The Real History of Africa They Never Taught You | Full Documentary | Africa's Great Civilizations

0:22 Host: No matter what we look like today,

0:24 we're all directly descended from ancestors

0:27 who evolved on the African continent.

0:31 The oldest human population emerged in Africa.

0:36 Africa is the home of the world's most ancient civilizations.

0:41 Far too often, Africa has been thought of as isolated and static,

0:46 but nothing could be further from the truth.

0:49 The roots of every family tree trace here to Africa.

0:55 And so does the history of civilization.

0:58 In this series, we'll be going on a journey through 200,000 years of history.

1:06 We'll explore great cities built along Africa's extensive trade networks,

1:11 discover art of unparalleled beauty and technical brilliance,

1:16 and marvel at thousands of years of breathtaking architecture.

1:21 Driving all this were Africans who prospered, created,

1:26 and suffered through their rich,

1:28 sometimes tragic, yet endlessly fascinating history.

1:34 This is a seldom-told story of how Africans,

1:37 by shaping their own worlds, shaped the larger world as well.

2:17 Africa's Great Rift Valley.

2:20 This is where humanity's story most likely begins.

2:30 Homo sapiens, anatomically modern humans,

2:33 have lived here for about 200,000 years.

2:40 This great geological fault,

2:42 stretching 3,000 miles through Africa, from Ethiopia to Malawi,

2:47 with its great lakes and savannas full of animal life,

2:50 gave our ancestors the perfect environment in which to evolve.

2:58 Man: The Rift Valley, it's like a crucible,

3:02 like in a chemistry lab, where humans have been tested.

3:07 Because nature constantly tests different parts of the species.

3:12 Those who can fit the environment

3:14 or the situation that is around survive and continue,

3:19 and the others, you know, get replaced.

3:26 [Thunder] Host: In 1997,

3:30 the rains fell heavily in Ethiopia's northern Rift Valley.

3:35 Layers of sediment dislodged, revealing an extraordinary find— a human skull.

3:43 It's one of the oldest Homo sapien remains to be found anywhere in the world.

3:49 Scientists named the skull Idaltu, meaning firstborn,

3:53 and Idaltu walked these valleys 160,000 years ago.

3:58 Dr.

3:58 Berhane Asfaw was one of the scientists who made the discovery.

4:03 This is one of the few specimens that we found almost complete.

4:10 The whole, the face and the brain case.

4:13 And the most impressive thing about this is even at this early age,

4:19 the face is modern Homo sapien, the brain case is modern Homo sapien,

4:24 the shape from the back is a modern Homo sapien.

4:27 It's exactly us.

4:32 Host: The anatomy and age of Idaltu's skull provided

4:36 the strongest evidence yet that anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa.

4:43 Man: Each stage of the evolution toward modern humans, it takes place in Africa.

4:49 Asfaw: When we found Homo sapien Idaltu,

4:51 it's very important because it pushes the time far back.

4:56 It means anatomically modern Homo sapiens started walking

5:00 on this planet much earlier than we thought,

5:05 and the interesting thing Is at the same time,

5:09 Europe was packed with Neanderthals,

5:12 which are completely different from Homo sapiens.

5:18 Host: One of Africa's most respected paleoanthropologists is Dr.

5:23 Richard Leakey.

5:24 He and his colleagues have made groundbreaking discoveries

5:27 about how our species evolved on the African continent.

5:31 I've come to meet him at his institute in Nairobi, Kenya.

5:35 How do we know that the first human beings evolved on the African continent?

5:42 The fossil evidence and the archaeological evidence

5:45 that's come to light in the last 20,

5:47 30 years is very, very substantial, testable, and real.

5:51 Why do you think this idea was so disturbing in some quarters?

5:56 Historically, the science of paleoanthropology

5:58 or anthropology came into existence at a time when we really knew very little.

6:05 Africans were considered primitive, heathen, who knows.

6:08 And the origins of the subhuman status of Africans begins,

6:14 really, in the 18th century.

6:16 In the Enlightenment, ironically enough.

6:18 They weren't really considered to be one of our species.

6:23 Host: Continuing archaeological finds and now major scientific breakthroughs

6:28 have confirmed that Africa absolutely was the cradle of humanity.

6:34 Man: It's like if we're exploring our past

6:36 and looking at where our roots are sunk down,

6:39 we'll find that they're the deepest in Africa,

6:41 and that's where we get most of our genetics.

6:45 Host: Geneticists have identified an astonishing link

6:48 to our earliest human relations through our DNA.

6:53 Every living person shares a common direct maternal ancestor.

6:57 She's known as Mitochondrial Eve.

7:00 We believe that she was part of a small group of humans who

7:04 lived in this region of Africa around the time of the Idaltu skull.

7:09 Man: Our common ancestry through the Mitochondrial Eve

7:12 means that our genetic differences are literally skin deep.

7:17 That at the bottom, we are all descended from the same family.

7:22 Host: Mitochondrial DNA, found in our cells,

7:25 is the genetic signature passed down through females from mother to child.

7:30 What it means is that this was a woman,

7:32 hypothetically, who lived 200,000 years ago,

7:35 who had enough daughters in a continuous chain,

7:38 straight back so that her mitochondrial DNA survived.

7:41 Absolutely right.

