I am student of history and am always interested in learning about ancient civilizations. Why is it that with all this black history month stuff that I am be bombarded with across MSM and social media, I don't see anything about ancient sub Saharan African civilizations? It seems that black history only started in the last 500 years and all I hear about are activists from the last 100 years. The Egyptians, Hittites, Minoans, Mesopotamians all had empires dating back to 3300 BC. We can see their archaeological remains with buildings, tools, pottery, tablets, skeletons, references to each other within ancient texts. Why don't the black history month people showcase the achievements of ancient Sub Saharan African civilizations?
EDIT For some reason about 20% of you seem to think that I am saying that the Egyptians, Hittites, and Minoans were sub Saharan African civilizations. That would be a complete misread of my post. I am using them as an example of the fact that there are a lot of archaeological remains of other civilizations from 3300 years ago that can be studied. So if that is the case, then there should be some level of material that can be studied for ancient Sub Saharan African civilizations.
In the greater interest of truly understanding Black History it would only make sense to get the full timeline of the African Diaspora and see their plight in full historical context.
Is this a joke?
I think people need to clarify the difference between North Africa (not blacks) and sub-Saharan Africa (blacks.)
North Africa, which includes Egypt, was not black. The great civilizations there were more closely related to Europeans than to sub-Saharan Africans.
There are plenty of laughable attempts to steal the credit for Egypt etc and give it to blacks, but the facts remain that we know from genetic studies that the Egyptians weren't black.
Joseph also wasn't black.
sub-Saharan Africa in some of the areas close to Egypt or connected to them via trade borrowed some of their architecture (around the upper kingdom in southern Egypt or around the horn etc.), but outside of that it's basically nothing but mud huts, subsistence hunting, slavery, cannibalism, etc.
One issue is that there were no sub Saharan written languages, so no written history.
Left to their own efforts, blacks never invented a system of writing, nor weaving nor the wheel. Yet the West virtually worships them. Why?
Because the land provided. There was no need to. Same with North American tribes. When you have so much bounty from the land you don’t have to worry about much else.
Europeans got really efficient at killing each other. Then turned their attention outward.
In lands were there was a phenomenon known as "winter," the people able to look ahead and prepare for it survived.
The Chinese were the first to invent gunpowder but the Europeans turned it into something that would be used to kill people and break things.
Writing is racist, duh! Therefore text messaging is racist, and only (approved) emojis should be allowed. Even the imaginary "Wakandan" written language is based off of Nsibidi, which is an emoji system. "Nsibidi is a form of ideographic writing. Ideographic writing is a system of writing that uses symbols to express an idea instead of words, such that, it can be understood by people who speak different languages. A modern-day example is a red heart, understood universally to mean love."
Egyptian-style hyroglyphics.
Never saw "The Black Panther." Says something about modern-day sensibilities with the popularity of comic book movies. Not long ago they were strictly for kids.
Written language of some form (even if it’s the weird Incan knot system) is a sign of more advanced civilization. Which no written language would suggest (but not prove) a lack of advanced civilization.
That certainly impedes the accumulation of cultural capital.
Reminds me of the Native Americans not figuring out how to actually do anything productive with the wheel. At least they figured out written language though, at least to a limited degree in central America, which seems to be the only place they actually managed to build any kind of monumental civilization similar to those that had already existed for thousands of years in the fertile crescent.
(And no, I don't consider the giant piles of dirt in North America to be equivalent. Impressive in scale, but not exactly pinnacles of craftsmanship.)
Blacks adopted the faiths and some of the cultural practices of their more advanced neighbors such as the ancient Egyptians, Arabs, Berbers and Europeans.