. Most mathematical works were written in Arabic,
others in Persian.
al-Khwarizmi (8th–9th centuries), considered the greatest mathematician of Islamic civilization, was instrumental in the adoption of the Indian numbering system. He developed algebra, which also had Indian antecedents, introduced methods of simplifying equations, and used Euclidean geometry in his proofs.
Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (801–873) worked on cryptography for the caliphate.
Avicenna (ca. 980–1037) contributed to mathematical techniques such as casting out nines. Thābit ibn Qurra (835–901) calculated the solution to a chessboard problem involving an exponential series.
al-Farabi (ca. 870–950) attempted to describe, geometrically, the repeating patterns popular in Islamic decorative motifs in his book Spiritual Crafts and Natural Secrets in the Details of Geometrical Figures. Omar Khayyam
(1048–1131), known in the West as a poet, calculated the length of the
year to within 5 decimal places. He found geometric solutions to all 13
forms of cubic equations. He developed some quadratic equations still in use. Jamshīd al-Kāshī (ca. 1380–1429) is credited with several theorems of trigonometry including the law of cosines, also known as Al-Kashi's Theorem. He is often credited with the invention of decimal fractions, and a method like Horner's to calculate roots. He calculated π correct to 17 significant figures.
Medicine
A coloured illustration from Mansur's Anatomy, c. 1450
Islamic society paid careful attention to medicine, following a hadith
enjoining the preservation of good health. Its physicians inherited
knowledge and traditional medical beliefs from the civilisations of
classical Greece, Rome, Syria, Persia and India. These included the
writings of Hippocrates such as the theory of the four humours, and the theories of Galen. al-Razi
(ca. 854–925/935) identified smallpox and measles, and recognized that
fever was a part of the body's defenses. He wrote a 23-volume compendium
of Chinese, Indian, Persian, Syriac and Greek medicine. al-Razi
questioned the classical Greek medical theory of how the four humours
regulate life processes. He challenged Galen's work on several fronts, including the treatment of bloodletting, arguing that it was effective.
al-Zahrawi (936–1013) was a surgeon whose most important surviving work is referred to as al-Tasrif
(Medical Knowledge). It is a 30 volume set mainly discussing medical
symptoms, treatments, and pharmacology. The last volume, on surgery,
describes surgical instruments, supplies, and pioneering procedures. Avicenna (ca. 980–1037) wrote the major medical textbook, The Canon of Medicine. ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) wrote an influential book on medicine; it is believed to have replaced Avicenna's Canon
in the Islamic world. He wrote commentaries on Galen and Avicenna's
works. One of these commentaries, discovered in 1924, described the circulation of blood through the lungs.
Optics developed rapidly in this period. By the ninth century, there
were works on physiological, geometrical and physical optics. Topics
covered included mirror reflection.
Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) wrote the book Ten Treatises on the Eye; this was influential in the West until the 17th century.
Abbas ibn Firnas (810–887) developed lenses for magnification and the improvement of vision.
Ibn Sahl (ca. 940–1000) discovered the law of refraction known as Snell's law. He used the law to produce the first Aspheric lenses that focused light without geometric aberrations.
In the eleventh century, Ibn al-Haytham
(Alhazen, 965–1040) rejected the Greek ideas about vision, whether the
Aristotelian tradition that held that the form of the perceived object
entered the eye (but not its matter), or that of Euclid and Ptolemy that
held that the eye emitted a ray. Al-Haytham proposed in his Book of Optics
that vision occurs by way of light rays forming a cone with its vertex
at the center of the eye. He suggested that light was reflected from
different surfaces in different directions, thus causing objects to look
different. He argued further that the mathematics of reflection and refraction needed to be consistent with the anatomy of the eye.
Pharmacology
Ibn Sina teaching the use of drugs. 15th century Great Canon of Avicenna
Advances in botany and chemistry in the Islamic world encouraged developments in pharmacology. Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) (865–915) promoted the medical uses of chemical compounds. Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) (936–1013) pioneered the preparation of medicines by sublimation and distillation. His Liber servitoris provides instructions for preparing "simples" from which were compounded
the complex drugs then used. Sabur Ibn Sahl (d 869), was the first
physician to describe a large variety of drugs and remedies for
ailments. Al-Biruni (973–1050) wrote the Kitab al-Saydalah (The Book of Drugs), describing in detail the properties of drugs, the role of pharmacy and the duties of the pharmacist. Ibn Sina
(Avicenna) described 700 preparations, their properties, mode of action
and their indications. He devoted a whole volume to simples in The Canon of Medicine. Works by Masawaih al-Mardini (c. 925–1015) and Ibn al-Wafid (1008–1074) were printed in Latin more than fifty times, appearing as De Medicinis universalibus et particularibus by Mesue the younger, and the Medicamentis simplicibus by Abenguefit respectively. Peter of Abano (1250–1316) translated and added a supplement to the work of al-Mardini under the title De Veneris. Al-Muwaffaq, in the 10th century, wrote The foundations of the true properties of Remedies, describing chemicals such as arsenious oxide and silicic acid. He distinguished between sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, and drew attention to the poisonous nature of copper compounds, especially copper vitriol, and also lead compounds.
The fields of physics studied in this period, apart from optics and astronomy which are described separately, are aspects of mechanics: statics, dynamics, kinematics and motion. In the sixth century John Philoponus rejected the Aristotelian
view of motion. He argued instead that an object acquires an
inclination to move when it has a motive power impressed on it. In the
eleventh century, Ibn Sina adopted roughly the same idea, namely that a
moving object has force which is dissipated by external agents like air
resistance. Ibn Sina distinguished between 'force' and 'inclination' (mayl); he claimed that an object gained mayl
when the object is in opposition to its natural motion. He concluded
that continuation of motion depends on the inclination that is
transferred to the object, and that the object remains in motion until
the mayl is spent. He also claimed that a projectile in a vacuum would not stop unless it is acted upon. That view is consistent with Newton's first law of motion, on inertia. As a non-Aristotelian suggestion, it was essentially abandoned until it was described as "impetus" by Jean Buridan (c. 1295–1363), who was influenced by Ibn Sina's Book of Healing.
In Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī's (973–1048) Shadows, non-uniform motion is described as the result of acceleration. Ibn-Sina's theory of mayl tried to relate the velocity and weight of a moving object, a precursor of the concept of momentum. Aristotle's theory of motion stated that a constant force produces a uniform motion; Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī
(c. 1080 – 1164/5) disagreed, arguing that velocity and acceleration
are two different things, and that force is proportional to
acceleration, not to velocity.
Ibn Bajjah
(Avempace, c. 1085–1138) proposed that for every force there is a
reaction force. While he did not specify that these forces be equal, it
was still an early version of Newton's third law of motion.
The book was mentioned by Al-Kindī (d. 850), and commented on by Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) in his The Book of Healing. Avempace (Ibn Bājja) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) commented on and criticised On the Parts of Animals and Generation of Animals.
Significance
Historians of science differ in their views of the significance of
the scientific accomplishments in the medieval Islamic world. The
traditionalist view, exemplified by Bertrand Russell,
holds that Islamic science, while admirable in many technical ways,
lacked the intellectual energy required for innovation and was chiefly
important for preserving ancient knowledge, and handing it on to medieval Europe. The revisionist view, exemplified by Abdus Salam, George Saliba and John M. Hobson holds that a Muslim scientific revolution occurred during the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Donald Routledge Hill and Ahmad Y. Hassan argue that Islam was the driving force behind these scientific achievements.
According to Ahmed Dallal, science in medieval Islam was
"practiced on a scale unprecedented in earlier human history or even
contemporary human history". Toby Huff takes the view that, although science in the Islamic world did produce innovations, it did not lead to a scientific revolution,
which in his view required an ethos that existed in Europe in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but not elsewhere in the world. Will Durant, Fielding H. Garrison, Hossein Nasr and Bernard Lewis held that Muslim scientists helped in laying the foundations for an experimental science with their contributions to the scientific method and their empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry.
James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn, reviewing the place of
Islamic science in world history, comment that the positive achievement
of Islamic science was simply to flourish, for centuries, in a wide
range of institutions from observatories to libraries, madrasas to
hospitals and courts, both at the height of the Islamic golden age and
for some centuries afterwards. It plainly did not lead to a scientific
revolution like that in Early modern Europe,
but in their view, any such external comparison is just an attempt to
impose "chronologically and culturally alien standards" on a successful
medieval culture.
Africa has the world's oldest record of human technological
achievement: the oldest stone tools in the world have been found in
eastern Africa, and later evidence for tool production by our hominin ancestors has been found across Sub-Saharan Africa. The history of science
and technology in Africa since then has, however, received relatively
little attention compared to other regions of the world, despite notable
African developments in mathematics, metallurgy, architecture, and other fields.
Early humans
The Great Rift Valley of Africa provides critical evidence for the evolution of early hominins. The earliest tools in the world can be found there as well:
Homo erectus developed the Acheulean
stone tool industry, specifically hand-axes, at 1.5 million years ago.
This tool industry spread to the Middle East and Europe around 800,000
to 600,000 years ago. Homo erectus also begins using fire.
Homo sapiens,
or modern humans, created bone tools and backed blades around 90,000 to
60,000 years ago, in southern and eastern Africa. The use of bone tools
and backed blades eventually became characteristic of Later Stone Age tool industries. The first appearance of abstract art is during the Middle Stone Age, however. The oldest abstract art in the world is a shell necklace dated to 82,000 years ago from the Cave of Pigeons in Taforalt, eastern Morocco. The second oldest abstract art and the oldest rock art is found at Blombos Cave in South Africa, dated to 77,000 years ago..
There are evidences that stone age humans had an elementary knowledge
of chemistry in Southern Africa, and that they used a specific recipe to
create a liquefied ochre-rich mixture.,
according to Henshilwood "This isn't just a chance mixture, it is early
chemistry. It suggests conceptual and probably cognitive abilities
which are the equivalent of modern humans".
Education
Nile Valley
In 295 BC, the Library of Alexandria was founded in Egypt. It was considered the largest library in the classical world.
Al-Azhar University, founded in 970~972 as a madrasa,
is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Sunni Islamic learning in
the world. The oldest degree-granting university in Egypt after the Cairo University, its establishment date may be considered 1961 when non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum.
By the end of Mansa Musa's reign in Mali, the Sankoré University
had been converted into a fully staffed University with the largest
collections of books in Africa since the Library of Alexandria.
The Sankoré University was capable of housing 25,000 students and had
one of the largest libraries in the world with between 400,000 and
700,000 manuscripts.
A stone circle located in the Nabta Playa basin may be one of the world's oldest known archeoastronomical devices. Built by the ancient Nubians about 4800 BCE, the device may have approximately marked the summer solstice.
Nile Valley
Since the first modern measurements of the precise cardinal orientations of the Egyptian pyramids were taken by Flinders Petrie, various astronomical methods have been proposed as to how these orientations were originally established. Ancient Egyptians may have observed, for example, the positions of two stars in the Plough / Big Dipper
which was known to Egyptians as the thigh. It is thought that a
vertical alignment between these two stars checked with a plumb bob was
used to ascertain where North lay. The deviations from true North using
this model reflect the accepted dates of construction of the pyramids.
Egyptians were the first to develop a 365-day, 12 month calendar. It was a stellar calendar, created by observing the stars.
During the 12th century, the astrolabic quadrant was invented in Egypt.
The Sahel
Based
on the translation of 14 Timbuktu manuscripts, the following points can
be made about Timbuktu astronomical science during the 12th–16th
centuries:
Generally speaking, they had a heliocentric view of the solar system.
Diagrams of planets and orbits made use of complex mathematical calculations.
Scientists developed an algorithm that accurately oriented Timbuktu to Mecca.
They recorded astronomical events, including a meteor shower in August 1583.
At this time, Mali also had a number of astronomers including the emperor and scientist Askia Mohammad I.
Turkana Basin
Megalithic "pillar sites," known as "namoratunga," date to as early as 5,000 years ago and can be found surrounding Lake Turkana in Kenya. Although somewhat controversial today, initial interpretations suggested that they were used by Cushitic speaking people as an alignment with star systems tuned to a lunar calendar of 354 days.
South Africa
Today, South Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community. It hosts the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. South Africa is currently building the Karoo Array Telescope as a pathfinder for the $20 billion Square Kilometer Array project. South Africa is a finalist, with Australia, to be the host of the SKA.