7:45 And all of us today,

7:46 no matter what we look like, are descended from Black ancestors?

7:51 Yeah, that is exactly, that's what happened.

7:54 All the humans, all the Homo sapiens all over the world,

7:59 be it yellow, white, Black, we are descended from a common ancestor in Africa.

8:06 What would life for human beings 200,000

8:09 years ago have been like in this valley?

8:12 200,000 years ago, I would imagine the groups were quite small.

8:16 Mm-hmm.

8:18 The dangers around, we had predators,

8:20 things like hyenas and groups of carnivores all around.

8:24 Mm-hmm.

8:25 It's difficult for us to imagine prehistoric

8:28 life or a world without any trappings

8:32 of the things that have come to define humanness over the last 10,000 years,

8:38 and so, in the modern zeitgeist, the only thing that comes close is

8:42 actually the post-apocalyptic zombie shows, for example.

8:47 You have small bands of people roaming the landscape,

8:52 working together, fighting off predators that are trying to eat them,

8:56 and worried about the other groups of humans that they might bump into.

9:01 So, there are a lot of interesting parallels that could be drawn.

9:05 Host: Modern Homo sapiens initially lived only in Africa,

9:09 slowly spreading across the continent over 120,000 years.

9:16 But between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago,

9:18 they began successfully to populate the rest of the world.

9:25 Host: So, what happened 80,000 years ago?

9:27 Leakey: Well, I wish we knew what happened,

9:28 but there's no doubt at all that a very small population somewhere

9:32 in that time zone caught some adaptation that gave them a huge advantage.

9:35 I have a feeling it might have been speech.

9:38 I don't know what it was.

9:39 But they spread very quickly out of Africa.

9:41 So, 80,000 years ago, the human community was Black.

9:46 Wherever they were in the world.

9:49 Host: But when those early human beings migrated out of Africa,

9:52 they weren't traveling alone.

9:55 They were carrying something within them.

9:58 And that something had developed slowly, over millennia.

10:02 it was culture.

10:04 That culture would develop to include

10:06 the greatest achievements of human creativity,

10:10 and it began here on the African continent.

10:18 In 1991, archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood,

10:23 exploring his grandfather's land,

10:25 discovered the opening to a cave on a cliff face

10:29 above the crashing waves where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans collide.

10:35 Today, we call this the Blombos Cave.

10:39 Inside is evidence of over 140,000 years of human habitation,

10:45 and signs of the first form of human creative expression.

10:50 Before this discovery, we thought the earliest examples of artwork

10:54 were found in the Lascaux caves in France, dating back only 35,000 years ago.

11:00 Hawks: When people began making discoveries in southern Africa,

11:03 like at Blombos Cave, they realized that actually,

11:07 this record of artistic production goes back much further than anyone guessed.

11:12 In France, cave paintings 30,000 years old, 35,000 at the oldest.

11:17 In southern Africa, we're talking about 90,000, 100,000 years.

11:22 Woman: Blombos Cave is a relatively recent discovery, so,

11:26 the more research we do in Africa, and also the more dating we conduct,

11:34 this will change people's minds of how we saw human history,

11:40 and the evidence shows they were already assessing the cognitive behavior

11:46 that we see as defining the modern human before they left Africa.

11:53 Host: Small ochre blocks found in the Blombos Cave

11:57 completely changed how we understand the development of human creativity.

12:03 One of these blocks, covered in curious markings,

12:06 is now housed in the Iziko Museum in Cape Town.

12:11 Woman: It's unique in terms of firstly where

12:14 it was found and the date— it's pretty old.

12:17 77,000 years ago.

12:18 Mm.

12:19 What is interesting is the etching.

12:21 It's almost a hashed etching on the one edge, and that is done with purpose.

12:27 I've often thought that if pigment was put on it,

12:30 you could use it as a stamp, which to me screams artistic expression.

12:35 Mm-hmm.

12:36 Meaning.

12:37 Meaning.

12:37 Symbolic meaning.

12:39 So, this would make it one of the earliest artistic artifacts that we have.

12:45 This is a sign of a group of people who had

12:49 managed to emerge above immediate concerns for food and basic human survival.

12:57 That says something about Africa and Africans.

13:00 I think so.

13:01 It shows that these people were cognizant of their surroundings.

13:06 They were socially aware.

13:09 It shows the birthplace of a very rich cultural

13:13 heritage that has in the past not been recognized.

13:18 This is artwork.

13:21 Host: Alongside the ochre block, a painting kit was found.

13:26 That ochre block was not only decorated, it was ground down,

13:30 mixed with water and minerals, and used as paint.

13:35 Lewis: Once a group is into symbolic expression,

13:39 whether it be via beads or using colorants to paint the body or to paint walls,

13:44 that's gonna be another very important behavior

13:47 to use for communicating complex sets of ideas

13:51 about group identity and also to help transmit

13:54 information to other members of your immediate group.

13:57 Host: Much of this early art has perished with time,

14:01 but cave art provides us with the only

14:04 snapshots of how early human beings lived, hunted, and even loved.

14:09 Hawks: We just get the durable element, but when you're painting your skin,

14:13 when you're painting hides that you might be wearing,

14:15 when you're using feathers and other kinds

14:18 of really special objects but perishable objects,

14:22 you know, when we look at societies today,

14:24 they have this incredible range of things

14:27 that would never survive in the archaeological record.

