"No matter what we look like today, we're all directly descended from ancestors who evolved on the African continent." "The oldest human population emerged in Africa." "Africa is the home of the world's most ancient civilizations." "Far too often, Africa has been thought of as isolated and static, but nothing could be further from the truth." "The roots of every family tree trace here to Africa." "And so does the history of civilization." "In this series, we'll be going on a journey through 200,000 years of history." "We'll explore great cities built along Africa's extensive trade networks, discover art of unparalleled beauty and technical brilliance, and marvel at thousands of years of breathtaking architecture." "Driving all this were Africans who prospered, created, and suffered through their rich, sometimes tragic, yet endlessly fascinating history." "This is a seldom-told story of how Africans, by shaping their own worlds, shaped the larger world as well." "Africa's great rift valley." "This is where humanity's story most likely begins." "Homo sapiens, anatomically modern humans, have lived here for about 200,000 years." "This great geological fault, stretching 3,000 miles through Africa, from Ethiopia to Malawi, with its Great Lakes and savannahs full of animal life, gave our ancestors the perfect environment in which to evolve." "The rift valley, it's like a crucible, like in a chemistry lab, where humans have been tested." "Because nature constantly tests different parts of the species." "Those who can fit the environment or the situation that is around survive and continue, and the others, you know, get replaced." "In 1997, the rains fell heavily in Ethiopia's northern rift valley." "Layers of sediment dislodged, revealing an extraordinary find... a human skull." "It's one of the oldest homo sapien remains to be found anywhere in the world." "Scientists named the skull Idaltu, meaning firstborn, and Idaltu walked these valleys" "160,000 years ago." "Dr. Berhane Asfaw was one of the scientists who made the discovery." "This is one of the few specimens that we found almost complete." "The whole, the face and the brain case." "And the most impressive thing about this is even at this early age, the face is modern homo sapien, the brain case is modern homo sapien, the shape from the back is a modern homo sapien." "It's exactly us." "The anatomy and age of Idaltu's skull provided the strongest evidence yet that anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa." "Each stage of the evolution toward modern humans, it takes place in Africa." "When we found homo sapien Idaltu, it's very important because it pushes the time far back." "It means anatomically modern homo sapiens started walking on this planet much earlier than we thought, and the interesting thing is at the same time, Europe was packed with neanderthals, which are completely different from homo sapiens." "One of Africa's most respected paleoanthropologists is Dr. Richard Leakey." "He and his colleagues have made groundbreaking discoveries about how our species evolved on the African continent." "I've come to meet him at his institute in Nairobi, Kenya." "How do we know that the first human beings evolved on the African continent?" "The fossil evidence and the archaeological evidence that's come to light in the last 20, 30 years is very, very substantial, testable, and real." "Why do you think this idea was so disturbing in some quarters?" "Historically, the science of paleoanthropology or anthropology came into existence at a time when we really knew very little." "Africans were considered primitive, heathen, who knows." "And the origins of the subhuman status of Africans begins, really, in the 18th century." "In the enlightenment, ironically enough." "They weren't really considered to be one of our species." "Continuing archaeological finds and now major scientific breakthroughs have confirmed that Africa absolutely was the cradle of humanity." "It's like if we're exploring our past and looking at where our roots are sunk down, we'll find that they're the deepest in Africa, and that's where we get most of our genetics." "Geneticists have identified an astonishing link to our earliest human relations through our DNA." "Every living person shares a common direct maternal ancestor." "She's known as mitochondrial Eve." "We believe that she was part of a small group of humans who lived in this region of Africa around the time of the Idaltu skull." "Our common ancestry through the mitochondrial Eve means that our genetic differences are literally skin deep." "That at the bottom, we are all descended from the same family." "Mitochondrial DNA, found in our cells, is the genetic signature passed down through females from mother to child." "What it means is that this was a woman, hypothetically, who lived 200,000 years ago, who had enough daughters in a continuous chain, straight back so that her mitochondrial DNA survived." "Absolutely right." "And all of us today, no matter what we look like, are descended from black ancestors?" "Yeah, that is exactly, that's what happened." "All the humans, all the homo sapiens all over the world, be it yellow, white, black, we are descended from a common ancestor in Africa." "What would life for human beings 200,000 years ago have been like in this valley?" "200,000 years ago, I would imagine the groups were quite small." "Mm-hmm." "The dangers around, we had predators, things like hyenas and groups of carnivores all around." "Mm-hmm." "It's difficult for us to imagine prehistoric life or a world without any trappings of the things that have come to define humanness over the last 10,000 years, and so, in the modern zeitgeist, the only thing that comes close" "is actually the post-apocalyptic zombie shows, for example." "You have small bands of people roaming the landscape, working together, fighting off predators that are trying to eat them, and worried about the other groups of humans that they might bump into." "So, there are a lot of interesting parallels that could be drawn." "Modern homo sapiens initially lived only in Africa, slowly spreading across the continent over 120,000 years." "But between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, they began successfully to populate the rest of the world." "So, what happened 80,000 years ago?" "Well, I wish we knew what happened, but there's no doubt at all that a very small population somewhere in that time zone caught some adaptation that gave them a huge advantage." "I have a feeling it might have been speech." "I don't know what it was." "But they spread very quickly out of Africa." "So, 80,000 years ago, the human community was black." "Wherever they were in the world." "But when those early human beings migrated out of Africa, they weren't traveling alone." "They were carrying something within them." "And that something had developed slowly, over millennia." "It was culture." "That culture would develop to include the greatest achievements of human creativity, and it began here on the African continent." "In 1991, archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood, exploring his grandfather's land, discovered the opening to a cave on a cliff face above the crashing waves where the Atlantic and Indian oceans collide." "Today, we call this the Blombos cave." "Inside is evidence of over 140,000 years of human habitation, and signs of the first form of human creative expression." "Before this discovery, we thought the earliest examples of artwork were found in the Lascaux caves in France, dating back only 35,000 years ago." "When people began making discoveries in Southern Africa, like at Blombos cave, they realized that actually, this record of artistic production goes back much further than anyone guessed." "In France, cave paintings 30,000 years old, 35,000 at the oldest." "In Southern Africa, we're talking about 90,000, 100,000 years." "Blombos cave is a relatively recent discovery, so, the more research we do in Africa, and also the more dating we conduct, this will change people's minds of how we saw human history, and the evidence shows" "they were already assessing the cognitive behavior that we see as defining the modern human before they left Africa." "Small ochre blocks found in the Blombos cave completely changed how we understand the development of human creativity." "One of these blocks, covered in curious markings, is now housed in the Iziko museum in cape town." "It's unique in terms of firstly where it was found and the date..." "it's pretty old." "77,000 years ago." "Mm." "What is interesting is the etching." "It's almost a hashed etching on the one edge, and that is done with purpose." "I've often thought that if pigment was put on it, you could use it as a stamp, which to me screams artistic expression." "Mm-hmm." "Meaning." "Meaning." "Symbolic meaning." "So, this would make it one of the earliest artistic artifacts that we have." "This is a sign of a group of people who had managed to emerge above immediate concerns for food and basic human survival." "That says something about Africa and Africans." "I think so." "It shows that these people were cognizant of their surroundings." "They were socially aware." "It shows the birthplace of a very rich cultural heritage that has in the past not been recognized." "This is artwork." "Alongside the ochre block, a painting kit was found." "That ochre block was not only decorated, it was ground down, mixed with water and minerals, and