The Architecture of Pre-Colonial Africa



Great Zimbabwe Ruins - 1100 AD


Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city in the southeastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwe and the town of Masvingo. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the country's Late Iron Age. Construction on the monument by ancestors of the Shona people began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century,[1][2] spanning an area of 722 hectares (1,780 acres) which, at its peak, could have housed up to 18,000 people. It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Great Zimbabwe served as a royal palace for the Zimbabwean monarch and would have been used as the seat of political power. One of its most prominent features were the walls, some of which were over five metres high and which were constructed without mortar.






Ruins of Meroe, and Nubian Pyramids Sudan 1200 BC






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Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani (Tanzania) 800 AD

Kilwa Kisiwani is an archaeological city-state site located along the Swahili Coast on the Kilwa archipelago. It was occupied from at least the 8th century AD and became one of the most powerful settlements along the coast.

Kilwa Kisiwani reached its highest point in wealth and commerce between 13th and 15th centuries AD








Benin City, Nigeria. 15th Century Painting





The Walls of Benin, Nigeria: 800 AD

Man-made wonders of the world such as the Taj Mahal in India, the Cairo Citadel in Egypt and the Colosseum in Rome attract millions of visitors each year and lay claim to represent the architectural brilliance of our past. But the Benin Moat, also known as the Walls of Benin, lays fallow, crumbling away in Nigeria, a pale imitation of its resplendent former self. At stake is not just the structure itself, but the memory of a once-great empire and a site of colonial resistance.

A benign development?

The Benin Empire (1440–1897) was a pre-colonial African state, which at its height stretched from the western Igbo tribes on the shores of the Niger River, through parts of the south-west including present day Ondo State, and the isolated islands of Lagos. The empire was famed for nurturing of artistic creativity and using advanced techniques in its bronze and ivory sculptures (especially its life-sized bronze heads) that predate similar works in the Western world.

Construction started on the Walls of Benin in 800 AD, now situated in modern day Benin City, capital of Edo State, and continued into the mid-1400s. Stretching seemingly endlessly across the land, the Benin Moat is the world’s second longest man-made construction, falling short of only the Great Wall of China. The Walls of Benin, built as a city fortification against neighbouring rivals such as the Oyo Kingdom to the south and the Sokoto Caliphate in the north, is estimated to be 10,000 miles in length and 2,000 square miles in area. Excavations by British archaeologist Graham Connah in 1960 uncovered a rural network of earthen walls that, he estimated, if spread out over five dry seasons, would have required a workforce of 1,000 labourers working ten hours a day, for seven days a week to construct – a rough total of 150 million man hours.


Kano City Walls Nigeria 1100 AD






Ancient Kano Houses





Loropeni Ruins Burkina Faso





The 11,130m2 property, the first to be inscribed in the country, with its imposing stone walls is the best preserved of ten fortresses in the Lobi area and is part of a larger group of 100 stone enclosures that bear testimony to the power of the trans-Saharan gold trade. Situated near the borders of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, the ruins have recently been shown to be at least 1,000 years old. The settlement was occupied by the Lohron or Koulango peoples, who controlled the extraction and transformation of gold in the region when it reached its apogee from the 14th to the 17th century. Much mystery surrounds this site large parts of which have yet to be excavated. The settlement seems to have been abandoned during some periods during its long history. The property which was finally deserted in the early 19th century is expected to yield much more information.


Brief Synthesis

The dramatic and memorable Ruins of Loropéni consist of imposing, tall, laterite stone perimeter walls, up to six metres in height, surrounding a large abandoned settlement. As the best preserved of ten similar fortresses in the Lobi area, part of a larger group of around a hundred stone-built enclosures, they are part of a network of settlements that flourished at the same time as the trans-Saharan gold trade and appear to reflect the power and influence of that trade and its links with the Atlantic coast. Recent excavations have provided radio-carbon dates suggesting the walled enclosure at Loropéni dates back at least to the 11th century AD and flourished between the 14th and 17th centuries, thus establishing it as an important part of a network of settlements.