The Ishango bone is a bone tool from the Democratic Republic of Congo dated to the Upper Paleolithic era, about 18,000 to 20,000 BCE. It is also a baboon's fibula, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving or writing. It was first thought to be a tally stick, as it has a series of tally marks
carved in three columns running the length of the tool, but some
scientists have suggested that the groupings of notches indicate a
mathematical understanding that goes beyond counting. Various functions
for the bone have been proposed: it may have been a tool for
multiplication, division, and simple mathematical calculation, a
six-month lunar calendar, or it may have been made by a woman keeping track of her menstrual cycle.
The "sona" drawing tradition of Angola also exhibit certain mathematical ideas.
Nile Valley
By the predynastic Naqada period in Egypt, people had fully developed a numeral system.
The importance of mathematics to an educated Egyptian is suggested by a
New Kingdom fictional letter in which the writer proposes a scholarly
competition between himself and another scribe regarding everyday
calculation tasks such as accounting of land, labor and grain. Texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus
show that the ancient Egyptians could perform the four basic
mathematical operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division—use fractions,
knew the formula to compute the volume of a frustum, and calculate the
surface areas of triangles, circles and even hemispheres. They understood basic concepts of algebra and geometry, and could solve simple sets of simultaneous equations.
Mathematical notation
was decimal, and based on hieroglyphic signs for each power of ten up
to one million. Each of these could be written as many times as
necessary to add up to the desired number; so to write the number eighty
or eight hundred, the symbol for ten or one hundred was written eight
times respectively. Because their methods of calculation could not handle most fractions with a numerator greater than one, ancient Egyptian fractions
had to be written as the sum of several fractions. For example, the
fraction two-fifths was resolved into the sum of one-third +
one-fifteenth; this was facilitated by standard tables of values. Some common fractions, however, were written with a special glyph; the equivalent of the modern two-thirds is shown on the right.
Ancient Egyptian mathematicians had a grasp of the principles underlying the Pythagorean theorem, knowing, for example, that a triangle had a right angle opposite the hypotenuse when its sides were in a 3–4–5 ratio. They were able to estimate the area of a circle by subtracting one-ninth from its diameter and squaring the result:
The golden ratio seems to be reflected in many Egyptian constructions, including the pyramids,
but its use may have been an unintended consequence of the ancient
Egyptian practice of combining the use of knotted ropes with an
intuitive sense of proportion and harmony.
Based on engraved plans of Meroitic King Amanikhabali's
pyramids, Nubians had a sophisticated understanding of mathematics and
an appreciation of the harmonic ratio. The engraved plans is indicative
of much to be revealed about Nubian mathematics.
The Sahel
All
of the mathematical learning of the Islamic world during the medieval
period was available and advanced by Timbuktu scholars: arithmetic,
algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.
Many Africanists accept an independent development of the use of iron in Sub-Saharan Africa. Among archaeologists, it is a debatable issue. The earliest dating of iron in sub-Saharan Africa is 2500 BCE at Egaro, west of Termit, making it contemporary with iron smelting in the Middle East. The Egaro date is debatable with archaeologists, due to the method used to attain it. The Termit date of 1500 BCE is widely accepted. Iron at the site of Lejja, Nigeria, has been radiocarbon dated to approximately 2000 BC. Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in West Africa by 1200 BCE, making it one of the first places for the birth of the Iron Age. Before the 19th century, African methods of extracting iron were employed in Brazil, until more advanced European methods were instituted.
West Africa
Besides being masters in iron, Africans were masters in brass and bronze. Ife produced lifelike statues in brass, an artistic tradition beginning in the 13th century. Benin mastered bronze during the 16th century, produced portraiture and reliefs in the metal using the lost wax process. Benin also was a manufacturer of glass and glass beads.
In West Africa several centres of iron production using natural
draft furnaces emerged from the early second millennium AD. Iron
production in Banjeli and Bassar for example in Togo reached up to 80,000 cubic meters(which is more than the production at places such as Meroe),
analyses indicate that fifteenth-and sixteenth-century AD slags from
this area were just bloomery waste products, while preliminary
metallographic analyses of objects indicate them to be made of
low-carbon steels. In Burkina Faso,
the Korsimoro district reached up to 169,900 cubic meters. In the Dogon
region, the sub-region of Fiko has about 300,000 cubic meters of slag
produced.
Brass barrel blunderbuss are said to have been produced in some
states of the Gold Coast in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Various accounts indicate that Asante blacksmiths were not only able to
repair firearms, but that barrels, locks and stocks were on occasion
remade.
The Sahara
In the Aïr Mountains region of Niger,
copper smelting was independently developed between 3000 and 2500 BCE.
The undeveloped nature of the process indicates that it was not of
foreign origin. Smelting in the region became mature around 1500 BCE.
The Sahel
Africa
was a major supplier of gold in world trade during the Medieval Age.
The Sahelian empires became powerful by controlling the Trans-Saharan trade routes. They provided 2/3 of the gold in Europe and North Africa.
The Almoravid dinar and the Fatimid dinar were printed on gold from the
Sahelian empires. The ducat of Genoa and Venice and the florine of
Florence were also printed on gold from the Sahelian empires. When gold sources were depleted in the Sahel, the empires turned to trade with the Ashante Kingdom.
The Swahili traders in East Africa were major suppliers of gold to Asia in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade routes.
The trading port cities and city-states of the Swahili East African
coast were among the first African cities to come into contact with
European explorers and sailors during the European Age of Discovery. Many were documented and praised in the recordings of North African explorer Abu Muhammad ibn Battuta.
Nile Valley
Nubia
was a major source of gold in the ancient world. Gold was a major
source of Kushitic wealth and power. Gold was mined East of the Nile in
Wadi Allaqi and Wadi Cabgaba.
Around 500 BCE, Nubia, during the Meroitic phase,
became a major manufacturer and exporter of iron. This was after being
expelled from Egypt by Assyrians, who used iron weapons.
Aksum
The Aksumites produced coins around 270 CE, under the rule of King Endubis. Aksumite coins were issued in gold, silver, and bronze.