used as paint." "Once a group is into symbolic expression, whether it be via beads or using colorants to paint the body or to paint walls, that's gonna be another very important behavior to use for communicating complex sets of ideas" "about group identity and also to help transmit information to other members of your immediate group." "Much of this early art has perished with time, but cave art provides us with the only snapshots of how early human beings lived, hunted, and even loved." "We just get the durable element, but when you're painting your skin, when you're painting hides that you might be wearing, when you're using feathers and other kinds of really special objects but perishable objects," "you know, when we look at societies today, they have this incredible range of things that would never survive in the archaeological record." "Deep in the Libyan desert, in a remote cave at wadi Sura, miles from any lush vegetation today, a stunning visual record reveals a quite surprising picture of daily life in the Sahara 7,000 years ago." "The walls of the cave teem with depictions of people swimming and animals grazing, glimpses into a long-lost landscape." "You have the cave of swimmers." "There you have your history recording, if you like, where we are getting an idea of a place where we today cannot even imagine any life surviving." "We have lakes and the depictions of the swimmers and very abundant wildlife thriving in the Sahara, a place now we know for sand dunes." "However, the Sahara was once a completely different environment, capable of sustaining these emerging human communities." "Today, the Sahara is very barren and dry, but from rock art, we find that there are a lot of aquatic fauna, hippo, crocodile, giraffes." "A very vibrant biodiversity." "So, in this case, art verifies archaeological evidence." "Yes." "It tells us more about how the landscape has changed or how the environment has changed." "Over 10,000 years ago, the Sahara was actually a green Savannah." "There were animals, fishes, lakes, rivers, and right across what is now the Sahara, the environment was green." "This was the kind of environment that attracts the great herbivores, the large herding animals." "The hippopotamuses, rhinos." "This would have been a time when those were the important animals." "Although early humans continued to be hunter-gatherers, over time, they began to cultivate plants, and around 10,000 years ago, across Africa and the middle east, they began to breed animals as livestock and domesticate cattle." "The Sahara became this band where these people spread their livestock grazing." "Everywhere across the Sahara, you have vast scenes of paintings of these animals, but also, I think, it kind of also shows that this is them going towards the domestication of animals and settle in a sedentary society." "When you look at Africa, it's the cradle of mankind, but looking into the development of agriculture, it becomes a cradle of civilization." "Between 4,800 and 4,200 B.C., more than 1,000 years before the rise of ancient Egypt, in the areas west of the Nile, the first complex African society forms." "It's not a settled society of towns, but it's people who raise great herds of cattle." "For 3,000 years, these communities, and the world around them, continued to evolve." "Farming developed, and populations grew." "But by 4,000 B.C., vast areas of the lush Savannah had turned into desert." "Life for the people of the green Sahara is brutally transformed." "Everything changes, setting civilization in Africa on a radical, new path." "There was a slow change in climate, thus making traditional pastoral ways of life far more difficult for people." "In the face of this climate change, the populations of the Sahara dispersed." "And many people migrated towards the fertile lands of the Nile valley, becoming the ancestors of both the Egyptians and the Nubians." "The verdant valley of the Nile was an attractive place for communities to settle." "The Nile is like this green river through the desert, and the regular floods create this incredible soil, so that once you have the domestication of plants, this becomes the breadbasket of the Mediterranean basin, and you've got that happening" "as people are developing villages and states." "There's pressures that arise as population grows that leads to foundation of more complex societies." "The population becomes divided between the food-producing groups and the non-food-producing groups, and what we see with the non-food-producing groups is that they become artisans, professional builders, so they have a surplus of food, and this is the point at which" "we start seeing things that we might call civilization." "Burial pits in the Nile valley have been the source of rare and unique artifacts dating back more than 6,000 years." "They show a rich, creative culture." "These prestige items were crafted by artisans to be enjoyed by elites." "How old is this?" "So, this dates about 3,600 B.C." "Really?" "This is 6,000 years ago." "Yeah." "So, the brothers and sisters back in the Nile valley were combing out their hair with an Afro comb." "Yes." "Just like Afro combs, these long, thick combs would've been perfect for African hair, and this is an item that would proclaim status and identity and make a statement." "They're often found in the burial still in the hair, very prominently placed, so these symbols would've been visible." "Just the way black people wear them today." "Absolutely." "Black people were combing their hair with Afro combs." "I thought we invented this in the sixties." "Amazing." "So, the burials at that date were pit burials." "In the dry sand, often it preserves organic materials." "We can actually do an archaeology of hairdos and hairstyles." "Oh, what kind of hairstyles?" "They've got all sorts." "They've got the use of henna and fake hair and big bouffants." "There's even a suggestion we've got some Mohawks as well." "That's astonishing." "So, the people who made this were highly-skilled craftspeople." "They were making beautiful pottery." "Very skilled at making stone vessels." "All up and down the Nile valley at this time you see groups creating very vibrant, personal culture that they would wear and display." "Mm-hmm." "You get this coming in of people from the Sahara, bringing ideas that even more complex, larger-scale institutions can be built, and then development of little, tiny kingdoms." "Different groups are uniting under powerful figures or perhaps local deities or fetishes or emblems, and then these groups consolidate." "One is victorious over another." "They get larger and larger and smaller in number." "In 1988, archaeologists discovered a tomb at Abydos, 300 miles south of Cairo." "The tomb is thought to contain one of Egypt's earliest rulers, credited with consolidating the lands that would become ancient Egypt." "He's known as the scorpion king and is believed to have ruled at the end of the fourth millennium B.C." "Little is known about him or his reign, but his royal tomb housed 150 small ivory tags covered in carved symbols that helped to rewrite the history of civilization." "These simple ivory tags revealed something astonishing." "Something that overturned what archaeologists believed about how our ancestors communicated." "The symbols on these tags aren't artworks." "They are in fact the world's first writing." "Egyptian writing as we know it, as in fully developed Egyptian hieroglyphs, appear first around 3,250 B.C.E." "And some of the earliest pieces are these little labels, these little ivory tags from tomb u-j at Abydos." "Similar tags from this burial complex are now kept at the Petrie museum in London." "This is a formative stage of hieroglyphic writing." "So, what does it say?" "It's been suggested that it might be a place name." "This is a prestige item." "And what was it used for?" "So, you can see there's a hole just drilled through there, and that would have been tied to a box or a bag, indicating property." "So, this would've said," ""this property belongs to Alice"?" "It could've done, or it could've said, "this material comes from this part of Egypt."" "And do you have any idea what the function of this property identification system was?" "This object is only being used by the elite, by royalty, and it's about royal ownership of parts of Egypt, parts of labor, over materials." "We used to believe the first writing began in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq and Syria." "But these small tags proved that writing developed simultaneously and independently here in Africa." "As to which language is older, there's a huge debate that continues to rage." "I think we can say that ancient Egyptian writing develops independent of writing in ancient Mesopotamia, and develops really almost at the same time, although this Egyptian writing appears to be in some frequent use a little bit before" "we seem to get true, fully developed cuneiform." "The concentration of resources led to a concentration of power, resulting in the first kings ruling over wide areas." "Maintaining that power required the ability to communicate, and maximizing the capacity to communicate led to the development of writing." "And so, writing became a tool for organizing society." "Also became a tool for domination in that sense." "It became a tool for ruling over people." "The evolution of writing enabled Egypt's rulers to maintain power and established a system of royal ascendancy." "It looks