[size=16pt]12 Great African Inventions That Changed The World[/size]



1 Speech

The first words by humans were spoken by Africans.

''Using statistical methods to estimate the time required to achieve the current spread and diversity in modern languages today, Johanna Nichols — a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley — argues that vocal language must have arisen in our species at least 100,000 years ago. Using phonemic diversity, a more recent analysis offers directly linguistic support for a similar date. Estimates of this kind are independently supported by genetic, archaeological, palaeontological and much other evidence suggesting that language probably emerged somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa during the Middle Stone Age, roughly contemporaneous with the speciation of Homo sapiens.''


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language




2 Writing


In 1999, Archaeology Magazine reported that the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs date back to 3400 BCE which "...challenge the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia."

Who were these original Egyptians?

The Greek historian Herodotus.. described the Colchians of the Black Sea shores as "Egyptians by race" and pointed out they had "black skins and kinky hair."

Apollodorus, the Greek philosopher, described Egypt as "the country of the black-footed ones" and the Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus said "the men of Egypt are mostly brown or black with a skinny desiccated look."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/page88.shtml

In his book 'Egypt', British scholar Sir E.A. Wallis Budge says: "The prehistoric native of Egypt, both in the old and in the new Stone Ages, was African and there is every reason for saying that the earliest settlers came from the South." He further states: "There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the historic Egyptians that suggests that the original home of their prehistoric ancestors was in a country in the neighborhood of Uganda and Punt [present day Somalia]."

''Greek historian Diodorus Siculus devoted an entire chapter of his world history, the Bibliotheke Historica, or Library of History (Book 3), to the Kushites ["Aithiopians"] of Meroe. Here he repeats the story of their great piety, their high favor with the gods, and adds the fascinating legend that they were.. the founders of Egyptian civilization, invented writing, and had given the Egyptians their religion and culture.''

(1st century B.C., Diodorus Siculus of Sicily, Greek historian and contemporary of Caesar Augustus, Universal History Book III. 2. 4-3. 3)

http://wysinger.homestead.com/blackegypt101.html

To summarise:

"Ancient Egypt was a Negro civilisation. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in the air and cannot be written correctly until African historians connect it with the history of Egypt. The African historian who evades the problem of Egypt is neither modest nor objective nor unruffled. He is ignorant, cowardly and neurotic. The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilisation is to be counted among the assets of the Black world."

- Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilisation.



3 Medicine

''The earliest known surgery was performed in Egypt around 2750 BC.... The Ebers papyrus (1550 BC) is full of incantations and foul applications meant to turn away disease-causing demons, and also includes 877 prescriptions. It may also contain the earliest documented awareness of tumors..

Homer (800 BC) remarked in the Odyssey: "In Egypt, the men are more skilled in medicine than any of human kind" and "the Egyptians were skilled in medicine more than any other art". The Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt around 440 BC and wrote extensively of his observations of their medicinal practices. Pliny the Elder also wrote favourably of them in historical review. Hippocrates (the "father of medicine", Herophilos, Erasistratus and later Galen studied at the temple of Amenhotep, and acknowledged the contribution of ancient Egyptian medicine to Greek medicine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_medicine



4 Architecture

The African empire of Egypt developed a vast array of diverse structures and great architectural monuments along the Nile, among the largest and most famous of which are the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx of Giza

The pyramids, which were built in the Fourth Dynasty, testify to the power of the pharaonic religion and state. They were built to serve both as grave sites and also as a way to make their names last forever. The size and simple design show the high skill level of Egyptian design and engineering on a large scale. The Great Pyramid of Giza, which was probably completed c. 2580 BC, is the oldest and largest of the pyramids, and is the only surviving monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The pyramid of Khafre is believed to have been completed around 2532 BC, at the end of Khafre's reign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_architecture



5 Mathematics

The invention of mathematics is placed firmly in African PRE-HISTORY

''The oldest known possibly mathematical object is the Lebombo bone, discovered in the Lebombo mountains of Swaziland and dated to approximately 35,000 BC. It consists of 29 distinct notches cut into a baboon's fibula. Also prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa and France, dated between 35,000 and 20,000 years old [respectively], suggest early attempts to quantify time.