Ancient Ghana Empire Ruins (Kumbi Saleh) 900 AD












Old Oyo Kingdom Ruins, Nigeria 1100 AD





Onitsha Nigeria


These houses are from titled men of Onicha and may have Benin influence.




Upstairs balcony.


Temple of Soleb, Sudan 1400 BC





Timbuktu, Mali Empire 1100 AD

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[img]http://quintessentialruminations.files./2012/04/timbuktu2.jpg[/img]
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Gedi Kenya 1200 AD




Village, East Africa




Ancient Temple Burkina Faso






Ruins of Ethiopia (Dated: PRE-HISTORY)






Lalibela Church Ethiopia - Entirely carved from one rock







Obelisk of Axum Ethiopia





Songhai Empire 1400

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Palace of the chief of Foumban Cameroun








Temple of Karnak, Egypt


Pyramids of Giza Egypt




The Great Sphinx Egypt (Dated PRE-HISTORY)




[img]http://bolstablog.files./2010/03/sphinx-riddle.jpg[/img]

DE VOLNEY


Count Constantine de Volney -- a French nobleman, philosopher, historian, orientalist, and politician -- embarked on a journey to the East in late 1782 and reached Ottoman Egypt were he spent nearly seven months.


"All the Egyptians," wrote de Volney, "have a bloated face, puffed-up eyes, flat nose, thick lips – in a word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says:

' As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians
because, like them, they are black with woolly hair...

"When I visited the Sphinx, I could not help thinking that the figure of that monster furnished the true solution to the enigma (of how the modern Egyptians came to have their 'mulatto' appearance)

"In other words, the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans. That being so, we can see how their blood, mixed for several centuries with that of the Greeks and Romans, must have lost the intensity of its original color, while retaining nonetheless the imprint of its original mold.

"Just think," de Volney declared incredulously, "that this race of Black men, today our slave and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, and even the use of speech! Just imagine, finally, that it is in the midst of people who call themselves the greatest friends of liberty and humanity that one has approved the most barbarous slavery, and questioned whether Black men have the same kind of intelligence as whites!

"In other words the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same stock as all the autochthonous peoples of Africa and from the datum one sees how their race, after some centuries of mixing with the blood of Romans and Greeks, must have lost the full blackness of its original color but retained the impress of its original mould."

M. Constantine de Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785 (London: 1787), p. 80-83.

http://www.freemaninstitute.com/sphinx.htm

beautiful. We have always had civilisation in Africa. The imperialist came and set us back by several decades when they started hunting humans as machine for their industrialisation and civilization. That gap left behind is still affecting Africa till tomorrow.

OP this should not be used as a yardstick to say Africa did not benefit from colonialism. Hope you know that.

I love history


God bless you op

You are blessed

ddddon:
OP this should not be used as a yardstick to say Africa did not benefit from colonialism. Hope you know that.

Why is a defence of colonialism your first response to the thread? Strange.

Just one house and you call it architecture? Show us the rest of the town/city with their other facilities. Apart from a few kings palace built by slave Labor, the rest of Africa was not good in terms of buildings.

Beautiful pictures from the usual source though.

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And Nigeria just had to be the most backward. Our problem is spiritual. Maybe Nigeria is the regional headquarters of hell fire.

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spyder880:
Just one house and you call it architecture? Show us the rest of the town/city with their other facilities. Apart from a few kings palace built by slave Labor, the rest of Africa was not good in terms of buildings.

Beautiful pictures from the usual source though.

You do realise the colonialists destroyed many African cities by mortar? Benin City was one of them. Destroyed in 1897. Kumasi, Ghana was another. Kilwa, in Kenya was another beautiful city that got bombed out.. Many others cities fell into disrepair due to their age. What we have now are just the ruins of these cities.

Braden2:
Rossikki is a racist and sadist .below are architectures by black architects. who gives a shit about those mud stones.

Paul Williams designed the LAX theme building

Please ignore this man, guys. He's a white American troll who hates to see Africans discuss or celebrate their heritage. Hence his angry display of immaturity.