as though tomb u-j, that has this earliest Egyptian writing in it, it's also the first tomb that can be followed in a line of development that leads us right to the pyramids of the old kingdom." "From the first king of the first dynasty until the pyramids is a relatively short period of time." "So you have the creation of an Egyptian bureaucracy and within a few centuries, you have the construction of the pyramids." "And the most spectacular pyramid of all is the great pyramid of Giza." "It's the most famous and the most iconic building in the entire world." "A triumph of scientific innovation and artistic imagination." "Built for the pharaoh Khufu, who came to the throne around 2,600 B.C." "And ruled for about 27 years, the great pyramid took his entire reign to complete." "The project required 2,300,000 stone blocks, each weighing an average of 2 1/2 tons." "The pyramid would remain the tallest building on earth for nearly 4,000 years." "The great pyramid is an African construction, and we shouldn't forget that, and I find it fantastic to think about Khufu and his courtiers sitting around and saying, "we're going to do something" ""that no one else has conceived of." "Let's make something bigger, more impressive."" "With the ancient pyramids, we really see all of the strong suits of ancient Egypt come to the fore." "So you have their geological wealth of limestone and you also have the advanced Egyptian mathematics and engineering skills alongside this very large labor force." "You don't pull that off with" "Hebrew slaves and all of these myths that really have no basis in reality." "The pyramids were built by Egyptians." "They were conscripted from all parts of the country." "When the Nile is in flood, that, of course, plays a role, too." "During those months, farmers could do very little with their fields, and they could be employed to build the pyramids, and that was also part of the ways that you could pay your taxes in ancient Egypt." "But while Egypt would dominate northeastern Africa, further south, on the banks of the Nile in modern-day Sudan, another center of power was growing." "It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kush..." "Kerma." "Digging in the Sudanese sand between 1913 and 1916, archaeologists led by Harvard professor George Reisner stumbled across a pit filled with human bones and the burial mound of one of the last kings of Kerma." "Around 322 remains of humans were found in one elite burial in the eastern cemetery." "This, of course, initially was thought to be human sacrifice." "Reisner estimated the bodies dated back to about 1,500 B.C., but evidence in other burial sites shows the practice of human sacrifice dates back even further." "Death in Kerma, particularly for the elite, seemed to be something of a spectacle." "However, these may very well have been retainers who would have served the king in life and thus would serve him in death." "Even the idea that these were slaves captured in foreign wars and killed as a sort of triumphal act." "The earliest settlement in Kerma has been dated to 4,000 B.C." "Settlements in Mesopotamia formed into the earliest cities." "But recent archaeological finds show that Kerma was developing into a complex society at the same time." "By 2,500 B.C., it's estimated that the city's population had grown to over 10,000, and its power and wealth rivaled that of its northern neighbor Egypt." "Today, little remains of what was once a magnificent planned city, built around monumental architecture as grand as that of early Egypt." "The archaeology of the city itself centered around what seems to be a vast structure." "This is known as the deffufa." "Different scholars have different ideas about what it could be." "In terms of mud brick architecture, it certainly seems to be the largest and earliest in Africa." "The Nubian kingdom had its own distinct culture and religion and was renowned for its deadly archers." "For over 2,000 years, the kingdoms of Kush and Egypt prospered and grew as kindred civilizations at opposite ends of the Nile valley." "By 1,500 B.C., Egypt was the world's greatest power, controlling trade routes to the middle east." "But Egypt's gateway to the precious resources of the interior of Africa was Kush." "Kush supplied luxury items such as gold to Egypt's flourishing 18th dynasty." "From Tutankhamen's face mask to the trading expeditions led by Hatsheput and the wealth amassed by queen Nefertiti," "Egyptian pharaohs required endless supplies of exotic goods to help their passage into the afterlife." "It's difficult to imagine any people anywhere who resisted the finality of death more lavishly than did the Egyptians." "The king's sacred tomb would be filled with every conceivable luxury to accompany him through the afterlife." "Leopard skins, ostrich feathers, ivory, precious stones, and gold from Nubia's bountifully laden mines." "Gold is the skin of the gods." "The god is hot or this face of the sun is the woman's face en face with the cowl ears as gold." "It is a metal that never corrodes, and so they recognized this as being the perfect material for funerary goods." "We see the royals being adorned with gold and we find from myriad, even lesser elite houses, we see gold objects." "The gold mining regions of the eastern desert really force the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Nubians to continue the close associations they already culturally had." "It's one of the reasons why Egypt can't let go of Nubia and it's one of the reasons Nubia is both so attractive and potentially dangerous." "The relationship between Egypt and the Kushite kingdom was one of intimacy, proximity, and bitter rivalry." "The Egyptians felt threatened by Nubia and wanted to control the gold mines themselves." "The kingdom of Kerma and Egypt seemed to have had what you might call a difficult relationship." "At this point, the Egyptians were writing of Nubia as "vile Kush," so we know there was certainly a lot of venom from the Egyptian side." "Eventually, rivalry led to conflict, culminating in a war that would bring to an end" "15 centuries of independent Kushite rule." "Every time you have civilizations develop in the world, what you have is warfare and bloodshed." "Because other people want the stuff that you've got." "And that becomes a part of the history of civilization." "Around 1,500 B.C., standing at the prow of a flotilla of ships, pharaoh Thutmose I led his troops to war against the Kushite kingdom." "Thutmose I, not born of royal blood, had served as a general to the previous pharaoh and earned a reputation as a formidable military strategist." "For the Egyptians, Nubia was a very strategic location." "What we see is Thutmose is going very determinedly to the south." "He sacks the city of Kerma." "To sack the capital city of this kingdom was truly a feat." "The Nubians were well-known warriors and fighters." "There are stories of thousands of captured prisoners of war being executed in a variety of different ways." "Lest anyone doubt the finality of the conquest," "Thutmose strapped the body of the fallen Nubian king to the front of his ship." ""Egypt is the chief," he declared," ""while peoples across the whole earth are her servants."" "Nubia became a second part of Egypt." "The 18th dynasty is really a period of time when the Egyptian presence in Nubia expands." "For 400 years, the people of Kush would struggle under and against Egyptian rule while Egypt plundered the kingdom's gold mines through annual tribute." "Kushite royal traditions survived, south of the regions that Egypt ruled." "All of Nubia is incorporated into Egypt more fully than ever before." "Nubia gets a shadow government that mirrors pharaonic Egypt." "You get a viceroy of Kush, the king son of Kush, who, like pharaoh, is in charge of all of Nubia." "The Egyptians also brought along their culture and their gods." "We know that already in the 18th dynasty, the ancient Egyptians were building temples in Nubia to Egyptian gods, but" "Egyptians gods that had a local relevance for the Nubians." "Amun, god of gods in Egypt for 400 years." "700 years later, the Kushites made this all-powerful deity their own, incorporating him into their pantheon alongside their lion-headed god Apedemak." "The Egyptians built an awe-inspiring temple to Amun at the southernmost tip of their Nubian empire at the holy site of Jebel Barkal." "This would also become a sacred place for the Kushites." "For the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Kushites, this pinnacle symbolized a serpent that was a protective deity on the crown of the pharaoh that spit fire and poison at the pharaoh's enemies." "So, this is what gave Jebel Barkal its mystical association that led Egyptians and Kushites to build and rebuild and expand their temples over the centuries." "But after 1,100 B.C., parts of Kush regained their independence, and by 750 B.C., Egypt, following invasions by Libyan tribes, was greatly diminished and fragmented." "Around 750 B.C., Piye, a new Kushite king, came to the throne." "He was brilliant and ambitious, driven in part by his fervent worship of the god Amun." "He clearly made Jebel Barkal an important place." "Uh, he built a palace here, he very significantly expanded the temple, and, uh, Barkal was very clearly the center of his symbolic assertion of kingship." "Piye turned his sights northward to Egypt, portraying Kush as the champion of Amun." "Nubia appears to see itself as the real Egypt because