The Ishango bone, found near the headwaters of the Nile river (northeastern Congo), may be as much as 20,000 years old and consists of a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the bone. Common interpretations are that the Ishango bone shows either the earliest known demonstration of sequences of prime numbers or a six month lunar calendar.

Also, Predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric designs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics#Prehistoric_mathematics

''Numeral systems have been many and diverse, with the first known written numerals created by Egyptians in Middle Kingdom texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus.

The earliest uses of mathematics were in trading, land measurement, painting and weaving patterns and the recording of time. More complex mathematics did not appear until around 3000 BC, when the Egyptians and Babylonians began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for taxation and other financial calculations, for building and construction, and for astronomy''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics



6 Mining of minerals

The oldest known mine on archaeological record is the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland, which radiocarbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old. Much later on, the Africans of Egypt mined malachite....Quarries for turquoise and copper were also found at "Wadi Hamamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites"..The gold mines of Nubia were among the largest and most extensive in the world, and are described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus. He mentions that fire-setting was one method used to break down the hard rock holding the gold. One of the complexes is shown in one of earliest known maps. They crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining#Prehistoric_mining



7 Iron Smelting

Iron smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes production of silver, iron, copper and other base metals from their ores. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gasses or slag and leaving just the metal behind.

Early iron smelting:

''Where and how iron smelting was discovered is widely debated, and remains uncertain due to the significant lack of production finds.. [but] there is a further possibility of iron smelting and working in West Africa by 1200 BC. In addition, very early instances of carbon steel were found to be in production around 2000 years before the present in northwest Tanzania, based on complex preheating principles. These discoveries are significant for the history of metallurgy.''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting


8 Religion

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. From his own statements we learn that he traveled in Egypt around 60 BC. His travels in Egypt probably took him as far south as the first Cataract.He wrote about the ''Ethiopians'' south of Egypt.

"They further write that it was among them that people were first taught to honor the gods and offer sacrifices and arrange processions and festivals and perform other things by which people honor the divine. For this reason their piety is famous among all men, and the sacrifices among the Aithiopians are believed to be particularly pleasing to the divinity,"


9 Laws

Stephanus of Byzantium, who is said to represent the opinions of the most ancient Greeks, says:

"Ethiopia was the first established country on the earth, and the Ethiopians were the first who introduced the worship of the Gods and who established laws."
Quoted by John D. Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, p. 62.



10 International Trade


In 1825, Arnold Hermann Heeren (1760-1842), Professor of History and Politics in the University of Gottengen and one of the ablest of the early exponents of the economic interpretation of history, published, in the fourth and revised edition of his great work Ideen Uber Die Politik, Den Verkehr Und Den Handel Der Vornehmsten Volker Der Alten Weld, a lengthy essay on the history, culture, and commerce of the ancient Ethiopians, which had profound influence on contemporary writers in the conclusion that it was among these ancient Black people of Africa and Asia that international trade was first developed. He thinks that as a by-product of these international contacts there was an exchange of ideas and cultural practices that laid the foundations of the earliest civilizations of the ancient world. Heeren in his researches says: "From the remotest times to the present, the Ethiopians [ancient name for blacks south of the Sahara] have been one of the most celebrated, and yet the most mysterious of nations. In the earliest traditions of nearly all the..civilized nations of antiquity, the name of this distant people is found. The annals of the Egyptian priests are full of them, and the nations of inner Asia, on the Euphrates and Tigris, have interwoven the fictions of the Ethiopians with their traditions of the wars and conquests of their heroes; and, at a period equally remote, they glimmer in Greek mythology. When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by name, the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of their poets, and when the faint gleam of tradition and fable gives way to the clear light of history, the lustre of the Ethiopians is not diminished."

http://wysinger.homestead.com/blackegypt101.html


11 Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy#Ancient_philosophy

Philosophy in Africa has a rich and varied history, dating from pre-dynastic Egypt, continuing through the birth of Christianity and Islam. Arguably central to the ancients was the conception of "ma'at", which roughly translated refers to "justice", "truth", or simply "that which is right". One of the earliest works of political philosophy was the Maxims of Ptah-Hotep, which were taught to Egyptian schoolboys for centuries...Ancient Egyptian philosophers made extremely important contributions to Hellenistic philosophy, Christian philosophy, and Islamic philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_philosophy

''Ancient Egyptian philosophy has been credited by the ancient Greeks as being the beginning of philosophy''.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_philosophy


12 Art

The oldest art objects in the world—a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

anything recent? E.g., within the past 100 years? Or even the past 1000 years?

