The first section of the reading discussed ancient African civilizations. Of these, Egypt is the most prominent topic. This country’s rich history “stands alone among ancient African civilizations as being indicative of the early development of large-scale governments” (Khaypoya, 2012, p. 69). This empire ruled for approximately 2000 years, going through three distinct phases of kingdoms. The Old Kingdom merged the lifestyle of many different regions into one central government. It was “Africa’s earliest large-scale political economy,” which produced some of the greatest architectural feats of early history: the pyramids (Khaypoya, 2012, p. 66-67). Because of the sheer number of laborers, this achievement was possible while maintaining the
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First, I had never thought of the country as truly “African” (Khaypoya, 2013, p. 66). The country is almost always portrayed as fair-skinned or tan/olive-colored skin, and almost never with dark skin. However, after reading about the history of the country, its importance to African history and African development is very clear to me. Second, it’s interesting to me that everything I knew about Egypt came from the New Kingdom; I never knew that was only one small part of the complete history, even though the Old and Middle Kingdoms were crucial to the strength of the New …show more content…
The fact that anyone was Muslim in Africa astounds me; my previous knowledge was that Muslim religion was only practiced in the Middle East. Ghana was the first of these empires. Gold exports and the trans-Saharan trade, as well as the rock salts of the Sahara economically supported Ghana and their kings. Ghana expanded rapidly, becoming the largest empire thus far (Khaypoya, 2013, p. 74). The second empire was Mali, which rose to power approximately 150 years after the disintegration of Ghana. Mansa Musa was the most notable king because of his voyage to Mecca. He gave gold away during his travels, so much so that students and intellectuals joined his caravan, and he depressed the Cairo economy. He also build a university in Timbuktu, further increasing the population of the empire (Khaypoya, 2013, p. 74-75). Finally, the Songhay Empire grew to be the biggest of the three. Askia Muhammad was the most inspiring leader. In my opinion, this was not because of his travels to Mecca, but because he allowed his people to be of whichever religious affiliation they chose, and chose to focus on merit for the basis of the throne succession (Khaypoya, 2013, p.
First, I had never thought of the country as truly “African” (Khaypoya, 2013, p. 66). The country is almost always portrayed as fair-skinned or tan/olive-colored skin, and almost never with dark skin. However, after reading about the history of the country, its importance to African history and African development is very clear to me. Second, it’s interesting to me that everything I knew about Egypt came from the New Kingdom; I never knew that was only one small part of the complete history, even though the Old and Middle Kingdoms were crucial to the strength of the New …show more content…
The fact that anyone was Muslim in Africa astounds me; my previous knowledge was that Muslim religion was only practiced in the Middle East. Ghana was the first of these empires. Gold exports and the trans-Saharan trade, as well as the rock salts of the Sahara economically supported Ghana and their kings. Ghana expanded rapidly, becoming the largest empire thus far (Khaypoya, 2013, p. 74). The second empire was Mali, which rose to power approximately 150 years after the disintegration of Ghana. Mansa Musa was the most notable king because of his voyage to Mecca. He gave gold away during his travels, so much so that students and intellectuals joined his caravan, and he depressed the Cairo economy. He also build a university in Timbuktu, further increasing the population of the empire (Khaypoya, 2013, p. 74-75). Finally, the Songhay Empire grew to be the biggest of the three. Askia Muhammad was the most inspiring leader. In my opinion, this was not because of his travels to Mecca, but because he allowed his people to be of whichever religious affiliation they chose, and chose to focus on merit for the basis of the throne succession (Khaypoya, 2013, p.