they're the real worshippers of the Egyptian gods." "It's remarkable that the Nubians adopted Egyptian culture and religion and civilization to the point that they believed that they were better Egyptians than the Egyptians who were currently in control of the Nile valley." "So, when Piye invades Egypt, he does so in the name of the god Amun." "Piye essentially casts his invasion of Egypt as a holy war, of the re-establishment of the proper worship of the god Amun." "At the head of a powerful army," "Piye set sail north down the Nile, ready to invade the once impregnable empire of Egypt." "He ordered his men to purify themselves in the river." ""I shall let Egypt," he said," ""taste the taste of my fingers."" "In a campaign that lasted nearly a year," "Piye's army conquered Egypt as far north as the Nile delta." "Triumphant, Piye was crowned pharaoh of Nubia and Egypt and founder of the 25th dynasty of Egypt's pharaohs." "The Kushites, once the conquered, now became the conquerors, reuniting fragmented Egypt under their rule." "We can see the Nubian conquest of Egypt as both a holy war and a strategic expansion to the north, and obviously, it was a great prize to rule both Egypt and Nubia." "They're ruling over an empire that runs from Meroe down in the south, clear up to the delta, larger than any territory Egypt itself ever ruled." "In some ways, it can be seen as a turning of the tables that Nubia, who's always the underdog, now has Egypt as the underdog." "It simply shows, I think, over and over again, how upper Egypt and Nubia are so closely associated, ideologically." "This was the start of a new era in Egypt which would see it ruled by a dynasty that historians call the black pharaohs of the Nile, restoring prosperity and stability back to Egypt." "But across Africa, in the lush forest of modern-day Central African Republic, new radical technological innovations were laying the foundation for other civilizations." "Sometime between 1,800 B.C. And 1,500 B.C., small communities of craftspeople gathered to stoke furnaces, intending to fire ceramic." "But in the lateritic African soil, the craftsmen discovered a by-product... iron." "Iron is one of those inventions that actually has a tremendous impact." "We suspect the first usages were for decoration, for ornamentation." "But very quickly, people began to see," ""oh, hey, we can shape this."" "Each metal has a certain quality... iron for its strength, and the kind of tools that one can create with it." "In terms of converting economies from hunting and gathering to agriculture, iron began to be used particularly as currencies, but also in terms of agricultural production." "We previously thought that iron had been discovered in Turkey, around 1,500 B.C., but new evidence reveals that iron working emerged at the same time in Africa." "For a long time, the idea that iron could be smelted in sub-Saharan Africa was completely dismissed." "The new evidence is that iron working begins right in the heart of Africa." "We find dates of around 1,000 in the lake Chad area." "900 as we get towards the middle of Nigeria." "700 B.C. To 500 B.C. Over in Mali." "Showing the spread of iron coming out of that area." "Even with the kinds of technology that we have today, it's incredibly difficult to produce a smelt in the way that people would have, you know, 3,000 years ago." "People talk about civilizations, and they think everything new and exciting begins in the civilization." "Turns out when you look at history, human beings create advanced new technologies out of their own experiences." "They don't have to live in this kind of society or that kind of society." "The iron working communities of central Africa left little tangible evidence of their existence behind, but they did leave their technological legacy, together with the sophisticated artistic heritage unique to this part of Africa." "Near the center of modern-day Nigeria during the first millennium B.C., a remarkable artistic tradition of terracotta sculpture emerged." "These pieces are highly sophisticated, intricately detailed, and technically accomplished." "Yet much of the culture from which they were created remains a mystery." "They're known as the nok terracottas and they are sublime." "In 1943, a farmer from a village called nok gave archaeologist Bernard Fagg the head of a scarecrow." "On closer inspection, Fagg estimated that the finely sculpted head dated back to around 900 B.C., making it, outside of Egypt, the earliest sculptural art found in Africa." "They have this very elaborate hairstyles and every heavy jewelry around the neck." "So, we assume it depicts people, maybe high ranking people, in ceremonial attire." "The current thinking is that it was probably traveling artists who were moving around creating these works for individuals." "It could have been courts or distinctive religious traditions." "That certainly makes a lot of sense simply because of the breadth of the distribution of these works." "The height of the nok period is during the last thousand years B.C." "This is the period in the archaeology we know the iron working is reaching this area." "Throughout central Africa, new communities were taking shape." "From 3,000 B.C., an incredible movement of people and technologies unfolded that would change the face of Africa." "It's known as the Bantu migration." "The migration is particularly significant because about 2/3 of sub-Saharan Africa is populated by Bantu speakers." "By 1,000 B.C.E., Bantu have entered into eastern Africa and societies like the Swahili society that we know of and the Zulu that we know in Southern Africa start to emerge." "While the people of central Africa were building new societies based on iron, this great technological advancement was also transforming the civilizations along the Nile, and nowhere more so than in Meroe." "Built on what was once a fertile green island on the banks of the Nile," "Meroe by 500 B.C. Had become the new capital of the independent kingdom of Kush." "It was an area that supported agriculture, that had the royal city there." "So, life was probably relatively comfortable for most of the population at Meroe." "The rulers of the third age of Kush created a powerful kingdom, evidence of which can still be seen in their monumental legacy at Meroe." "These pyramids were burial chambers for the kings and queens of Meroe." "More than 100 dot the skyline on this island." "The wealth of Kush had been founded on its abundant reserves of gold, which it could trade with the ancient world." "But there was another resource that would generate wealth for the state and would come to define Meroe." "It's long been known that Meroe was an iron working center because there were these enormous slagheaps in their urban part of the town that was used for weapons, iron blades, iron spearheads." "And those weapons would be needed to defend Kush in the face of a new threat." "In 31 B.C., Cleopatra's Egypt... once the greatest empire in the Mediterranean... was defeated by the Romans." "The Roman military machine was the most powerful in the ancient world, annexing territories from Britain to the middle east and Africa." "Now it turned its sights onto Kush." "One of the things the Romans did is they pushed the Southern boundary of Egypt further into Meroitic territory, and what we do know is that the Meroites started to push back." "Halting this Roman advance would call for strong and decisive leadership from Meroe." "One of the most unusual things about the kingdom of Kush is the surprising number of queens that ruled." "They were known as kandakes." "In about 100 years, we have 4 of these tremendously powerful kandakes and they are terrifically effective." "Without doubt the most famous of those queens was a one-eyed warrior named Amanirenas, who risked her life in battle to defend her kingdom and make sure that her people could live securely." "Amanirenas reigned from 40 B.C. To 10 B.C." "Said to have the figure of a man by the Greek philosopher Strabo, she had a fearsome reputation as a military leader and strategist." "For 5 years, Amanirenas led attacks into Roman Egypt, preventing the Romans from invading Kush." "These battles were recorded in Roman documents, but a firsthand account written by the Kushites themselves was recorded in their own Meroitic script." "When does this stela date from?" "It dates from the second half of the first century B.C." "So..." "During the reign of the queen Amanirenas." "In the case of Meroitic, the writing system has been deciphered already a century ago, but it is the language that is a problem." "So, why with all..." "Computer technologies, why can't we crack the one African written script from the ancient world?" "It is a bit as if I was asking you as an English native speaker to read me a text in Polish." "You would be able to read it perfectly, but probably you won't be able to understand it, except place name and names." "This is where we are with Meroitic script." "Well, it's about a particular battle with the Romans." "Exactly." "So, this is giving us the narrated version of the story of the war against the Romans." "Unfortunately, we are not able yet to see what they are saying." "Amanirenas showed her utter disdain for the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar by capturing his bronze bust during an attack on his forces and placing it beneath the threshold of her grand temple to be trodden under foot by all who entered." "So, all the people in