East Africa
Anthropologist Peter Schmidt discovered through the communication of oral tradition that the Haya in Tanzania have been forging steel
for nearly 2000 years. This discovery was made accidentally while
Schmidt was learning about the history of the Haya via their oral
tradition. He was led to a tree which was said to rest on the spot of an
ancestral furnace used to forge steel. When later tasked with the
challenge of recreating the forges, a group of elders who at this time
were the only ones to remember the practice, due to the disuse of the
practice due in part to the abundance of steel flowing into the country
from foreign sources. In spite of their lack of practice, the elders
were able to create a furnace
using mud and grass which when burnt provided the carbon needed to
transform the iron into steel. Later investigation of the area yielded
13 other furnaces similar in design to the recreation set up by the
elders. These furnaces were carbon dated and were found to be as old as
2000 years, whereas steel of this caliber did not appear in Europe until several centuries later.
Two types of iron furnaces were used in Sub-Saharan
Africa: the trench dug below ground and circular clay structures built
above ground. Iron ores were crushed and placed in furnaces layered with
the right proportion of hardwood. A flux such as lime sometimes from
seashells was added to aid in smelting. Bellows on the side would be
used to add oxygen. Clay pipes on the sides called tuyères would be used
to control oxygen flow.
Medicine
West Africa
The knowledge of inoculating oneself against smallpox seems to have been known to West Africans, more specifically the Akan. A slave named Onesimus explained the inoculation procedure to Cotton Mather during the 18th century; he reported to have gotten the knowledge from Africa.
Bonesetting is practiced by many groups of West Africa(the Akan, Mano, and Yoruba, to name a few).
The Sahel
In Djenné the mosquito was identified to be the cause of malaria, and the removal of cataracts was a common surgical procedure
(as in many other parts of Africa).
The dangers of tobacco smoking were known to African Muslim scholars, based on Timbuktu manuscripts.
Nile Valley
Ancient Egyptian physicians were renowned in the ancient Near East for their healing skills, and some, like Imhotep, remained famous long after their deaths. Herodotus
remarked that there was a high degree of specialization among Egyptian
physicians, with some treating only the head or the stomach, while
others were eye-doctors and dentists. Training of physicians took place at the Per Ankh or "House of Life" institution, most notably those headquartered in Per-Bastet during the New Kingdom and at Abydos and Saïs in the Late period. Medical papyri show empirical knowledge of anatomy, injuries, and practical treatments.
Wounds were treated by bandaging with raw meat, white linen, sutures,
nets, pads and swabs soaked with honey to prevent infection, while opium was used to relieve pain. Garlic and onions were used regularly to promote good health and were thought to relieve asthma symptoms. Ancient Egyptian surgeons stitched wounds, set broken bones,
and amputated diseased limbs, but they recognized that some injuries
were so serious that they could only make the patient comfortable until
he died.
Around 800, the first psychiatric hospital and insane asylum in Egypt was built by Muslim physicians in Cairo.
Around 1100, the ventilator is invented in Egypt.
In 1285, the largest hospital of the Middle Ages and pre-modern
era was built in Cairo, Egypt, by Sultan Qalaun al-Mansur. Treatment was
given for free to patients of all backgrounds, regardless of gender,
ethnicity or income.
Tetracycline
was being used by Nubians, based on bone remains between 350 AD and 550
AD. The antibiotic was in wide commercial use only in the mid 20th
century. The theory is earthen jars containing grain used for making
beer contained the bacterium streptomycedes,
which produced tetracycline. Although Nubians were not aware of
tetracycline, they could have noticed people fared better by drinking
beer. According to Charlie Bamforth, a professor of biochemistry and
brewing science at the University of California, Davis, said "They must
have consumed it because it was rather tastier than the grain from which
it was derived. They would have noticed people fared better by
consuming this product than they were just consuming the grain itself."
Successful Caesarean section performed by indigenous healers in Kahura, Uganda, as observed by R. W. Felkin in 1879
East Africa
European travelers in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Uganda and Rwanda) during the 19th century reported cases of surgery in the kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara. One observer noted a "surgical skill which had reached a high standard". Caesarean sections were performed on a regular basis with the use of antiseptics, anaesthetics and of cautery iron.
The expectant mother was normally anesthetized with banana wine, and
herbal mixtures were used to encourage healing. From the well-developed
nature of the procedures employed, European observers concluded that
they had been employed for some time. Bunyoro surgeons treated lung inflammations and pleurisy by punching holes in the chest until the hair passed freely. Trephining
was carried out and the bones of depressed fractures were elevated.
Horrible war wounds, even penetrating abdominal and chest wounds were
treated with success, even when this involved quite heroic surgery.
During the 1960s, South African Aaron Klug
developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques, in which a
sequence of two-dimensional images of crystals taken from different
angles are combined to produce three-dimensional images of the target.
Agriculture
Northern Africa and the Nile Valley
Ethiopians were first to discover coffee's edible properties
Donkey possibly domesticated in the Nile Valley or Horn of Africa
Archaeologists have long debated whether or not the independent
domestication of cattle occurred in Africa as well as the Near East and
Indus Valley. Possible remains of domesticated cattle were identified in
the Western Desert of Egypt at the sites of Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba and were dated to c. 9500–8000 BP, but those identifications have been questioned.
Genetic evidence suggests that cattle were most likely introduced from
Southwest Asia, and that there may have been some later breeding with
wild aurochs in northern Africa.
Genetic evidence also indicates that donkeys were domesticated from the African wild ass. Archaeologists have found donkey burials in early Dynastic contexts dating to ~5000 BP at Abydos, Middle Egypt, and examination of the bones shows that they were used as beasts of burden.
Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum Linnaeus) may have been domesticated 5000 BCE in eastern Sudan near the Middle Nile Basin region, where cotton cloth was being produced.
Ethiopia
Ethiopians, particularly the Oromo people, were the first to have discovered and recognized the energizing effect of the coffee bean plant.
Ox-drawn plows seems to have been used in Ethiopia for two
millennia, and possibly much longer. Linguistic evidences suggests that
the Ethiopian plow might be the oldest plow in Africa.
Cotton possibly domesticated 5000 BCE in Sudan
Teff is believed to have originated in Ethiopia between 4000 and 1000 BCE. Genetic evidence points to E. pilosa as the most likely wild ancestor. Noog (Guizotia abyssinica) and ensete (E. ventricosum) are two other plants domesticated in Ethiopia.