Why are we only able to mention accomplishments from several thousand years ago

lol, with all due respect

speech is not an invention

Great post by ROSSIKE - please ignore these ignorant buffoons..

Nigerians are not the smartest people out there - bunch of certificate thumpers with inferiority complex... No identity having bunch of negroids...

Interesting read!

shymmex: Great post by ROSSIKE - please ignore these ignorant buffoons..

Nigerians are not the smartest people out there - bunch of certificate thumpers with inferiority complex... No identity having bunch of negroids...

Interesting read!

So me and ekt bear are ignorant buffoons for such simple comments and questions?

It's not that serious.

I don't know when all these lies will stop.

thank u rossike for ur intelligent post, dont mind this people on nl

and as for the person asking for recent inventions in the last 1000 years u dont understand that ur knowledge of the past gives u the confidence and the self esteem to handle the present

afam4eva: I don't know when all these lies will stop.

How are they lies? The guy gave you references from Heretodus - yet you still chose to post your ignorant comment.

If you're neither smart, nor knowledgeable - it isn't a must to post on every thread.

E-Engineer:
thank u rossike for ur intelligent post, dont mind this people on nl

and as for the person asking for recent inventions in the last 1000 years u dont understand that ur knowledge of the past gives u the confidence and the self esteem to handle the present

Thank you, brother.

Am predicting a hot brewing thread . . .Moreso so when the OP arrives, cos Rossike like gbege no be small and bros PhysicsQED and Ekt_bear no dey gree easily . . .

@ Thread . .Must confess, it was a nice info

@op
you forgot to add the art of taking a poo!

PhysicsQED:
So me and ekt bear are ignorant buffoons for such simple comments and questions?

It's not that serious.

My post was directed at how ignorant Nigerians are generally.., And I maintain my stance that majority of the Nigerian 'educated' class can't think outside of the box, and critical thinking isn't their forte.

greece is also known as the cradle of civilisation nd today theya re an economic basketcase
spain was once a world power

this chest beating over the past sadly comes off as some sort of bid to defend the failures of the present

sort of like a old gateman bragging to his kids about how he was always coming first in primary one

shymmex:

How are they lies? The guy gave you references from Heretodus - yet you still chose to post your ignorant comment.

If you're neither smart, nor knowledgeable - it isn't a must to post on every thread.

Dude, why are you slapping yourself over nothing. Na by force to believe everything?

torkaka: @op
you forgot to add the art of taking a poo!

Lmaoo!

He needs to add toilet, and bathroom to the list - we invented that too... Maybe when they start teaching REAL African history in schools, we will stop being inferior to other races - and continue from where we left off before the invaders wiped out our history, and Identity..

Imagine someone opening a thread on NL yesterday about how we need the Europeans to come over and colonize us again...

Pathetic people!

Question for the Nigerian "educated" class:

- What is the Nigerian Identity, and how come we're the only race of people on this planet without an identity?

afam4eva:
Dude, why are you slapping yourself over nothing. Na by force to believe everything?

Who cares about what you believe in?

You're on your own - but calling something that has been proven as lies is just pathetic... You don't have to post a comment on every thread - if you don't believe it, move on to another thread, simple.

How dare you come over and call a scholarship certain people sacrificed their blood, sweat, and tears on, for the consciousness of the black race, lies?? People sacrificed their lives for this information - they lost everything trying to help the black race, yet ignorant and ungrateful people like you still have the audacity to call them liars.