the kingdom are stepping over the great" "Caesar Augustus, is that it?" "Yes." "According to the archaeological evidence we have, it's, uh, clear." "She brought back the head of Augustus, of his bronze statue." "Despite the might of the Roman empire," "Amanirenas' clever military tactics eventually brought both sides to the negotiating table, where the formidable Nubian queen successfully brokered a peace treaty with Augustus Caesar himself." "Are you telling me a one-eyed black woman was able to defeat the most powerful army on the face of the earth in 23 B.C., here in the kingdom of Kush?" "Yes." "Yeah, that's what happened." "Amanirenas, the victorious African queen, would ensure the independence of the Kushite kingdom and its splendid culture for another 400 years." "Human history was born on the African continent, which makes Africa the well spring from which all of the world's history flows." "Africa is the birthplace of art and music, the first writing, agriculture, and systems of laws." "Africa gave us the blueprint for civilization itself." "These records speak to us across millennia as profound refutations of the claim that Africans lacked a history before Europeans arrived." "This is the true history of Africa, and it's only just begun." "In the following centuries, the world's great religions," "Christianity and Islam, molded in their infancy in Africa, would grow and transform the fate of the world." "Great empires would prosper and cultures would blossom as a result, but they would also draw the continent into bloody conflict." "Between the first and the 12th centuries A.D., extraordinary events happened in Africa, events that transformed not just the history of the continent, but the history of the world." "A great kingdom arose that grew into a powerful empire, an empire that stretched all the way into Arabia." "But the historical course of this empire, and that of much of the continent, would be altered by the emergence of two powerful forces of global change..." "Christianity and Islam... both of which would have profound effects on the people of Africa." "Offering new ways to worship god, these great religions also provided ambitious people the chance to increase power and influence, drawing the continent into clashes, in bloody conflicts." "Yet from their beginnings, these two world religions would be shaped by Africans, spiritually and institutionally, and both would deeply affect key aspects of African history for millennia to come." "The horn of Africa, where the red sea meets the Arabian sea." "Here, a bridge of salt water connects the African continent with the middle east." "The ancient Egyptians sailed down this inlet to trade with their Southern neighbors in the kingdoms of punt and Kush." "Greeks and Romans, Persians and Byzantines would follow, eager to acquire the luxury goods that had fired the imagination of Egyptian pharaohs." "Africans and Europeans have been trading on the east coast of Africa for at least 2,000 years." "This book, written in Greek in the first century A.D." "And called "the Periplus of the Erythraean sea,"" "describes a key African port on the red sea, and it's called Adulis." ""The Periplus of the Erythraean sea"" "is one of the most remarkable texts surviving from the Roman empire, a Tripadvisor guide written by an enterprising Greek merchant." "It describes the ports and trading partners he encountered along the red sea." "Adulis was the maritime gateway to an African kingdom that would become one of the most powerful in the ancient world..." "Axum." "The great Persian religious leader Mani described Axum as one of the 4 great empires, a peer with Rome, Persia, and China." "At its height, it dominated the whole of the horn of Africa and stretched across the red sea deep into Southern Arabia." "Imports flowed into Adulis." "Copper and bronze goods, silver, gold, olive oil, and wine, with ivory, rhinoceros horn, and even turtle shell going the other way." "This control over Adulis makes Axum rich, providing a gateway between the interior of Africa and ports on the red sea and the Indian ocean." ""The Periplus" includes a colorful account of one Axumite king, Zoskales, who reigned in the middle of the first century A.D." "His Greek trading partner describes him somewhat enviously as miserly in his ways, but otherwise upright." "Axum grew wealthy through stiff tariffs on trade through its port at Adulis, while inland, fertile soil nourished by two rainy seasons yielded bumper crops annually." "In the center of the city of Axum, once the capital of this stunning empire, stand some of the most remarkable monuments of the ancient world." "These large vertical phallic symbols were erected in honor of the glory of the king." "Under solid block of syenite, the king's body was laid to rest." "This park is a memorial ground of a civilization." "Over 100 steles, erected between the third and fourth centuries A.D." "As grave markers for Axum's elite." "They're taller than any other monoliths crafted in the ancient world." "I asked Dr. Abebaw Gela to explain to me how architecture on this scale could have been created back then." "Abebaw, how in the world did they move this huge slab here from another place?" "They brought these stones from a distance of 5 kilometers from the west." "As one big unit?" "As one big unit." "This fragmented column, estimated to weigh 700 tons, is one of the largest single pieces of stone ever carved by sculptors." "Scholars believe that it buckled as it was being erected." "The carving process, they definitely used chiseling." "Mm-hmm." "So, err, they must have used iron chisels." "So, the artwork took place right where it..." "Right here, yeah." "...Would be erected." "So, the carving might have taken probably 10 years, 9 years." "10 years?" "Yeah." "How long did it take to move it from the quarry?" "Probably they can drag it a distance of 10 yards or 15 yards a day." "That might have also taken them about 3 years." "Do we know for whom this stele was created?" "We don't know certainly, but if we see fragmentary historical sources, and then some evidences from archaeological excavations that are made at different times in this area, this stele seems to be made for" "Ella Amida." "Ella Amida the first." "And when did he live?" "The second half of the third century." "King Ella Amida..." "also known as Ousanas... ruled during the golden age of Axum." "Gold coins embossed with his face and name and inscribed in Greek were recently unearthed in India," "2,000 miles away." "We think that Ousanas' son Ezana, who would become one of the most famous kings of Axum, was memorialized by the other great stele on this site." "A network of chambers lie buried beneath these towers." "Abebaw, that's amazing." "Look at those shafts of light." "Yeah." "Now, what was in the chambers on the right as opposed to the chambers on the left?" "These are tombs of kings." "So, on this side, they deposit the body of the king, and then on this side they deposit the valuables of the kings." "Ah, not like in Egyptian pyramids when they would bury the king with his possessions." "Here they put the possessions here and the body there." "Yeah, the body and the possessions in different directions." "90% of ancient Axum remains unexcavated beneath the city's modern buildings, but sculptural reliefs on the stele are signs of its grandeur." "As you look up the stele, you see story after story of windows." "There's even door frames with handles which you could open if you had the right kind of power." "This was a city of 20,000 people." "At its heart stood a monumental palace adorned with bronze statues, and its grand processional ways were lined with granite victory thrones." "Axum's power was founded on its wealth, and its wealth on the rich resources of its unique position on the horn of Africa." "But one of its many extraordinary resources was paramount... frankincense." "Frankincense was an international commodity and bought a lot of religious prestige because incense has magical powers." "An aromatic gum resin produced from the bark of a tree that grows in the highlands of Ethiopia," "Somalia, and Southern Arabia, frankincense was as valuable at the height of the Roman empire, pound for pound, as gold." "It grows very high up, on a very harsh environment." "It's very hard to access it." "People will almost, um, go on a pilgrimage, if you like, to get this as a very sought-after commodity." "This led to long-distance trade." "By the fifth century A.D., through expansive trade and war," "Axum had established itself as not just one of the great African empires, but one of the great empires of the entire ancient world." "But the roots of this kingdom lie in an equally remarkable civilization that thrived in the horn of Africa" "1,000 years earlier." "A civilization associated with one of the old testament's most iconic figures, the legendarily beautiful queen of Sheba." "30 miles north of Axum," "Dr. Iris Gerlach is excavating artifacts from an ancient royal palace in a city called Yeha." "Yeha was the capital of the ancient kingdom of D'mt, and this is thought to have been the luxurious palace of its rulers." "The ruins suggest that D'mt shared a culture with a neighboring kingdom called Saba, just across the red sea in Southern Arabia." "Known in English as Sheba, the kingdom is famous for his legendary queen." "Iris Gerlach believes that Sabaeans bought their culture here from across the sea." "While some scholars see Yeha