Ethiopians used terraced hillside cultivation for erosion prevention and irrigation. A 19th century European described Yeha:
All the surrounding hills have been
terraced for cultivation, and present much the same appearance as the
hills in Greece and Asia Minor, which have been neglected for centuries;
but nowhere in Greece or Asia Minor have I ever seen such an enormous
extent of terraced mountains as in this Abyssinian valley. Hundreds and
thousands of acres must here have been under the most careful
cultivation, right up almost to the tops of the mountains, and now
nothing is left but the regular lines of the sustaining walls, and a few
trees dotted about here and there. This valley is most completely shut
in, quite such an one as one can imagine Rasselas to have lived in
— James T. Bent, The sacred city of the Ethiopians, being a record of travel and
research in Abyssinia in 1893 (1896)
The Sahel and West Africa
The earliest evidence for the domestication of plants for agricultural purposes in Africa occurred in the Sahel region c. 5000 BCE, when sorghum and African rice (Oryza glaberrima) began to be cultivated. Around this time, and in the same region, the small guineafowl was domesticated. Other African domesticated plants were oil palm, raffia palm, black-eyed peas, groundnuts, and kola nuts.
Sorghum domesticated in the Sahel
African methods of cultivating rice, introduced by enslaved Africans,
may have been used in North Carolina. This may have been a factor in
the prosperity of the North Carolina colony.
Portuguese observers between the half of the 15th century and the 16th
century witnessed the cultivation of rice in the Upper Guinea Coast, and
admired the local rice-growing technology, as it involved intensive
agricultural practices such as diking and transplanting.
Yams were domesticated 8000 BCE in West Africa. Between 7000 and 5000 BCE, pearl millet, gourds, watermelons, and beans also spread westward across the southern Sahara.
Between 6500 and 3500 BCE knowledge of domesticated sorghum,
castor beans, and two species of gourd spread from Africa to Asia. Pearl
millet, black-eyed peas, watermelon, and okra later spread to the rest
of the world.
In the lack of more detailed historical and archaeological
studies on the chronology of terracing, intensive terrace farming is
believed to have been practiced before the early 15th century AD in West
Africa. Terraces were used by many groups, notably the Mafa, Ngas, Gwoza, and the Dogon.
East Africa
Engaruka is an Iron Age
archaeological site in northern Tanzania known for the ruins of a
complex irrigation system. Stone channels were used to dike, dam, and
level surrounding river waters. Some of these channels were several
kilometers long, channelling and feeding individual plots of land
totaling approximately 5,000 acres (20 km2). Seven stone-terraced villages along the mountainside also comprise the settlement.
Southern Africa
Randall-MacIver described the irrigation technology used in Nyanga, Zimbabwe :
The country about Inyanga is well
watered, but it would seem that the old inhabitants required a more
general distribution of the supply than was afforded by the numerous
streams running down from the hills. Accordingly, they adopted a
practice which has been prevalent under similar conditions in several
other countries, Algeria being one instance which has come under the
waiter's own observation. The stream was tapped at a point near its
source, and part of the water deflected by a stone dam. This gave them a
high-level conduit, by which the water could be carried along the side
of a hill and allowed to descend more gradually than the parent stream.
There are very many such conduits in the Inyanga region, and they often
run for several miles. The gradients are admirably calculated, with a
skill which is not always equalled by modern engineers with their
elaborate instruments. The dams are well and strongly built of unworked
stones without mortar ; the conduits themselves are simple trenches
about one metre in depth. The earth taken out of the trench is piled on
its lower side and supported by boulders imbedded in ito.
Textiles
Nile Valley
Egyptians wore linen from the flax plant, and used looms as early as 4000 BCE. Nubians mainly wore cotton, beaded leather, and linen.
Ethiopia
Shemma, shama, and kuta are all cotton-based cloths used for making Ethiopian clothing. Three types of looms
are used in Africa: the double heddle loom for narrow strips of cloth,
the single heddle loom for wider spans of cloth, and the ground or pit
loom. The double heddle loom and single heddle loom might be of African
origin. The ground or pit loom is used in the Horn of Africa, Madagascar, and North Africa and is of Middle Eastern origins.
Northern Africa
The Djellaba was made typically of wool and worn in the Maghreb.
Some of the oldest surviving African textiles were discovered at the
archaeological site of Kissi in northern Burkina Faso. They are made of
wool or fine animal hair in a weft-faced plain weave pattern. Fragments of textile have also survived from the thirteenth century Benin City in Nigeria.
In the Sahel, cotton is widely used in making the boubou (for men) and kaftan (for women).
Bogolan Mud Cloth
Bògòlanfini (mudcloth) is cotton textile dyed with fermented mud of tree sap and teas, hand made by the Bambara people of the Beledougou region of central Mali.
By the 12th century, so-called Moroccan leather, which actually came from the Hausa area of northern Nigeria, was supplied to Mediterranean markets and found their way to the fairs and markets of Europe.
Among Kuba people, in present day Democratic Republic of Congo, raffia clothes were weaved. They used the fibers of the leaves on the raffia palm tree.
East Africa
Barkcloth was used by the Baganda in Uganda from the Mutuba tree (Ficus natalensis). Kanga are Swahili
pieces of fabric that come in rectangular shapes, made of pure cotton,
and put together to make clothing. It is as long as ones outstretch hand
and wide to cover the length of ones neck. Kitenge are similar to kangas and kikoy, but are of a thicker cloth, and have an edging only on a long side. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Sudan are some of the African countries where kitenge are worn. In Malawi, Namibia and Zambia, kitenge are known as Chitenge. Lamba Mpanjaka was cloth made of multicolored silk, worn like a toga on the island of Madagascar.
Southern Africa
In
southern Africa one finds numerous use of animal hide and skins for
clothing. The Ndau in central Mozambique and the Shona mixed hide with
barkcloth and cotton cloth. Cotton weaving was practiced by the Ndau and
Shona. Cotton cloth was referred to as machira. The Venda, Swazi,
Basotho, Zulu, Ndebele, and Xhosa also made extensive use of hides.
Hides came from cattle, sheep, goat, elephant, and from jangwa( part of
the mongoose family). Leopard skins were coveted and was a symbol of
kingship in Zulu society. Skins were tanned to form leather, dyed, and
embedded with beads.