14:31 Host: Deep in the Libyan desert,

14:33 in a remote cave at Wadi Sura, miles from any lush vegetation today,

14:39 a stunning visual record reveals a quite surprising picture

14:43 of daily life in the Sahara 7,000 years ago.

14:48 The walls of the cave teem

14:50 with depictions of people swimming and animals grazing,

14:54 glimpses into a long-lost landscape.

14:57 Mire: You have the Cave of Swimmers.

15:00 There you have your history recording, if you like,

15:04 where we are getting an idea of a place

15:08 where we today cannot even imagine any life surviving.

15:12 we have lakes and the depictions of the swimmers

15:17 and very abundant wildlife thriving in the Sahara,

15:23 a place now we know for sand dunes.

15:29 Host: However, the Sahara was once a completely different environment,

15:33 capable of sustaining these emerging human communities.

15:37 Today, the Sahara is very barren and dry, but from rock art,

15:40 we find that there are a lot of aquatic fauna, hippo, crocodile, giraffes.

15:45 A very vibrant biodiversity.

15:47 Host: So, in this case, art verifies archaeological evidence.

15:52 Yes.

15:52 It tells us more about how the landscape

15:55 has changed or how the environment has changed.

15:59 Abaka: Over 10,000 years ago, the Sahara was actually a green savanna.

16:04 There were animals, fishes, lakes, rivers,

16:09 and right across what is now the Sahara, the environment was green.

16:15 Ehret: This was the kind of environment that attracts the great herbivores,

16:19 the large herding animals.

16:22 The hippopotamuses, rhinos.

16:24 This would have been a time when those were the important animals.

16:27 Host: Although early humans continued to be hunter-gatherers, over time,

16:32 they began to cultivate plants, and around 10,000 years ago,

16:37 across Africa and the Middle East,

16:39 they began to breed animals as livestock and domesticate cattle.

16:44 The Sahara became this band where these people spread their livestock grazing.

16:49 Mire: Everywhere across the Sahara,

16:51 you have vast scenes of paintings of these animals, but also, I think,

16:57 it kind of also shows that this is them going

17:02 towards the domestication of animals and settle in a sedentary society.

17:09 Hawks: When you look at Africa, it's the cradle of mankind,

17:12 but looking into the development of agriculture,

17:16 it becomes a cradle of civilization.

17:19 [Man speaking native language] Ehret: Between 4,800 and 4,200 B.C.,

17:24 more than 1,000 years before the rise of ancient Egypt,

17:28 in the areas west of the Nile, the first complex African society forms.

17:35 It's not a settled society of towns,

17:38 but it's people who raise great herds of cattle.

17:43 Host: For 3,000 years, these communities,

17:46 and the world around them, continued to evolve.

17:50 Farming developed, and populations grew.

17:54 But by 4,000 B.C., vast areas of the lush savanna had turned into desert.

18:02 Life for the people of the green Sahara is brutally transformed.

18:05 Everything changes, setting civilization in Africa on a radical, new path.

18:14 Woman: There was a slow change in climate,

18:17 thus making traditional pastoral ways of life far more difficult for people.

18:26 Host: In the face of this climate change,

18:28 the populations of the Sahara dispersed.

18:32 And many people migrated towards the fertile lands of the Nile Valley,

18:38 becoming the ancestors of both the Egyptians and the Nubians.

18:45 Abaka: The verdant valley of the Nile

18:48 was an attractive place for communities to settle.

18:51 Hawks: The Nile is like this green river through the desert,

18:55 and the regular floods create this incredible soil,

18:59 so that once you have the domestication of plants,

19:02 this becomes the breadbasket of the Mediterranean basin,

19:06 and you've got that happening as people are developing villages and states.

19:13 Ehret: There's pressures that arise as population grows

19:16 that leads to foundation of more complex societies.

19:20 Bradshaw: The population becomes divided between

19:23 the food-producing groups and the non-food-producing groups,

19:26 and what we see with the non-food-producing groups is that they become artisans,

19:30 professional builders, so they have a surplus of food,

19:34 and this is the point at which we

19:36 start seeing things that we might call civilization.

19:40 Host: Burial pits in the Nile Valley have been the source

19:43 of rare and unique artifacts dating back more than 6,000 years.

19:49 They show a rich, creative culture.

19:52 These prestige items were crafted by artisans to be enjoyed by elites.

19:59 Host: How old is this?

20:00 So, this dates about 3,600 B.C.

20:04 Really?

20:04 This is 6,000 years ago.

20:07 Yeah.

20:08 So, the brothers and sisters back in the Nile

20:12 Valley were combing out their hair with an Afro comb.

20:14 Yes.

20:15 Just like Afro combs, these long,

20:18 thick combs would've been perfect for African hair,

20:21 and this is an item that would

20:23 proclaim status and identity and make a statement.

20:27 They're often found in the burial still in the hair,

20:30 very prominently placed, so these symbols would've been visible.

20:34 Just the way Black people wear them today.

20:36 Absolutely.

20:38 Black people were combing their hair with Afro combs.

20:40 I thought we invented this in the sixties.

20:42 [Laughter] Amazing.

20:43 So, the burials at that date were pit burials.