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Rosskii:


You do realise the colonialists destroyed many African cities by mortar? Benin City was one of them. Destroyed in 1897. Kumasi, Ghana was another. Kilwa, in Kenya was another beautiful city that got bombed out.. Many others cities fell into disrepair due to their age. What we have now are just the ruins of these cities.

Ok, not doubting the beauty then, good pictures bro.

^^No probs.

Nice

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Braden2:
These are renders of future cities design. All humans will live in cities like this one soon.All nations will be developed and all humans will have a good quality of life. It will be a new dawn in human history and the past wont come to mind . There'll be no more wars,poverty, racism ,bigotry,etc.

You are an ignorant, self-centred, intolerant, low-life scum bag. You were obviously very poorly trained by your parents. Which is why you lack basic decency and respect for other peoples' space, their freedom of expression and interaction. You wish to curtail free discourse, and impose by force, your own will on everyone else. The more you post your irrelevant nonsense, the more scared and desperate you show yourself to be. Question is, Why does African History scare you so much?

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Braden2:
race or Skin colour ,nationality ,political affiliation, religious affiliation are all irrelevant. All of these only serve to divide than unite.

1. we have the technology in form of pills to depigment a dark skin or tan a light skin. We have rhinoplasty technology for an individual to shape their nose however they desire .we have hair transplant for balding individuals . All of these technology will improve and be more available with time . pride in one's skin is ignorant and petty. if anyone can have what you feel is so great ,whats there to be proud about?

2. An American may look down on a Venezuelan or Senegalese because those nations are poor .That's ignorance. Can an american look down on a Japanese whose country is even more advanced than America ? The answer is probably NO. So you see,humans have tendency towards looking down on the less privileged . If Senegal and Venezuela now become developed in 5 years ,would an american look down on them? the answer is probably No.
If mexico was as developed and advanced as japan , would Donald Trump talk about building a wall? NO. If all nations are developed and all humans have good quality of life ,there'll be less racism and discrimination. In fact ,a Mexican would stay in Mexico which has nicer weather than most of America and Canada.

3. All religions have the same theme and are trying to say the same thing . As humans become more enlightened ,organized religion will be abolished and spirituality & personal growth will be embraced .

Spirituality? You wouldn't know spirituality if walked up to you and punched you in the nose.

An animal who cannot tolerate free expression for others is talking about ''spirituality''?

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Braden2:
I will repeat what i posted on numerous forums ,blogs and on this forum with my braden28 handle. this isn't white or black or brown technology , it's modern technology for all humans . Many blacks contributed to the technology we have today ,most of the work are done in the background.

Technology makes everything so much easier and there'll always be improvements and new discoveries for sure.
Just 30 years ago,Who would have thought about flat screen and coloured TV with inbuilt PC and DVD? Who would have thought that a phone could be wireless and also contain Calendar,Time,Weather, Voice Recorder,Radio,Calculator, Photo & Video Camera,Flashlight ,GPS, phone & Address book,Diary, Music and movie playlist ?
To be frank,We now have little need for newspapers and phone booths since everyone has a phone and get their news much quicker online.

There are ongoing plans to abolish plastic card IDs for digital IDs. this means that your phone will Contain your ID such as: Driver's license,Debit card ,credit card,Passport etc.. No other phone will contain your ID . Your phone get's lost ,you simply call the agency and have that phone blocked and you receive a new activated phone (ID)with all your information retrieved from national database... It 's like you never lost your phone.
There are plans towards a global wifi which will see internet and phone network become free for all.

Robotic dunce.

Una see as dem dey fear?

Excellent posts

Kasubi tombs uganda. Final resting place of the kings of Buganda.The people are called Baganda, the kingdom is called Buganda and their language Luganda

Braden2:
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Read the title of the thread. We are not discussing modern or post modern architecture. TRADITIONAL PRE COLONIAL AFRICAN ARCHITECTURE. Time and place

Madagascar
wovwn bamboo walls, plank roofing

Tomb architecture Madagascar

highlands of madagascar

royal architecture, madagascar