Maritime technology
In 1987 the third oldest canoe in the world and the oldest in Africa, the Dufuna canoe, was discovered in Nigeria
by Fulani herdsmen near the Yobe river and the village of Dufuna. It
dates to approximately 8000 years ago, and was made from African
mahogany.
North Africa
Carthage's
fleet included large numbers of quadriremes and quinqueremes, warships
with four and five ranks of rowers. Its ships dominated the
Mediterranean. The Romans however were masters at copying and adapting
the technology of other peoples. According to Polybius, the Romans
seized a shipwrecked Carthaginian warship, and used it as a blueprint
for a massive naval build-up, adding their own refinement – the corvus –
which allowed an enemy vessel to be "gripped" and boarded for
hand-to-hand fighting. This negated initially superior Carthaginian
seamanship and ships.
The Sahel and West Africa
In the 14th century CE King Abubakari II, the brother of King Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire is thought to have had a great armada of ships sitting on the coast of West Africa. This is corroborated by ibn Battuta himself who recalls several hundred Malian ships off the coast.
The ships would communicate with each other by drums. This has led to
great speculation, that Malian sailors may have reached the coast of Pre-Columbian America under the rule of Abubakari II, nearly two hundred years before Christopher Columbus.
Bagandan War Canoe
Numerous sources attest that the inland waterways of West Africa saw
extensive use of war-canoes and vessels used for war transport where
permitted by the environment. Most West African canoes were of single
log construction, carved and dug-out from one massive tree trunk. The
primary method of propulsion was by paddle and in shallow water, poles.
Sails were also used to a lesser extent, particularly on trading
vessels. The silk cotton tree provided many of the most table logs for
massive canoe building, and launching was via wooden rollers to the
water. Boat building specialists were to emerge among certain peoples,
particularly in the Niger Delta.
Some canoes were 80 feet (24 m) in length, carrying 100 men or
more. Documents from 1506 for example, refer to war-canoes on the Sierra
Leone river, carrying 120 men. Others refer to Guinea coast peoples
using canoes of varying sizes – some 70 feet (21 m) in length, 7–8 ft
broad, with sharp pointed ends, rowing benches on the side, and quarter
decks or focastles build of reeds, and miscellaneous facilities such as
cooking hearths, and storage spaces for crew sleeping mats.
Nile Valley
Early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3000 BC (5000 BCE). The oldest ships yet unearthed, a group of 14 discovered in Abydos, were constructed from wooden planks which were "sewn" together. Woven straps were used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams.[115] Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary complex belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy,
originally the boats were all thought to have belonged to him. One of
the 14 ships dates to 3000 BC, however, and is now thought to perhaps
have belonged to an earlier pharaoh, possibly Pharaoh Aha.
Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, using pitch for caulking the seams. The "Khufu ship", a 43.6-meter vessel sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty around 2500 BCE, is a full-size surviving example which may have fulfilled the symbolic function of a solar barque. Early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints.
Horn of Africa and the Swahili Coast
It is known that ancient Axum traded with India,
and there is evidence that ships from Northeast Africa may have sailed
back and forth between India/Sri Lanka and Nubia trading goods and even
to Persia, Himyar and Rome. Aksum was known by the Greeks for having seaports for ships from Greece and Yemen. Elsewhere in Northeast Africa, the 1st century CE Greek travelogue Periplus of the Red Sea reports that Somalis, through their northern ports such as Zeila and Berbera, were trading frankincense and other items with the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula as well as with the then Roman-controlled Egypt.
Construction and repair of dhows, near Mtoni, Zanzibar
Middle Age Swahili kingdoms are known to have had trade port islands and trade routes with the Islamic world and Asia and were described by Greek historians are "metropolises". Famous African trade ports such as Mombasa, Zanzibar, Mogadishu and Kilwa were known to Chinese sailors such as Zheng He and medieval Islamic historians such as the Berber Islamic voyager Abu Abdullah ibn Battuta. The dhow
was the ship of trade used by the Swahili. They could be massive. It
was a dhow that transported a giraffe to Chinese Emperor Yong Le's
court, in 1414.
Architecture
West Africa
The Walls of Benin City are collectively the world's largest man-made structure and were semi-destroyed by the British in 1897. Fred Pearce wrote in New Scientist:
"They extend for some 16,000 kilometres in all,
in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They
cover 6500 square kilometres and were all dug by the Edo
people. In all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of
China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid
of Cheops. They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to
construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon
on the planet."
Sungbo's Eredo is the second largest pre-colonial monument in Africa, larger than the Great Pyramids or Great Zimbabwe. Built by the Yoruba people in honour of one of their titled personages, an aristocratic widow known as the Oloye
Bilikisu Sungbo, it is made up of sprawling mud walls and the valleys
that surrounded the town of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun state, Nigeria.
North Africa and the Sahel
Around 1000 AD, cob (tabya) first appears in the Maghreb and al-Andalus.
Tichit
is the oldest surviving archaeological settlements in the Sahel and is
the oldest all-stone settlement south of the Sahara. It is thought to
have been built by Soninke people and is thought to be the precursor of the Ghana empire.
The Great Mosque of Djenné
is the largest mud brick or adobe building in the world and is
considered by many architects to be the greatest achievement of the
Sudano-Sahelian architectural style, albeit with definite Islamic
influences.
Nile Valley
The Egyptian step pyramid built at Saqqara is the oldest major stone building in the world.
The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years.
In
southern Africa one finds ancient and widespread traditions of building
in stone. Two broad categories of these traditions have been noted: 1.
Zimbabwean style 2. Transvaal Free State style. North of the Zambezi one
finds very few stone ruins. Great Zimbabwe, Khami, and Thulamela uses the Zimbabwean style. Tsotho/Tswana architecture represents the Transvaal Free State style. ||Khauxa!nas
stone settlement in Namibia represents both traditions. The Kingdom of
Mapungubwe (1075–1220) was a pre-colonial Southern African state located
at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers which marked the
center of a pre-Shona kingdom which preceded the culmination of
southeast African urban civilization in Great Zimbabwe.
Communication systems
Griots
are repositories of African history, especially in African societies
with no written language. Griots can recite genealogies going back
centuries. They recite epics that reveal historical occurrences and
events. Griots can go for hours and even days reciting the histories and
genealogies of societies. They have been described as living history
books.