20:47 In the dry sand, often it preserves organic materials.

20:51 We can actually do an archaeology of hairdos and hairstyles.

20:55 Oh, what kind of hairstyles?

20:56 They've got all sorts.

20:57 They've got the use of henna and fake hair and big bouffants.

21:01 There's even a suggestion we've got some Mohawks as well.

21:04 That's astonishing.

21:05 So, the people who made this were highly-skilled craftspeople.

21:09 They were making beautiful pottery.

21:11 Very skilled at making stone vessels.

21:13 All up and down the Nile Valley

21:15 at this time you see groups creating very vibrant,

21:19 personal culture that they would wear and display.

21:22 Mm-hmm.

21:24 Ehret: You get this coming in of people from the Sahara,

21:26 bringing ideas that even more complex, larger-scale institutions can be built,

21:32 and then development of little, tiny kingdoms.

21:37 Man: Different groups are uniting under powerful figures

21:40 or perhaps local deities or fetishes or emblems,

21:43 and then these groups consolidate.

21:45 One is victorious over another.

21:47 They get larger and larger and smaller in number.

21:52 Host: In 1988, archaeologists discovered a tomb at Abydos,

21:57 300 miles south of Cairo.

22:01 The tomb is thought to contain one of Egypt's earliest rulers,

22:05 credited with consolidating the lands that would become ancient Egypt.

22:11 He's known as the Scorpion King and is believed

22:14 to have ruled at the end of the fourth millennium B.C.

22:21 little is known about him or his reign,

22:24 but his royal tomb housed 150 small ivory tags covered

22:29 in carved symbols that helped to rewrite the history of civilization.

22:36 These simple ivory tags revealed something astonishing.

22:40 Something that overturned what archaeologists

22:43 believed about how our ancestors communicated.

22:46 The symbols on these tags aren't artworks.

22:50 They are in fact the world's first writing.

22:54 Man: Egyptian writing as we know it,

22:57 as in fully developed Egyptian hieroglyphs, appear first around 3,250 B.C.E.

23:03 and some of the earliest pieces are these little labels,

23:07 these little ivory tags from Tomb U-j at Abydos.

23:13 Host: Similar tags from this burial complex are

23:16 now kept at the Petrie Museum in London.

23:19 This is a formative stage of hieroglyphic writing.

23:22 So, what does it say?

23:24 It's been suggested that it might be a place name.

23:26 This is a prestige item.

23:29 And what was it used for?

23:30 So, you can see there's a hole just drilled through there,

23:33 and that would have been tied to a box or a bag, indicating property.

23:39 So, this would've said, "This property belongs to Alice"?

23:43 [Laughter] It could've done, or it could've said,

23:46 "This material comes from this part of Egypt." And do you

23:50 have any idea what the function of this property identification system was?

23:56 This object is only being used by the elite, by royalty,

24:00 and it's about royal ownership of parts of Egypt,

24:05 parts of labor, over materials.

24:10 Host: We used to believe the first writing began in Mesopotamia,

24:13 modern-day Iraq and Syria.

24:16 But these small tags proved that writing

24:18 developed simultaneously and independently here in Africa.

24:23 as to which language is older, there's a huge debate that continues to rage.

24:28 Darnell: I think we can say that ancient

24:31 Egyptian writing develops independent of writing in ancient Mesopotamia,

24:38 and develops really almost at the same time,

24:41 although this Egyptian writing appears to be in some frequent

24:46 use a little bit before we seem to get true, fully developed cuneiform.

24:55 The concentration of resources led to a concentration of power,

25:00 resulting in the first kings ruling over wide areas.

25:03 Maintaining that power required the ability to communicate,

25:08 and maximizing the capacity to communicate led to the development of writing.

25:14 Abaka: And so, writing became a tool for organizing society.

25:18 Also became a tool for domination in that sense.

25:21 It became a tool for ruling over people.

25:26 Host: The evolution of writing enabled Egypt's rulers

25:29 to maintain power and established a system of royal ascendancy.

25:34 Darnell: It looks as though Tomb U-j,

25:36 that has this earliest Egyptian writing in it,

25:38 it's also the first tomb that can be followed in a line

25:44 of development that leads us right to the pyramids of the Old Kingdom.

25:48 Woman: From the first king of the First Dynasty

25:50 until the pyramids is a relatively short period of time.

25:53 So you have the creation of an Egyptian bureaucracy and within a few centuries,

25:59 you have the construction of the pyramids.

26:03 Host: And the most spectacular pyramid of all is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

26:10 It's the most famous and the most iconic building in the entire world.

26:15 A triumph of scientific innovation and artistic imagination.

26:20 Built for the Pharaoh Khufu, who came to the throne around 2,600 B.C.

26:25 and ruled for about 27 years,

26:27 the Great Pyramid took his entire reign to complete.

26:31 The project required 2,300,000 stone blocks,

26:37 each weighing an average of 2 1/2 tons.

26:42 The pyramid would remain the tallest building on Earth for nearly 4,000 years.

26:48 The Great Pyramid is an African construction,

26:50 and we shouldn't forget that, and I find it fantastic

26:53 to think about Khufu and his courtiers sitting around and saying,

26:58 "We're going to do something "that no one else has conceived of.

