From Meroë to the Senilac Peroglyphs

Part 2 of 13 in our journey from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
(connecting landmarks in Michigan and African history)
 
Some 1,000 years ago, a Native American sat down next to a slab of sandstone near the Cass River just outside what was to be Bad Axe, Michigan and began carving. Undiscovered until a brush fire revealed his work in 1881, the carvings depict swirls, lines, handprints, flying birds, and bow-wielding men. Known as the Senilac Petroglyphs, the artist’s tribe remains unknown. Archaeologists theorize that the site was a tribal meeting place, making the site for some, mystical and sacred. Damaged by natural weathering and graffiti, our time to discover their true purpose is limited.

Thousands of miles away, deep within the African country of Sudan, along the Nile River’s 5th and 6th cataracts, lies what is considered to be the world’s largest archaeological site. What remains are remnants of a completely unstudied civilization. And like the petroglyphs of Sanilac, Michigan, they are in danger of being lost forever.

The center pieces of the ruins are pyramids. But these pyramids share distinctly different characteristics from their more well know cousins to the north in Giza, Egypt. And incredulously, they outnumber them by some 200 spread over three complexes. Their style is unique and undeniably African.

They are built of stepped courses of horizontally positioned stone blocks and range from approximately 19 to 98 feet in height, but rise from fairly small foundation footprints that rarely exceed 26 feet in width, resulting in tall, narrow structures inclined at approximately seventy degrees. Most also have offering temple structures abutting their base. By comparison, Egyptian pyramids of similar height generally had foundation footprints that were at least five times larger and were inclined at angles of between forty and fifty degrees. These Sudanese pyramids use smaller blocks, and unlike the Egyptians, are monuments over tombs.

So who were these people who were such prolific pyramid builders? There is very little that archaeologists can acknowledge. Our understanding is limited due to our inability to decipher their unique language, Meroitic Script. But what we do know is that from about 760 BC, the Nubians of the Kush Empire invaded and conquered Egypt beginning the period of the Black Pharaohs. They made Meroë (pronounced mayor-way) their capitol. They built Jebel Barkel (or Napata) as a sign that Egypt belongs to Nubia. And for their Kings and Queens, who ruled equally, they built these distinctly Nubian pyramids. Their kingdom would last longer than the Egyptians and would end with their defeat by another African empire, the Kingdom of Axum in 656 BC.

So as one gazes at these desert ruins, I hope one is inspired to understand a forgotten and unstudied people. And like me, realize that there is a rich and distinctively African history that remains to be studied. A history that can refute notions as expressed by the philosopher David Hume,

I am apt to suspect the Negroes and in general all the other species of Men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufacturers amongst them, no arts, no sciences.

Our history remains to be discovered, not ignored, in Meroë.