E-Engineer:
thank u rossike for ur intelligent post, dont mind this people on nl

and as for the person asking for recent inventions in the last 1000 years u dont understand that ur knowledge of the past gives u the confidence and the self esteem to handle the present

I GET AM BEFORE..NO BE PROPERTY. IT SIMPLY POINTS OUT THAT WE HAVE REFUSED TO FUEL THE POWER OF OUR IMAGINATION.

oyb: greece is also known as the cradle of civilisation nd today theya re an economic basketcase
spain was once a world power

this chest beating over the past sadly comes off as some sort of bid to defend the failures of the present

sort of like a old gateman bragging to his kids about how he was always coming first in primary one

You're wrong. Whatever happened in ancient Greece and Spain is puny compared to this list of 12 African inventions which are on a totally different and highly pivotal scale, influencing ALL ELSE that came afterwards on this planet. Those 12 African inventions set the stage for EVERYTHING else including Greece, Spain and other later civilizations including the present. We must know this. Our children must know this. This is about setting the record straight, as well as educating the uneducated to understand that the modern world we know today would have been utterly impossible without the pioneering ingenuity of the BLACK AFRICAN. We will not allow the pioneering invention of speech, writing, medicine, mathematics, architecture etc by Africans to be taken for granted or swept under the carpet. These inventions took place in Africa while the rest of the world were running around, grunting, in caves, killing each other with clubs and sticks, in a nightmare of stone age existence. Without African ingenuity, the world may well have remained in that Hobbesian state of chaos till today. We thank our African ancestors for their ingenuity and brilliance in helping to lay the foundations for the modern world we enjoy today.

WE STAND BY THE VALUE OF THIS THREAD 100000000%

Rossikk:

You're wrong. Whatever happened in ancient Greece and Spain is puny compared to this list of 12 African inventions which are on a totally different and highly pivotal scale, influencing ALL ELSE that came afterwards on this planet. Those 12 African inventions set the stage for EVERYTHING else including Greece, Spain and other later civilizations including the present. We must know this. Our children must know this. This is about setting the record straight, as well as educating the uneducated to understand that the modern world we know today would have been utterly impossible without the pioneering ingenuity of the BLACK AFRICAN. We will not allow the pioneering invention of speech, writing, medicine, mathematics, architecture etc by Africans to be taken for granted or swept under the carpet. These inventions took place in Africa while the rest of the world were running around, grunting, in caves, killing each other with clubs and sticks, in a nightmare of stone age existence. Without African ingenuity, the world may well have remained in that Hobbesian state of chaos till today. We thank our African ancestors for their ingenuity and brilliance in helping to lay the foundations for the modern world we enjoy today.

WE STAND BY THE VALUE OF THIS THREAD 100000000%

rather than try to find our way, we continue to beat our chests over 'achievements' everyone else has since moved beyond.


you realize the bolded describes most of africa today, don't you?

what is it with you guys and lost glory?

you think all this empty we gave the world so and so means anything?

Chinese invented fireworks - today we have guided missiles etc - we don't see Chinese singing about we gave the world so and so while resting on their oars - they are putting people into space.

no one will remember your successes if you fail to continue building on it

Oyb said

you realize the bolded describes most of africa today, don't you?

Oh, if you get all your 'news' about Africa from western outlets like CNN, BBC and CBS, (which I'm 100% certain you do) undoubtedly you'd imagine that ''most of Africa'' are killing and eating each other. Those of us who are a bit more discerning know better - such as for instance that 6 of the world's 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa, and that Africa is witnessing it's fastest rate of economic growth since independence, and that the overwhelming majority of Africans live in peace and harmony with one another in the 54 nations of the continent.

what is it with you guys and lost glory?

There's nothing lost about African glory.

you think all this empty we gave the world so and so means anything?

It is not 'empty' and it means EVERYTHING. If you opened your eyes and brains for one minute and spent time watching the westerners whom you adore so much, you'd notice how much time they spend highlighting their ancient achievements in documentaries, the history channel, and in their movies... etc etc. Unlike your conditioned, colonised self, they find value and worth in themselves and in their history, and have no bones propagating it for all to see.

Chinese invented fireworks - today we have guided missiles etc - we don't see Chinese singing about we gave the world so and so while resting on their oars - they are putting people into space.

The Chinese are very much into their history. You don't know anything much about the Chinese, so you do not know what they tell themselves in their media and education system. I can tell you for instance that the Chinese mentality today is built on their adoption of Confucian Principles (Ever heard of Confucius?) That's right - their history. Fact is EVERY RACE elevate their history and use it as a guide in their forward progress. Instead of spitting on and disregarding YOUR history, you need to shed your colonial baggage and complex and learn to embrace it, as a spur and inspiration for African progress going forward.

oyb: greece is also known as the cradle of civilisation nd today theya re an economic basketcase
spain was once a world power

this chest beating over the past sadly comes off as some sort of bid to defend the failures of the present

sort of like a old gateman bragging to his kids about how he was always coming first in primary one

lmao

you never fail to crack me up man

Ultimately though, oyb's post hits the nail on the head.