as an offshoot of Saba, others argue that D'mt's kings actually hired or imported Sabaean architects to build their palaces, and in fact ruled Saba at the time." "For centuries, these kingdoms had a symbiotic relationship, sharing religious beliefs and culture." "Near the palace stands one of the oldest stone structures in Africa, the great temple of the moon." "Built in the fifth century B.C., about the same time as the Parthenon in ancient Greece, it's the most enduring testimony we have of pre-Christian beliefs in the horn of Africa." "We know a little bit about what happened in the temple of Yeha because of fragments of altars and inscriptions that archaeologists have found in the temple." "These include small basins with carved-out tops that we believe incense was burnt in, as well as stylized carvings of ibexes, which are a kind of horned animal." "These engravings of the Crescent moon carved in stone are symbols of the god Almouqah." "The main inscription at the temple of the moon in Yeha does say it's dedicated to the god Almouqah who's the chief god of the kingdom of Saba in Yemen." "So, there obviously is a shared worship." "Over time, the gods worshipped at Yeha migrated, becoming the gods worshipped in Axum." "But in the early fourth century A.D.," "Axum itself was about to be transformed by a revolutionary force sweeping through much of the ancient world." "A new religion was fundamentally changing established forms of worship throughout the northeast of the African continent, and it was changing the course of world history in the process." "The religion would be known as Christianity." "Today, there are some 500 million practicing Christians in Africa, and many of us would assume that" "Christianity came to the continent with European colonialism." "Nothing could be further from the truth." "Christianity took root on the African continent as quickly as it did in the middle east." "Many people associate Christianity in Africa with the arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century." "But here in the northeastern corner of Africa," "Christianity is as ancient as it is anywhere in the world." "Africa's in the foundations." "Barely a decade after the time of Jesus," "Christian communities had established themselves in Alexandria in northern Egypt." "Alexandria was an economic focal point." "It was bustling." "A lot of the cultural and religious innovations lived in these towns like Alexandria rather than in Jerusalem." "Christianity quickly gained a foothold in Africa and many of its doctrines would be formulated here." "In many ways, Africa in the Mediterranean world was incredibly important for theology." "So, the main theologians weren't sitting in Rome." "The majority of them were either sitting in Alexandria or in Tunisia or Algeria." "It's also in northeast Africa that another Christian tradition developed:" "Monasticism." "In one of the world's oldest monasteries, in Egypt's eastern desert, pilgrims still worship at the site of the cave of the man many credit as the founder of this global tradition..." "Saint Anthony." "Egypt is the cradle of monasticism in many ways." "The idea that you go into solitude and that you stay there and that you form your community around this experience, this is a very early development by these people who moved in the desert and it is sort of a movement that wants to recapture" "this early Christian life of feeding the poor, of being self-sufficient, of working to make that part of Christian life and not just this educated learned liturgical Christianity." "This comes from Egypt." "The monastery becomes a kind of wellspring for teaching, for thinking, for religious engagement, but also for holding and preserving the key tenets of the faith." "By the beginning of the fourth century, the new faith had grown from a small, persecuted sect to one of the most dominant religions within the Roman empire." "And now in what is today Ethiopia, the powerful kingdom of Axum itself was about to undergo a profound religious conversion." "And this momentous transformation began not as it usually does, among the people, but at the very apex of Axum society, because one of the first converts in the entire kingdom would be the king." "King Ezana would become one of the most celebrated leaders in African history, not only for his imperial adventures but because of a personal decision that would change the course of Ethiopia's history, and in some ways the history of Christianity itself." "Ezana became popular after his reign, and most of the people in Axum and other places, they give Ezana a special place in Axumite history because of his conversion to Christianity." "In king Ezana's conversion story, history and myth collide." "So, the conversion of Axum, we have a legend of two boys." "Frumentius and Edesius are their names." "They traveled with their father, a Christian merchant going down the red sea, and they are subjected to piracy." "The father was killed and next we find these boys in the court of Axum, and they're taken in by the king and they are the ones educating his son Ezana." "According to one recounting," "Frumentius and his brother were Syrian Christians traveling back from India in the early fourth century A.D." "His passion for his religion was so compelling, the story goes, that young king Ezana decided to embrace this new religion as his own." "In the story, we have a lot of truths embedded." "The first one being Axum wasn't on the outskirts of the world." "It was right along the trade routes toward India, toward Oman." "So, the father who goes out to trade reflects the connections that Axum actually had." "No matter how it originated," "Ezana's conversion is no myth." "These Axumite coins reveal that a momentous change occurred in the kingdom in the fourth century." "Dr. Abebaw Gela explains." "These coins, more than their economic importance, they tell a lot of history." "There are two kinds of religious symbols on Axumite coins." "The earlier ones, they have a symbol of a Crescent and a disc." "So, the Crescent, it symbolizes the moon god Almouqah, and then the disc symbolizes the sun god Shamash." "These gods had been piously worshipped in the great temple of Yeha and across the horn of Africa and Southern Arabia for over 1,000 years." "But during Ezana's reign, around 350 A.D., the design of Axum's coinage dramatically changed, becoming the first coins in the world to bear a Christian symbol." "Those coins of Ezana that were minted after, err, his conversion to Christianity, they have the symbol of the cross." "A coin is a very good medium to tell people also that we are Christians." "Seeing the kingdom's religion featured on its currency shows us two things... the power of its spiritual belief and its extensive commercial ties with Christendom." "The dominant European power at that time was Rome, whose emperor Constantine had himself converted to Christianity in 325 A.D." "It's worth noting that king Ezana accepted Christianity just really a few decades after Constantine did." "He did a lot of business with the eastern end of the Roman empire." "It could very well be that his decision to become a Christian was connected to geopolitics of the day or commercial politics of the day." "And just like Constantine," "Ezana had territorial ambitions." "In the middle of the fourth century," "Axumite armies forged their way inland along the Nile valley, invading new territories and heading for the great city of Meroe, the third and last capital of the ancient kingdom of Kush." "For hundreds of years, the kings and queens of Kush, from their capital at Meroe, had dominated the Southern end of Nile valley civilization..." "Rich from trade and sharing religious beliefs and culture with its millennia-old rival, Egypt." "But by the fourth century, eclipsed by Axum's rise," "Kush was in decline." "It started when, uh," "Axum appeared as a powerful, uh, kingdom, and because Meroe economy was based on trade along the Nile to control all trade and all the route coming from Africa, towards the red sea and with the Mediterranean." "And then Axum appeared with its power control of these goods." "An inscription on a throne uncovered at Meroe describes an assault on the city by king Ezana's conquering army." "Now in the remains of what are Meroe's temples," "Mahmoud Bashir believes he's found physical evidence of the violent destruction resulting from Axum's attack." "All the evidence shows that it's being destroyed and buried." "All the statues are smashed into very small pieces." "So, we have a real evidence for something happened there, like people came, they destroyed everything with the attack of Ezana's." "Axum conquers Meroe." "King Ezana, who, by this time is Christian..." "That's what I believe." "Ezana died around 360 A.D." "Over the next 150 years, the Axumite empire, extending from the horn of Africa into Southern Arabia, would become solidly Christian." "In Nubia, the successor to Kush, it would take another century for Christianity to establish itself through peaceful means." "Here in Khartoum at the national museum of Sudan is housed an extraordinary collection of Christian artworks." "In the sixth century, Christian missionaries from Constantinople traveled up the Nile and began the conversion of the 3 Nubian kingdoms that had arisen after the fall of Kush." "Part of Christianity has a lot to do with establishing connections." "So, if you have missionaries coming from the north, you're not just