Please post at least two questions you have about Africa that show that you have read and thought about the material on the assigned web pages.
Please post by 6 p.m. Sunday (or email me to let me know why that's not possible, and post as soon as you can).
18 comments:
1. How did the griots memorize so much information and be able to recite it? How did they know the family history of a whole village?
2. When did Richard Hall destroy some of the Zimbabwe ruins?
1. How does the geography of Africa help their architecture?
2. Where was the Nok found and what did these artifacts tell more about their way of life?
1. If the ancient civilizations are buried in sand that must imply that there were near a desert. How did these civilizations survive in the terrible conditions of the desert?
2. Where did the Nok get iron ore and why didn't anyone else find it?
1) Other than islam and the Griots, how is it that so much ic known about these African Cultures. Did any of them develop writing systems, or pick up on another culture's writing system?
2) And what (if any had written languages) did they write on?
1. With whom did Africa trade with during the Iron Age around 250 BCE?
2. If the Ghana civilization was based on trading, who did they trade with?
1.Why didn't Sundiata nor Mansa Mansu feel compelled to expand the borders? They had the capability of taking over a lot of land.
2.Why did the people living in Zimbabwe (the structure) leave it 500 years after it was built?
1) It says in the reading that Timbuktu began as a trading city but then became a spiritual center of West Africa. Was one of the reasons because Mansa Musa built a mosque there? Why did he chose to build it in Timbuktu?
2) Why did Samanguru kill Sundiata's seven brothers?
1. The reading states that the Nok went straight from the stone age to the iron age. Did they ever have a bronze age?
2. We know that the Phoenicians started Carthage, and that the Phoenicians also had an alphabet. Did this spread to Carthage, and, from Carthage, to the rest of north Africa?
1. When the Berbers reached North Africa, it was the first contact between Asia and Africa. What was the first contact between Europe and Africa?
2. How was Africa's Iron Age different/similar from those of Europe and Asia?
1. Do we know about how many different cultures were in ancient Africa, or is it too hard to tell?
2. Did a lot of Africans convert to Islam? How did they learn of the religion: through trade or other sources?
The readings about people like Mana Musa or Sundiata keep talking of the large switch to Islam. How far did Islam spread into Africa? How many people converted? And what religion did they change from?
With Sub-Saharan Africa so cut of from places like Europe why did the Europeans assume the people there were stupid, the Muslim faith that had spread had already proved to have amazing architects and thinkers, why is Zimbabwe such a surprise?
1. What caused Mali, an economically sound civilization as it were told, to fall so quickly (this is unexplained in the reading on Mansa Musa)?
2. Why were the Zimbabwe ruins "abandoned," are they referring to the civilization dissipating or leaving for a greater area or both?
What was the main written language of the African Civilizations?
Are there other civilizations that are well known, besides Zimbabwe and Carthage?
1. In past readings, we learned that Islam spread into North Africa and Spain. However we did not learn how it got into the Sub-Saharan Africa. How was it able to spread that far down?
2. How were the Griots able to keep the stories from being modified and corrupted if they were not written down?
Why did the city of Timbuktu never rebuild itself more than it did?
How did archaeologists know the Nok's sculptures were based on wood carvings?
1. Why was there a battle between morocco and songhai?
2. If Islam had spread across northern Africa, how come there was not such a great following in Northern Africa?
1.How many of the merchants converted to Islam to increase their trade?
2.The reading mentioned many different civilizations in Africa. How many different peoples were based in the African area throughout history?
1. What made Timbuktu be destroyed like in more detail?
2. Why did the Nok have such interesting sculptures for its time?
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