The world is a "what have you done for me lately" sort of place. If we cannot mention anything we have done in the past 100 years, or 1000 years...

I think less effort/energy should be spent on hunting for dubious accomplishments from several thousand years ago, and more effort focused on doing cool things today.

^^^ It's obvious you have a very low IQ to insist that listing African historical accomplishments (which you ignorantly and stupidly label ''dubious'' despite the fulsome evidence supplied), somehow implies an unwillingness to face the present or future. I would understand your 'point' if the entire Nairaland forum was filled with history threads. But it isn't. So what you really ARE saying, is Africans should IGNORE and NOT DISCUSS their history AT ALL.

The question is: WHY NOT?

I tend to think it's your inferiority complex that makes this topic so deeply unsettling to you and your ilk. Your mind is programmed to see Africans as non-achievers, and these facts from history directly fly in the face of your brainwashed, self-loathing state, hence your instinctive opposition. You have my sympathies. What I'd advise is this: If this topic is not to your taste, or you reckon you cannot handle it, you know where the door is.

1. I don't think my IQ is particularly low. It is well above average. Heck, above average even among really smart people.
2. I don't have an inferiority complex. If anything, I have the opposite problem...I have a tendency to believe that I'm better than everyone else.
3. You've missed the point of my posts, I suppose. If I have time later today, perhaps I will explain it to you.

^^I'm sorry, but you have NO POINT.

African history will NOT be swept under the carpet and ignored. No ''POINT'' of yours can possibly make it otherwise.

ekt_bear: anything recent? E.g., within the past 100 years? Or even the past 1000 years?

Why are we only able to mention accomplishments from several thousand years ago

It's unfair to ask of recent inventions from Africa that influenced the world over the last 1000 years since they were cut off from the world until 200-500 years ago. It would be easier to list inventions they made on their own. On the other hand, Europeans for various reasons had leaped forward technology wise by the time they met West Africans, so not only did they bring all their inventions, they also arrested the development of the Africans under the Sahara.

So depending on how you define "cut off from the world", then your argument should also hold true for Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, no? Yet despite arguably being on the periphery of the world, they've erased the gap between them and the Europeans. And are now contributing to science and technology vigorously.

Moreover, while one can argue that West Africa or sub-Saharan Africa were relatively isolated...I think it is fair to say that the North African countries and places like Ethiopia were not.

Yet these places haven't done anything of note recently, to my knowledge.

How did they arrest the development of sub-Saharan Africans?

What is your argument for this?

You are Igbo, I am Yoruba. Yet today in 2012 we are conversing in a mutually intelligible language on Nairaland. A Nigerian forum yes, but a communication medium largely built on Western technologies.

Haven't these Western technologies made it easier for us to communicate and develop? And even if you want to ignore recent advances like the internet, etc. What of phones? Planes? Excellent roads? Universities? Writing systems? I did not have these things in 1800. But now I have them.

So I don't think we can say that the European has "arrested" African development necessarily.

At least, you'll need a strong argument for this hypothesis.

LMBAAO @ how lacking of inventions this thread is!!

There are very two dangerous trends I've noticed among Africans and black people more generally:

1. Reveling in dubious achievements made thousands of years ago. E.g., "the pyramids were built by black people. Yayyyyyyy!" Even pretending temporarily that this actually happened, shouldn't the natural response be, "OK, so who gives a fvck? What have you done for me lately?"

2. Blaming others for certain problems. E.g., it was the white man who colonized us who is to blame for our troubles. Well, didn't he colonize other people too? I'm not saying that he is innocent of course. He certainly is not. But it isn't as if he is God that he determines your destiny somehow.

These attitudes are not conducive to building a better future.

Good point[img]http://www.50centloseweight.com[/img]

@OP

All these are natural characteristics of all human societies. There is a tribe in the Amazon that hqve not had touch with "civilization".
They have a bit of these ,if not all. Hence, no.race can.claim to invent speech,law etc