27:01 Let's make something bigger,

27:03 more impressive." Colleen Darnell: With the ancient pyramids,

27:06 we really see all of the strong suits of ancient Egypt come to the fore.

27:10 So you have their geological wealth of limestone and you also have

27:15 the advanced Egyptian mathematics and engineering

27:18 skills alongside this very large labor force.

27:22 Der Manuelian: You don't pull that off with Hebrew slaves

27:24 and all of these myths that really have no basis in reality.

27:27 The pyramids were built by Egyptians.

27:30 They were conscripted from all parts of the country.

27:32 When the Nile is in flood, that, of course, plays a role, too.

27:35 Colleen Darnell: During those months,

27:37 farmers could do very little with their fields,

27:40 and they could be employed to build the pyramids,

27:42 and that was also part of the ways

27:44 that you could pay your taxes in ancient Egypt.

27:50 But while Egypt would dominate northeastern Africa, further south,

27:54 on the banks of the Nile in modern-day Sudan,

27:58 another center of power was growing.

28:02 It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kush--Kerma.

28:09 Digging in the Sudanese sand between 1913 and 1916,

28:13 archaeologists led by Harvard professor George Reisner

28:17 stumbled across a pit filled with human

28:20 bones and the burial mound of one of the last kings of Kerma.

28:24 Bradshaw: Around 322 remains of humans were found

28:28 in one elite burial in the eastern cemetery.

28:32 This, of course, initially was thought to be human sacrifice.

28:36 Host: Reisner estimated the bodies dated back to about 1,500 B.C.,

28:41 but evidence in other burial sites shows

28:43 the practice of human sacrifice dates back even further.

28:47 Bradshaw: Death in Kerma, particularly for the elite,

28:50 seemed to be something of a spectacle.

28:52 However, these may very well have been retainers who would have

28:56 served the king in life and thus would serve him in death.

28:59 Even the idea that these were slaves captured in foreign

29:03 wars and killed as a sort of triumphal act.

29:10 Host: The earliest settlement in Kerma has been dated to 4,000 B.C.

29:16 Settlements in Mesopotamia formed into the earliest cities.

29:21 But recent archaeological finds show that Kerma was

29:25 developing into a complex society at the same time.

29:29 By 2,500 B.C., it's estimated that the city's

29:34 population had grown to over 10,000,

29:37 and its power and wealth rivaled that of its Northern neighbor Egypt.

29:45 Today, little remains of what was once a magnificent planned city,

29:50 built around monumental architecture as grand as that of early Egypt.

29:54 Bradshaw: The archaeology of the city itself centered

29:57 around what seems to be a vast structure.

30:00 This is known as the Deffufa.

30:02 Different scholars have different ideas about what it could be.

30:08 In terms of mud brick architecture,

30:10 it certainly seems to be the largest and earliest in Africa.

30:14 Host: The Nubian kingdom had its own distinct culture

30:17 and religion and was renowned for its deadly archers.

30:52 Host: For over 2,000 years, the kingdoms of Kush and Egypt prospered and grew

30:58 as kindred civilizations at opposite ends of the Nile valley.

31:02 By 1,500 B.C., Egypt was the world's greatest power,

31:07 controlling trade routes to the Middle East.

31:10 But Egypt's gateway to the precious resources

31:13 of the interior of Africa was Kush.

31:18 Kush supplied luxury items such as gold to Egypt's flourishing 18th dynasty.

31:24 From Tutankhamen's face mask to the trading expeditions led

31:29 by Hatshepsut and the wealth amassed by Queen Nefertiti,

31:34 Egyptian pharaohs required endless supplies of exotic

31:38 goods to help their passage into the afterlife.

31:41 It's difficult to imagine any people anywhere who resisted

31:45 the finality of death more lavishly than did the Egyptians.

31:50 The king's sacred tomb would be filled with every

31:54 conceivable luxury to accompany him through the afterlife.

31:59 Leopard skins, ostrich feathers, ivory, precious stones,

32:04 and gold from Nubia's bountifully laden mines.

32:08 Darnell: Gold is the skin of the gods.

32:10 The goddess Hathor, as face of the sun,

32:13 is the woman's face en face with the cow ears as gold.

32:19 Colleen Darnell: It is a metal that never corrodes,

32:22 and so they recognized this as being the perfect material for funerary goods.

32:31 Bradshaw: We see the royals being adorned with gold and we find from myriad,

32:36 even lesser elite houses, we see gold objects.

32:40 Darnell: the gold mining regions of the eastern desert really force the ancient

32:45 Egyptians and the ancient Nubians to continue

32:48 the close associations they already culturally had.

32:51 It's one of the reasons why Egypt can't let go of Nubia

32:56 and it's one of the reasons Nubia

32:58 is both so attractive and potentially dangerous.

33:01 The relationship between Egypt and the Kushite kingdom was one of intimacy,

33:06 proximity, and bitter rivalry.

33:10 The Egyptians felt threatened by Nubia

33:12 and wanted to control the gold mines themselves.

33:16 Bradshaw: The kingdom of Kerma and Egypt seemed

33:18 to have had what you might call a difficult relationship.

33:21 At this point, the Egyptians were writing of Nubia as "vile Kush," so

33:25 we know there was certainly a lot of venom from the Egyptian side.