interested in the text they bring." "You want to do trade, you want to be able to travel there yourself and have people who will sponsor these travels." "You want to establish various connections." "The people of Nubia readily embraced the new faith and within a generation had created a vibrant and distinctly Nubian Christian culture." "Christianity thrived in the 3 Nubian kingdoms for almost 1,000 years." "Dozens of these beautiful Christian murals have survived." "This one depicts the virgin Mary and the baby Jesus protecting the queen, whose name was Martha." "Curiously, queen Martha is depicted as a brown woman, while Mary and Jesus are white." "Little was known of this medieval Christian civilization until archaeologists made an extraordinary discovery." "Buried in the Nubian desert were the remains of a seventh-century Christian cathedral in Faras, once the capital of the kingdom of Nobatia." "The cathedral is now submerged under the flood waters of lake Nasser, but this series of exquisite frescoes created during the earliest era of Christian Nubia was saved." "This find of these frescoes and the churches in Faras is significant because it's the only extant art that we really have from this early Nubian Christianity..." "And it dates back to the seventh and end of the sixth century, so, very, very early art." "This nativity scene once covered the eastern wall at Faras cathedral." "It shows the virgin Mary in repose and crowned like a Nubian Princess." "Watching over her are the archangels Michael and Gabriel." "In the crib, the infant Jesus lies warmed by the breath of the animals, and in the corner stands a figure of a Nubian king." "The Christian kingdoms of Nubia would flourish along the Southern reaches of the Nile, from these rich beginnings to the 15th century." "But just as Christianity was taking root in Nubia, a new religion..." "Islam..." "was about to transform the spiritual landscape of Africa." "From the deserts and oases of Arabia, a conquering force powered by faith was on the move." "Through the spread of Islam, they were about to transform the cultural and political fabric of Africa both above and below the desert." "This contact remains one of the most significant events in the history of Islam..." "a first emigration of Muslims, not to Medina but to Africa." "So, here's Muhammad sending part of his family and some friends to find refuge, um, with the Christian king because he's under pressure in mecca." "They were received by the emperor in Axum, and so, you have a very close relationship very early on." "And again, this goes to show how much of a regional hegemon Axum was." "Soon after the prophet's death in 632 A.D.," "Islamic armies marched west out of Arabia into north Africa." "By 642, they had deposed the unpopular byzantine rulers of Egypt and controlled the bread basket of the Mediterranean." "A lot of people refer to them as the Muslim conquests." "I refer to them as the Arab conquest." "There wasn't the establishment of a forced conversion under a kind of military rule." "What was established was Islamic rule of law." "Conversion wasn't required amongst subject populations." "Islam comes to the African continent pretty early, in places like the horn of Africa." "It goes into Egypt and in most places, it comes through trade." "You can't force anyone to believe in a religion." "It's sort of people have to adopt it and make it their own, and that's really what happens with Islam in Africa and the places that it truly takes root, it's through people's own initiative" "and their own valuing of this." "What happens in north Africa is you have the establishment of a kind of Islamic political rule that isn't necessarily all that Islamic, you know, for..." "From a religious standpoint, but you know, in..." "In important parts of, uh, its history, but is nonetheless, it's a rule by Muslims." "From Egypt, Arab armies pushed west." "By the beginning of the eighth century, they had taken control of all of the Christian provinces of Byzantium, across present-day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco." "Then in the year 711, from their base in tangier, the armies looked north towards a new frontier..." "Europe." "At the mouth of the Mediterranean, 12,000 soldiers assembled." "A vast invasion force from the African continent seeking to conquer a European kingdom." "Their leader, a warrior and brilliant military strategist, would become a legend." "His name was Tariq ibn Ziyad." "It's said he was born a slave but rose to become a fierce fighter and general." "So impressive were his military feats in helping to capture the north African city of tangier that he was made its governor." "But Tariq wasn't an Arab..." "Tariq was a Berber." "The people known as Berbers are actually calling themselves in their own language Amazigh." "It was the Romans who actually coined the word Berbers." "It started becoming a kind of a derogatory reference to those people amongst the Berber communities who would not want to indulge with the Romans into doing business and being liable to them." "The Berber people have inhabited north Africa from present-day Morocco in the west to Tunisia in the east from at least the third millennium B.C." "During the centuries of Roman and byzantine rule, many Berbers migrated away from the rich coastal cities." "Inland, they resisted foreign colonial rule, preserving over centuries their own distinctive and diverse culture and traditions, deeply rooted in the mountains and fertile plains of north Africa." "Berbers were tough fighters." "It comes from the toughness of their life at first." "It's also the difficulties in which they live." "The fact that they had actually to fight to live made them actually excellent warriors." "Though the Berbers made a strong stand, one by one their chiefdoms fell to the Arab conquerors." "By the time Tariq gathered his army in tangier, thousands of Berbers had not only converted to Islam, they had also joined its sweeping armies." "There's a long history of African conquests of Southern Europe, especially Iberia." "We can see Berbers playing a particular role side-by-side with Arabs as well." "On the 29th of April, in the year 711," "Tariq's force set off from tangier." "Just 9 miles separate Africa and Europe at the mouth of the Mediterranean, and on a fine day from Tangiers, you can even see the place where Tariq's army landed, a great rock that marks the southernmost tip" "of the Iberian peninsula and the site of a legendary African victory." "It was named Jabal Tariq after the conquering general." "We know it in English today as the rock of Gibraltar." "From Gibraltar, Tariq advanced onto the Iberian peninsula at the head of a phalanx 5,000 strong." "One of his soldiers is said to have asked him," ""sir, when shall we return?"" "He answered, "we haven't come here to return."" ""Either we shall conquer and establish ourselves, or we shall perish."" "Reinforced by some 18,000 Berber and Arab soldiers, the Muslim armies of north Africa within a year had conquered most of present-day Spain, and established outposts as far as Southern France." "Recalled to Damascus, Tariq would be dead within 10 years." "But his conquests helped establish a new Islamic civilization stretching across north Africa and much of Spain, which would endure for over 800 years and create a cultural bond between two continents." "So, instead of seeing them as we do now, as the break between Europe and Africa, during this period they were a bridge between two very interconnected areas where people traveled backwards and forwards as soldiers, as political advisors, as craftsmen, architects, scholars." "So, enormous amount of movement between the two sides of the straits of Gibraltar." "The spread of Islam across north Africa and the middle east had profound effects on other parts of Africa." "Trade to the east that had once passed through the red sea now shifted north toward the new Islamic centers of power in Damascus, Baghdad, and the Persian Gulf." "Christian Axum became isolated and vulnerable to attack." "Particularly vulnerable was the port of Adulis, the kingdom's economic lifeline." "With the rise of Islam, they locked their eyes on Adulis because of its economic importance." "They invaded Adulis and then Adulis was totally burnt and destroyed in." "Beginning from that time, Axum started a long period of decline." "But in the 11th century, a new dynasty would revive the fortunes of Ethiopia's once-great Christian kingdom and create one of the most spectacular of all religious sites in Africa and in the world..." "Lalibela." "12 extraordinary churches carved out of the living rock in the Ethiopian highlands." "One of the most extraordinary architectural achievements that the world has ever seen." "The churches were built during the Zagwe dynasty, which arose from the ashes of Axum, reviving the red sea trade routes in Christian Ethiopia." "Built before many of the great cathedrals of Europe, they are an astonishing feat of construction, design, and imagination." "Being able to see this church buried in this block of stone, it's a bit like Michelangelo seeing David buried in that block of marble." "The most celebrated king was Lalibela, and according to legend, he was instructed by god to build a new Jerusalem in Ethiopia." "According to the Saint's biography of king Lalibela, it was said that he had a vision, and during that vision, he made a pact with god." "God told him that, if you build these churches