The other direct offspring of Egyptian hieroglyphs was the Meroitic alphabet. It began in the Napatan phase of Nubian history, Kush (700–300 BCE). It came into full fruition in the 2nd century, under the successor Nubian kingdom of Meroë.
The script can be read but not understood, with the discovery at
el-Hassa, Sudan of ram statues bearing meroitic inscriptions might
assist in its translation.
The Sahel
With the arrival of Islam, came the Arabic alphabet in the Sahel. Arabic writing is widespread in the Sahel. The Arabic script was also used to write native African languages. The script used in this capacity is often called Ajami. The languages that have been or are written in Ajami include Hausa, Mandinka, Fulani, Wolofal, Tamazight, Nubian, Yoruba, Songhai, and Kanuri.
Nsibidi is ideographic set of symbols developed by the Ekpe people of Southeastern coastal Nigeria for communication. A complex implementation of Nsibidi is only known to initiates of Ekpe secret society.
Nsibidi symbols
Adinkra is a set of symbols developed by the Akan (Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire), used to represent concepts and aphorisms.
Adamorobe Sign Language is an indigenous sign language developed in the Adamorobe Akan village in Eastern Ghana. The village has a high incident of genetic deafness.
A talking drum
Niger-Congo languages are tonal in nature. Talking drums
exploit the tonal aspect of Niger-Congo languages to convey very
complicated messages. Talking drums can send messages 15 to 25 miles
(40 km). Bulu, a Bantu language, can be drummed as well as spoken. In a
Bulu village, each individual had a unique drum signature. A message
could be sent to an individual by drumming his drum signature.
It has been noted that a message can be sent 100 miles (160 km) from
village to village within two hours or less using a talking drum.
Central Africa
Across eastern Angola and northwestern Zambia, sona ideographs were used as mnemonic devices to record knowledge and culture. Lukasa memory boards were also used among the BaLuba.
Most of tropical Africa did not have a cavalry. Horses would be wiped out by tse-tse fly. The zebra was never domesticated. The army of tropical Africa consisted of mainly infantry. Weapons included bows and arrows with low bow strength that compensated with poison-tipped arrows. Throwing knives
were made use of in central Africa, spears that could double as
thrusting cutting weapons, and swords were also in use. Heavy clubs when
thrown could break bones, battle axe, and shields of various sizes were
in widespread use. Later guns, muskets such as flintlock, wheelock, and
matchlock. Contrary to popular perception, guns were also in widespread
use in Africa. They typically were of poor quality, a policy of
European nations to provide poor quality merchandise. One reason the
slave trade was so successful was the widespread use of guns in Africa.
Fortification was a major part of defense, integral to warfare.
Massive earthworks were built around cities and settlements in West
Africa, typically defended by soldiers with bow and poison-tipped
arrows. The earthworks are some of the largest man made structures in
Africa and the world such as the wall of Benin and Sungbo's Eredo.
In Central Africa, the Angola region, one find preference for ditches,
which were more successful for defense against wars with Europeans.
African infantry did not just include men. The state of Dahomey included all-female units, the so-called Dahomey Amazons, who were personal bodyguards of the king. The Queen Mother of Benin had her own personal army, 'Queens Own.'
Biologicals were extensively used in many parts of Africa, most
of the time in the form of poisoned arrows, but also powder spread on
the war front or in the form of the poisoning of horses and water supply
of the opponents.
In Borgu, there were specific mixtures to kill, for hypnosis, to make
the enemy bold, and to act as an antidote against the enemies' poison. A
specific class of medicine-men was responsible for the making of the
biologicals.
In South Sudan, the people of the Koalit Hills kept their country free
of Arab invasions by using tsetse flies as a weapon of war..
Several accounts can give us an idea of the efficiency of the
biologicals. For example, Mockley-Ferryman in 1892 commented on the
Dahomean invasion of Borgu, that "their (Borgawa) poisoned arrows
enabled them to hold their own with the forces of Dahomey
notwithstanding the latter's muskets."
The same scenario happened to Portuguese raiders in Senegambia when
they were defeated by Mali's Gambian forces, and to John Hawkins in
Sierra Leone where he lost a number of his men to poisoned arrows.
Nile Valley
Ancient
Egyptian weaponry includes bows and arrow, maces, clubs, scimitars,
swords, shields, and knives. Body armor was made of bands of leathers
and sometimes laid with scales of copper. Horse-drawn chariots were used
to deliver archers into the battle field. Weapons were initially made
with stone, wood, and copper, later bronze, and later iron.
In 1260, the first portable hand cannons
(midfa) loaded with explosive gunpowder, the first example of a handgun
and portable firearm, were used by the Egyptians to repel the Mongols
at the Battle of Ain Jalut.
The cannons had an explosive gunpowder composition almost identical to
the ideal compositions for modern explosive gunpowder. They were also
the first to use dissolved talc for fire protection, and they wore
fireproof clothing, to which Gunpowder cartridges were attached.
Aksumite weapons were mainly made of iron: iron spears, iron
swords, and iron knives called poniards. Shields were made of buffalo
hide. In the latter part of the 19th century, Ethiopia made a concerted
effort to modernize her army. She acquired repeating rifles, artillery,
and machine guns. This modernization facilitated the Ethiopian victory
over the Italians at the Tigray town of Adwa in the 1896 Battle of Adwa. Ethiopia was one of the few African countries to use artillery in colonial wars.
There are also a breastplate armor made of the horny back plates of crocodile from Egypt, which was given to the Pitt Rivers Museum as part of the archaeological Founding Collection in 1884.
North Africa and the Sahel
The first use of cannons as siege machine at the siege of Sijilmasa in 1274, according to 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldun.
Mossi cavalry in the Sahel
The Sahelian military consisted of cavalry and infantry. Cavalry
consisted of shielded, mounted soldiers. Body armor was chain mail or
heavy quilted cotton. Helmets were made of leather, elephant, or hippo
hide. Imported horses were shielded. Horse armor consisted of quilted
cotton packed with kapok fiber and copper face plate. The stirrups could
be used as weapon to disembowel enemy infantry or mounted soldiers at
close range. Weapons included the sword, lance, battle-axe, and
broad-bladed spear. The infantry were armed with bow and iron tipped arrows. Iron tips were usually laced with poison, from the West African plant Strophantus hispidus. Quivers of 40–50 arrows would be carried into battle. Later, muskets were introduced.