33:29 Eventually, rivalry led to conflict, culminating in a war that would bring

33:35 to an end 15 centuries of independent Kushite rule.

33:42 Hawks: Every time you have civilizations develop in the world,

33:45 what you have is warfare and bloodshed.

33:48 Because other people want the stuff that you've got.

33:51 And that becomes a part of the history of civilization.

33:55 Host: Around 1,500 B.C., standing at the prow of a flotilla of ships,

34:00 Pharaoh Thutmose I led his troops to war against the Kushite kingdom.

34:07 Thutmose I, not born of royal blood,

34:11 had served as a general to the previous pharaoh

34:14 and earned a reputation as a formidable military strategist.

34:22 For the Egyptians, Nubia was a very strategic location.

34:26 Bradshaw: What we see is Thutmose is going very determinedly to the south.

34:31 He sacks the city of Kerma.

34:33 To sack the capital city of this kingdom was truly a feat.

34:38 The Nubians were well-Known warriors and fighters.

34:42 There are stories of thousands of captured prisoners

34:45 of war being executed in a variety of different ways.

34:49 Lest anyone doubt the finality of the conquest,

34:52 Thutmose strapped the body of the fallen Nubian King to the front of his ship.

34:58 "Egypt is the chief," he declared,

35:01 "while peoples across the whole Earth are her servants." Colleen Darnell:

35:08 Nubia became a second part of Egypt.

35:10 Bradshaw: The 18th Dynasty is really a period

35:12 of time when the Egyptian presence in Nubia expands.

35:16 Host: For 400 years,

35:18 the people of Kush would struggle under and against Egyptian

35:22 rule while Egypt plundered the kingdom's gold mines through annual tribute.

35:27 Kushite royal traditions survived, South of the regions that Egypt ruled.

35:34 Darnell: All of Nubia is incorporated into Egypt more fully than ever before.

35:40 Nubia gets a shadow government that mirrors pharaonic Egypt.

35:45 You get a viceroy of Kush, the king's son of Kush,

35:49 who, like pharaoh, is in charge of all of Nubia.

35:53 Host: The Egyptians also brought along their culture and their gods.

35:59 Colleen Darnell: We know that already in the 18th dynasty,

36:01 the ancient Egyptians were building temples in Nubia to Egyptian gods,

36:06 but Egyptians gods that had a local relevance for the Nubians.

36:11 Host: Amun, god of gods in Egypt for 400 years.

36:17 700 years later, the Kushites made this all-powerful deity their own,

36:23 incorporating him into their pantheon alongside their lion-headed god Apedemak.

36:30 The Egyptians built an awe-inspiring temple to Amun at the southernmost

36:36 tip of their Nubian empire at the holy site of Jebel Barkal.

36:41 This would also become a sacred place for the Kushites.

36:45 Man: For the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Kushites,

36:47 this pinnacle symbolized a serpent that was a protective deity on the crown

36:53 of the pharaoh that spit fire and poison at the pharaoh's enemies.

36:56 So, this is what gave Jebel Barkal its mystical association that led Egyptians

37:02 and Kushites to build and rebuild and expand their temples over the centuries.

37:07 Host: But after 1,100 B.C., parts of Kush regained their independence,

37:12 and by 750 B.C., Egypt,

37:15 following invasions by Libyan tribes, was greatly diminished and fragmented.

37:21 Around 750 B.C., Piye, a new Kushite king, came to the throne.

37:28 He was brilliant and ambitious,

37:31 driven in part by his fervent worship of the god Amun.

37:36 Emberling: He clearly made Jebel Barkal an important place.

37:39 Uh, he built a palace here, he very significantly expanded the temple,

37:44 and, uh, Barkal was very clearly

37:46 the center of his symbolic assertion of kingship.

37:52 Host: Piye turned his sights northward to Egypt,

37:55 portraying Kush as the champion of Amun.

37:58 Darnell: Nubia appears to see itself as the real

38:03 Egypt because they're the real worshippers of the Egyptian gods.

38:09 Colleen Darnell: It's remarkable that the Nubians adopted Egyptian

38:13 culture and religion and civilization to the point that they

38:18 believed that they were better Egyptians than the Egyptians

38:21 who were currently in control of the Nile Valley.

38:23 So, when Piye invades Egypt, he does so in the name of the god Amun.

38:30 Piye essentially casts his invasion of Egypt as a holy war,

38:34 of the re-establishment of the proper worship of the god Amun.

38:41 At the head of a powerful army, Piye set sail north down the Nile,

38:46 ready to invade the once impregnable empire of Egypt.

38:50 He ordered his men to purify themselves in the river.

38:54 "I shall let Egypt," he said,

38:57 "taste the taste of my fingers." In a campaign that lasted nearly a year,

39:05 Piye's army conquered Egypt as far north as the Nile Delta.

39:10 Triumphant, Piye was crowned pharaoh of Nubia and Egypt

39:15 and founder of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt's pharaohs.

39:19 The Kushites, once the conquered, now became the conquerors,

39:24 reuniting fragmented Egypt under their rule.

39:28 Colleen Darnell: We can see the Nubian conquest of Egypt

39:31 as both a holy war and a strategic expansion to the north,

39:34 and obviously, it was a great prize to rule both Egypt and Nubia.