I'm showing you," "I will make you king." "Angels were said to have transmitted the plans to him and to have assisted him night and day, as he dug for 24 years to build all of these churches." "Lalibela is one of the very few" "Ethiopian kings who was ever made a Saint." "King Lalibela built these extraordinary cathedrals." "They had literature, they had all sort of things that were happening during that period." "So, it was clearly a very vibrant time." "Carved in the shape of a cross, the church of St. George is the most celebrated of all the magnificent buildings in Lalibela's sacred complex." "But deeper within this complex is a church that contains replicas of the tombs of Christ and Adam and is considered the holiest part of Lalibela." "It's the church of Biete Golgotha." "Historian Solomon Getaneh is an expert on the history of the churches." "Lalibela, you see." "Look at here." "Oh, look at the altar." "Oh, there's king Lalibela." "And the holy virgin Mary." "When they painted, they make... the head is big, the eye also is big." "Yeah, the eyes." "They've got to show the excellence of the brain." "And he had insight." "Exactly." "Inside here, the same." "Lalibela also is buried." "So, it's the body of the king?" "Exactly." "But it's in the holy, so, it's not allowed." "Scholars believe that Lalibela's complex of churches was built as a symbolic representation of Jerusalem." "The Ethiopians became Christians very early on and within a couple of decades of that, they had set up a monastery in the heart of Jerusalem." "So, they had had a deep connection to it and a journey to Jerusalem is the longing of any pious person in Ethiopia." "Every single thing in this" "Church is symbolized." "Lalibela symbolizes everything to Jerusalem." "Golgotha is a place where our lord Jesus Christ was buried..." "Yes." "So, this place was called Golgotha." "There are 12 pillars." "12 pillars." "One for each..." "Symbolizing... uh, apostle." "Exactly." "All of Lalibela is a 3-dimensional biblical allegory." "Exactly." "You can easily read it." "In fact, it's now thought that the churches at Lalibela were built between the seventh and 13th centuries..." "And that some were originally palaces and even fortresses." "It was only later that they became churches, which remain places of pilgrimage to this day." "These are not buildings in the sense that you take bricks or stones and put them one on top of the other." "These are massive sculptures that have been carved out of living rock." "Lalibela is like no other place on earth." "You get a sense of the creation of kind of an ideal paradisiacal setting because it's hewn of living rock, and much like other African architecture, it is sculpture in its own right, but sculpture one can walk into and move around," "and what is particularly remarkable there is how one experiences religion and the personal pilgrimages one has to take to get there that are an essential part of this whole tradition." "12 churches carved out of the ground." "Each structure unique, each ingeniously designed, and each chiseled by skilled artisans from a master plan." "The churches of Lalibela stand as more than just a symbolic Jerusalem on Ethiopian soil." "This was a new Jerusalem in Africa." "120 miles from Lalibela sits a sacred site that binds the old testament to the heart of Ethiopia's story... lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands." "The source of the blue Nile, which for many conjures the sacred river Gihon that flowed out of the garden of Eden." "On its islands nestle 20 ancient monasteries dating from the eighth to the 18th centuries, each one a paragon of Ethiopian art." "Lake Tana is one of the most important places for both the orthodox religion and for orthodox art." "It's a location in which monasteries and churches were able to really flourish and to remain protected, even in moments of peril." "In churches and monasteries such as these, the Ethiopian orthodox church developed its signature style of painting, still visible here today." "There's that visual complexity, the kind of sensual power that these works offer that make you want to look very carefully." "This is a painting of Saint Mary." "Mary is very important." "She's the mother of Jesus Christ." "Like an intermediary between man and god." "So, uh, we respect Mary." "You see these enormous staring eyes." "There's something about the one-on-one engagement between the figures depicted both in the murals and the manuscripts, and a means to connect individually with the worshipper." "What you can also see is this bold set of colors, the rich reds, blues, and Greens, often with carefully delineated marks that frame one particular element from another." "But according to Ethiopian tradition, a monastery on lake Tana, Tana Kirkos, once housed a different kind of treasure, an object of immense power that would shape the country's history and its national identity to this day," "connecting Ethiopia once again to the queen of Sheba..." "the ark of the covenant." "At least since the tenth century A.D.," "Ethiopians have claimed that the original ark containing Moses' stone tablets inscribed with the 10 commandments has been housed in their country." "According to the national epic, the Kebra Nagast, when the queen of Sheba visited king Solomon in Jerusalem, they conceived a son..." "Menelik." "Menelik years later, returning from a visit to meet his father, brought the ark from the temple in Jerusalem to its new resting place." "In 1270 A.D., this powerful myth was used to justify a violent coup that bought a new dynasty to power in Ethiopia." "When a ruling Zagwe king was overthrown by a rival..." "Yekuno Amlak... the new king drew on this mystical connection to the Bible to validate his claim." "The new king claimed direct descent from king Solomon and the queen of Sheba through their son Menelik, who was born in Ethiopia after his mother's stay in Jerusalem." "Menelik was the legendary founder of the Axumite dynasty." "By claiming this lineage, the king could argue that his seizure of the throne was actually a restoration, a restoration of the true line of Ethiopian monarchs." "The Solomonic dynasty, founded as an extension of this extraordinary lineage, descending from king Solomon and the queen of Sheba, would rule Ethiopia for the next 700 years." "They are claiming descent from a holy family." "Mm-hmm." "Christ was born from David's family." "So, this meant the dynasty more legitimate, more acceptable." "The audacity is breathtaking to say not only are we legitimate but we are descended from king David through Solomon, fused blood lines through our queen, our Axumite queen..." "Yeah." "And beyond that to god himself." "To god himself." "It's the ultimate genealogical chart." "It is an extraordinary way of legitimating the kings of Ethiopia by taking the power of the Bible, the power of the Israelites, and accruing it to themselves." "It is probably the most powerful national myth that has ever been invented." "To this day, the ark of the covenant plays a profound role in the religious life of Ethiopia." "Every church hosts a tabot, its own sacred replica of the ark." "In Ethiopia, the ark of the covenant is often called Zion, or Zeon, and this is where god lives." "Each one of them is a sign that god is here, god is dwelling with us and protecting us." "And Ethiopians celebrate their deep-rooted connection to the ark every year at the festival of Timkat, the Ethiopian orthodox church's celebration of the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan." "Over centuries, the deep roots of Ethiopian Christianity and its unique traditions would be a powerful unifying force for the kingdom." "The bond and the solidarity of the Ethiopian population framed around Christianity was something that gave them a real strength and a real, um, sort of political hold on that area that made this one of the only places in Africa," "indeed the only place that never was colonized." "The whole sort of population of Ethiopia was able to come together to safeguard its traditions, and certainly Christianity plays an important role in that." "Ethiopian Christians still believe that the ark of the covenant resides in Ethiopia, hidden from view in a small church in Axum, the city where one of the ancient world's greatest civilizations was born." "The myth of the king's descent from king Solomon and the queen of Sheba, and the legendary presence of the ark of the covenant here at St. Mary's church in Axum, are the cornerstones of the Ethiopian orthodox church." "These stories assert Ethiopia's direct historical link to the wider Christian world, of course, but also the nation's special duty as guardian of the Christian faith." "From their earliest days, two of the world's great religions..." "Christianity and Islam..." "put down roots in Africa." "These revolutionary new faiths not only transformed the history of Africans, they were shaped in turn by Africans, who created and bequeathed to the world some of our most profound cultural legacies." "Salaam alaikum." "Connections forged by Christianity and Islam would lead not only to the exchange of beliefs and ideas, they would help lay the foundations of new networks of commerce and trade that would place Africa and its riches at the heart of the medieval world." "Africa's great civilizations is available on blu-ray and DVD." "To order visit shoppbs." "Org or call 1-800-play-pbs." "This series is also available for download from iTunes."