Southern Africa
At the Battle of Isandhlawana on 22 January 1879, the Zulu army defeated British invading troops.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, South Africa pursued research into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Six nuclear weapons were assembled. With the anticipated changeover to a
majority-elected government in the 1990s, the South African government
dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, the first nation in the world
which voluntarily gave up nuclear arms it had developed itself.
Commerce
Numerous metal objects and other items were used as currency in Africa. They are as follows: cowrie shells,
salt, gold (dust or solid), copper, ingots, iron chains, tips of iron
spears, iron knives, cloth in various shapes (square, rolled, etc.). Copper
was as valuable as gold in Africa. Copper was not as widespread and
more difficult to acquire, except in Central Africa, than gold. Other
valuable metals included lead and tin. Salt was also as valuable as gold. Because of its scarcity, it was used as currency.
North Africa
Carthage
imported gold, copper, ivory, and slaves from tropical Africa. Carthage
exported salt, cloth, metal goods. Before camels were used in the
trans-Saharan trade pack animals, oxen, donkeys, mules, and horses were
utilized. Extensive use of camels began in the 1st century CE. Carthage minted gold, silver, bronze, and electrum(mix
gold and silver) coins mainly for fighting wars with Greeks and Romans.
Most of their fighting force were mercenaries, who had to be paid.
Islamic North Africa made use of the Almoraviddinar and Fatimiddinar, gold coins. The Almoravid dinar and the Fatimid dinar were printed on gold from the Sahelian empires. The ducat of Genoa and Venice and the florine of Florence were also printed on gold from the Sahelian empires.
West Africa and the Sahel
Cowry money
Cowries have been used as currency in West Africa since the 11th
century when their use was first recorded near Old Ghana. Its use may
have been much older. Sijilmasa in present-day Morocco seems to be a major source of cowries in the trans-Saharan trade.
In western Africa, shell money was usual tender up until the middle of
the 19th century. Before the abolition of the slave trade there were
large shipments of cowry shells to some of the English ports for
reshipment to the slave coast. It was also common in West Central Africa
as the currency of the Kingdom of Kongo called locally nzimbu. As the
value of the cowry was much greater in West Africa than in the regions
from which the supply was obtained, the trade was extremely lucrative.
In some cases the gains are said to have been 500%. The use of the cowry
currency gradually spread inland in Africa. By about 1850 Heinrich
Barth found it fairly widespread in Kano, Kuka, Gando, and even
Timbuktu. Barth relates that in Muniyoma, one of the ancient divisions
of Bornu, the king's revenue was estimated at 30,000,000 shells, with
every adult male being required to pay annually 1000 shells for himself,
1000 for every pack-ox, and 2000 for every slave in his possession. In
the countries on the coast, the shells were fastened together in strings
of 40 or 100 each, so that fifty or twenty strings represented a
dollar; but in the interior they were laboriously counted one by one,
or, if the trader were expert, five by five. The districts mentioned
above received their supply of kurdi, as they were called, from the west
coast; but the regions to the north of Unyamwezi, where they were in
use under the name of simbi, were dependent on Muslim traders from
Zanzibar. The shells were used in the remoter parts of Africa until the
early 20th century, but gave way to modern currencies. The shell of the
land snail, Achatina monetaria, cut into circles with an open center was also used as coin in Benguella, Portuguese West Africa.
The Ghana Empire, Mali Empire, and Songhay Empire
were major exporters of gold, iron, tin, slaves, spears, javelin,
arrows, bows, whips of hippo hide. They imported salt, horses, wheat,
raisins, cowries, dates, copper, henna, olives, tanned hides, silk,
cloth, brocade, Venetian pearls, mirrors, and tobacco.
Some of the currencies used in the Sahel included paper debt or
IOU's for long distance trade, gold coins, and the mitkal (gold dust)
currency. Gold dust that weighed 4.6 grams was equivalent to 500 or
3,000 cowries. Square cloth, four spans on each side, called chigguiya
was used around the Senegal River.
In Kanem cloth was the major currency. A cloth currency called dandi was also in widespread use.
The Akan used goldweight that they called "Sika-yôbwê"(stone of
gold) as their currency. They used a system of computing weight
consisting of 11 units. The value of the weight were also numerically
represented using two signs.
Nile Valley
Ancient Egypt imported ivory, gold, incense, hardwood, and ostrich feather.
Aksum exported ivory, glass crystal, brass, copper, myrrh, and frankincense. The Aksumites imported silver, gold, olive oil, and wine.
The Aksumites produced coins around 270 CE, under the rule of king
Endubis. Aksumite coins were issued in gold, silver, and bronze.
East Africa
The
Swahili served as middlemen. They connected African goods to Asian
markets and Asian goods to African markets. Their most in demand export
was Ivory. They exported ambergris,
gold, leopard skins, slaves, and tortoise shell. They imported pottery
and glassware from Asia. They also manufactured items such as cotton,
glass and shell beads. Imports and locally manufactured goods were used
as trade to acquire African goods. Trade links included the Arabian
Peninsula, Persia, India, and China. The Swahili also minted silver and
copper coins.
Current scientific research in Africa
Ahmed Zewail, won the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in femtochemistry, methods that allow the description of change states in femtoseconds or very short seconds.
Currently, forty percent of African-born scientists live in OCED
countries, predominantly NATO and EU countries. This has been described
as an African brain drain.
Sub-Saharan
African countries spent on average 0.3% of their GDP on S&T
(Science and Technology) in 2007. This represents a combined increase
from US$1.8bn in 2002 to US$2.8bn in 2007. North African
countries spend a comparative 0.4% of GDP on research, an increase from
US$2.6bn in 2002 to US$3.3bn in 2007. Exempting South Africa, the
continent has augmented its collective science funding by about 50% in
the last decade. Notably outstripping its neighbor states, South Africa spends 0.87% of GDP on science and technology research.
Although technology parks
have a long history in the US and Europe, their presence across Africa
is still limited, as the continent currently lags behind other regions
of the world in terms of funding technological development and
innovation. Only six countries (Morocco, Egypt, Senegal, Madagascar, Tunisia and South Africa) have made technology park construction an integral piece of their development goals.