39:39 Ehret: They're ruling over an empire that runs from Meroe down in the south,

39:44 clear up to the delta, larger than any territory Egypt itself ever ruled.

39:50 Darnell: In some ways, it can be seen as a turning of the tables that Nubia,

39:53 who's always the underdog, now has Egypt as the underdog.

39:57 It simply shows, I think, over and over again,

40:01 how Upper Egypt and Nubia are so closely associated, ideologically.

40:09 Host: This was the start of a new era in Egypt which would see

40:13 it ruled by a dynasty that historians call the Black Pharaohs of the Nile,

40:20 restoring prosperity and stability back to Egypt.

40:30 But across Africa, in the lush forest of modern-day Central African Republic,

40:36 new radical technological innovations were

40:39 laying the foundation for other civilizations.

40:43 Sometime between 1,800 B.C.

40:46 and 1,500 B.C., small communities of craftspeople gathered to stoke furnaces,

40:52 intending to fire ceramic.

40:56 But in the lateritic African soil, the craftsmen discovered a by-product--iron.

41:04 Iron is one of those inventions that actually has a tremendous impact.

41:09 Ehret: We suspect the first usages were for decoration, for ornamentation.

41:14 But very quickly, people began to see, "Oh, hey, we can shape this." Woman:

41:19 Each metal has a certain quality— iron for its strength,

41:23 and the kind of tools that one can create with it.

41:26 Fourshey: In terms of converting economies

41:30 from hunting and gathering to agriculture,

41:33 iron began to be used particularly as currencies,

41:36 but also in terms of agricultural production.

41:39 Host: We previously thought that iron had

41:41 been discovered in Turkey, around 1,500 B.C.,

41:45 but new evidence reveals that iron working emerged at the same time in Africa.

41:51 Bradshaw: For a long time, the idea that iron could be

41:54 smelted in sub-Saharan Africa was completely dismissed.

41:58 Ehret: The new evidence is that ironworking begins right in the heart of Africa.

42:04 We find dates of around 1,000 in the Lake Chad area.

42:09 900 as we get towards the middle of Nigeria.

42:13 700 B.C.

42:13 to 500 B.C.

42:14 over in Mali.

42:16 Showing the spread of iron coming out of that area.

42:19 Fourshey: Even with the kinds of technology that we have today,

42:22 it's incredibly difficult to produce a smelt in the way that people would have,

42:29 you know, 3,000 years ago.

42:30 People talk about civilizations,

42:33 and they think everything new and exciting begins in the civilization.

42:37 Turns out when you look at history,

42:39 human beings create advanced new technologies out of their own experiences.

42:46 They don't have to live in this kind of society or that kind of society.

42:51 Host: The ironworking communities of Central Africa

42:54 left little tangible evidence of their existence behind,

42:58 but they did leave their technological legacy,

43:01 together with the sophisticated artistic heritage unique to this part of Africa.

43:08 Near the center of modern-day Nigeria during the first millennium B.C.,

43:13 a remarkable artistic tradition of terracotta sculpture emerged.

43:17 These pieces are highly sophisticated,

43:19 intricately detailed, and technically accomplished.

43:23 Yet much of the culture from which they were created remains a mystery.

43:27 They're known as the Nok terracottas and they are sublime.

43:33 In 1943, a farmer from a village called Nok

43:38 gave archaeologist Bernard Fagg the head of a scarecrow.

43:42 On closer inspection,

43:44 Fagg estimated that the finely sculpted head dated back to around 900 B.C.,

43:50 making it, outside of Egypt, the earliest sculptural art found in Africa.

43:55 They have this very elaborate hairstyles

44:00 and every heavy jewelry around the neck.

44:04 So, we assume it depicts people,

44:07 maybe high ranking people, in ceremonial attire.

44:13 Preston Blier: The current thinking is that it was probably

44:15 traveling artists who were moving around creating these works for individuals.

44:20 It could have been courts or distinctive religious traditions.

44:23 That certainly makes a lot of sense simply because

44:26 of the breadth of the distribution of these works.

44:31 Ehret: The height of the Nok period is during the last thousand years B.C.

44:35 this is the period in the archaeology we

44:37 know the iron working is reaching this area.

44:42 Host: Throughout Central Africa, new communities were taking shape.

44:46 From 3,000 B.C., an incredible movement of people

44:51 and technologies unfolded that would change the face of Africa.

44:55 It's known as the Bantu migration.

44:58 Fourshey: The migration is particularly significant because about

45:01 2/3 of sub-Saharan Africa is populated by Bantu speakers.

45:06 By 1,000 B.C.E., Bantu have entered into eastern

45:11 Africa and societies like the Swahili society

45:13 that we know of and the Zulu that we know in southern Africa start to emerge.

45:19 Host: While the people of Central Africa

45:21 were building new societies based on iron,

45:24 this great technological advancement was also

45:27 transforming the civilizations along the Nile,

45:30 and nowhere more so than in Meroe.

45:34 Built on what was once a fertile green island

45:36 on the banks of the Nile, Meroe by 500 B.C.

45:41 had become the new capital of the independent Kingdom of Kush.

45:46 Woman: It was an area that supported agriculture, that had the royal city there.

45:51 So, life was probably relatively comfortable

45:54 for most of the population at Meroe.

45:58 Host: The rulers of the Third Age of Kush created a powerful kingdom,

46:04 evidence of which can still be seen in their monumental legacy at Meroe.

46:11 These pyramids were burial chambers for the kings and queens of Meroe.

46:15 More than 100 dot the skyline on this island.

46:21 The wealth of Kush had been founded on its abundant reserves of gold,

46:25 which it could trade with the ancient world.

46:28 But there was another resource that would generate wealth

46:31 for the state and would come to define Meroe.

46:35 Yellin: It's long been known that Meroe

46:36 was an ironworking center because there were

46:39 these enormous slagheaps in their urban part

46:42 of the town that was used for weapons, iron blades, iron spearheads.

46:49 Host: And those weapons would be needed to defend

46:51 Kush in the face of a new threat.

46:54 In 31 B.C., Cleopatra's Egypt— once the greatest

46:59 empire in the Mediterranean— was defeated by the Romans.

47:04 The Roman military machine was the most powerful in the ancient world,

47:09 annexing territories from Britain to the Middle East and Africa.

47:14 Now it turned its sights onto Kush.

47:17 Yellin: One of the things the Romans did is they

47:20 pushed the southern boundary of Egypt further into Meroitic territory,

47:24 and what we do know is that the Meroites started to push back.

47:30 Host: Halting this Roman advance would call

47:33 for strong and decisive leadership from Meroe.

47:37 One of the most unusual things about the Kingdom

47:39 of Kush is the surprising number of queens that ruled.

47:43 They were known as Kandakes.

47:45 Yellin: In about 100 years, we have 4 of these tremendously

47:50 powerful Kandakes and they are terrifically effective.

47:55 Host: Without doubt the most famous

47:57 of those queens was a one-eyed warrior named Amanirenas,

48:02 who risked her life in battle to defend her kingdom

48:06 and make sure that her people could live securely.

48:10 Amanirenas reigned from 40 B.C.

48:12 to 10 B.C.

48:14 said to have the figure of a man by the Greek philosopher Strabo,

48:18 she had a fearsome reputation as a military leader and strategist.

48:23 For 5 years, Amanirenas led attacks into Roman Egypt,

48:28 preventing the Romans from invading Kush.

48:31 These battles were recorded in Roman documents,

48:34 but a firsthand account written by the Kushites

48:37 themselves was recorded in their own Meroitic script.

48:41 Host: When does this stela date from?

48:44 Man: It dates from the second half of the first century B.C.

48:48 so...

48:49 during the reign of the Queen Amanirenas.

48:51 In the case of Meroitic,

48:53 the writing system has been deciphered already a century ago,

48:57 but it is the language that is a problem.

49:01 So, why with all...

49:03 computer technologies,

49:04 why can't we crack the one African written script from the ancient world?

49:10 It is a bit as if I was asking you

49:13 as an English native speaker to read me a text in Polish.

49:16 You would be able to read it perfectly,

49:19 but probably you won't be able to understand it, except place name and names.

49:23 This is where we are with Meroitic script.

49:26 Well, it's about a particular battle with the Romans.

49:28 Exactly.

49:28 So, this is giving us the narrated version

49:32 of the story of the war against the Romans.

49:34 Unfortunately, we are not able yet to see what they are saying.

49:39 Host: Amanirenas showed her utter disdain for the Roman emperor

49:43 Augustus Caesar by capturing his bronze bust during an attack

49:47 on his forces and placing it beneath the threshold of her grand

49:51 temple to be trodden under foot by all who entered.

49:56 So, all the people in the kingdom are

49:57 stepping over the great Caesar Augustus, is that it?

50:00 Man: Yes.

50:01 According to the archaeological evidence we have, it's, uh, clear.

50:07 She brought back the head of Augustus, of his bronze statue.

50:13 Host: Despite the might of the Roman empire,

50:15 Amanirenas' clever military tactics eventually brought

50:19 both sides to the negotiating table,

50:22 where the formidable Nubian queen successfully brokered

50:25 a peace treaty with Augustus Caesar himself.

50:29 Host: Are you telling me a one-eyed Black woman was able to defeat

50:35 the most powerful army on the face of the Earth in 23 B.C.,

50:40 here in the Kingdom of Kush?

50:42 Yes.

50:43 Yeah, that's what happened.

50:45 Host: Amanirenas, the victorious African queen,

50:48 would ensure the independence of the Kushite kingdom

50:51 and its splendid culture for another 400 years.

50:56 Human history was born on the African continent,

51:00 which makes Africa the well spring from which all of the world's history flows.

51:08 Africa is the birthplace of art and music,

51:11 the first writing, agriculture, and systems of laws.

51:17 Africa gave us the blueprint for civilization itself.

51:21 These records speak to us across millennia as profound refutations

51:25 of the claim that Africans lacked a history before Europeans arrived.

51:31 This is the true history of Africa, and it's only just begun.

51:38 In the following centuries, the world's great religions, Christianity and Islam,

51:44 molded in their infancy in Africa,

51:47 would grow and transform the fate of the world.

51:50 Great empires would prosper and cultures would blossom as a result,

51:55 but they would also draw the continent into bloody conflict.

52:09 "Africa's Great Civilizations" is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

52:13 To order visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-Play-PBS.

52:18 This series is also available for download from iTunes.