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.

Timbuktu and the Detroit Public Schools

Part 1 of 13 in our journey for Timbuktu to Kalamzoo
(connecting landmarks in Michigan and African history)

Half of all Detroit public schools will be closed by 2014. 59 schools were closed in 2010 and another 70 schools were announced to be closed in 2011. Student enrollment has been halved over the last decade, falling 83,336. [1] Schools are being closed so quickly, that they are not fully emptied and sealed as if frozen in time. The School District’s graduation rate is 62.27%.[2]

It seems unlikely that this condition would find similarity with a city thousands of miles away along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, just north of the Niger River within the West African country of Mali. Present day Timbuktu (or Timbuctoo) is a city of 54,000 that has long since succumbed to political and economic decline. But at its peak during the 15th and 16th centuries (under rule of the Songhay empire), 25,000 students (one quarter of its population) studied at its universities. It was the center of the Islamic intellectual world, and the site of one the world’s first universities (Sankoré Madrasah or Sankoré University).[3]

The salt comes from the north, the gold from the south and the money from the whites, but the stories of God…these we find at Timbuktu.[4]

An author,Granadan born Hasan ben Muhammed al-Wazzan-ez-Zayyati, but known to Europeans as Leo Africanus, would write about his travels to Timbuktu in 1510 in his book Descrittione dell'Africa (Description of Africa). His own biography is just as fascinating, which includes being sold into slavery, being baptized and freed by Pope Leo X, and possibly serving as the basis for Shakespeare’s character Othello.[5]

In Timbuktu there are numerous judges, scholars and priest, all well paid by the king, who show great respect to men of learning. Many manuscript books coming from Barbary are sold. Such sales are more profitable than any other goods.[6]

His descriptions fascinated Europeans, but it wouldn’t be until 1828 that the first European would live to return and provide their own firsthand account (Frenchman René Caillié). By that time, the City had long been ravaged by decline.

What remains are no fewer than 700,000 manuscripts on a multitude of topics that have been taught at Timbuktu since near its beginning. For 400 years, these Arabic manuscripts have been passed from family to family as proof of its former glory. Their topics include, but are not limited to astronomy, law, mathematics and history. Scholars are just beginning to uncover their unstudied Black African secrets.

But for all the monument that have been reduced to rubble and for all the other terrible cruelties visited upon the African people, the denial of their fundamental equality of intellect has been, perhaps, the most long lastingly destructive. It is this denial of the mind of Africa that the legacy of Timbuktu refutes with devastating finality.[7]

Funding from the Malian government, UNESCO, Arab governments and international foundations fund the Timbuktu Manuscript Project which is attempting to preserve and catalogue these volumes.

Today, the word Timbuktu is synominous with places that are impossible to reach. Perhaps as Detroit attempts to reinvent itself and the world begins to recognize Timbuktu’s legacy, a City can be inspired to reform its educational system and more importantly inspire its youth to reach their full potential.

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[1] CNN Money Article dated February 22, 2011 by Ben Rooney, Michigan Approves Plan to Close Half its Schools.
[2] Detroit Free Press Article dated January 16, 2012 by Kristi Tanner, Database: Dropout and graduation rates for Michigan public schools.
[3] Said Hamdun & Noël King (edds.), Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. London 1975, pp. 52-53.
[4] Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, Wonders of the African World, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1999, p. 143-144.
[5] Verde, Tom (2008), A Man of Two Worlds, Saudi Aramco World (January/February 2008): 2–9.
[6] Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sadi’s Ta’rikh Al-Sudan Down to 1613 and other Contemporary Documents, trans. John Hunwick (Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1999), 280-281.
[7] Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, Wonders of the African World, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1999, p. 146.

Filling the Historical Void

THIS BLOG WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FEBRUARY 2012

About two years ago, I finished reading Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s, Wonders of the African World and Basil Davidson's, The Lost Cities of Africa. In two weeks of reading, I learned more about the architectural history of Africa than in my seven years earning degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning. I am deeply affected by at best ignorance and at worst blatant denial of this history. I find it almost criminal that not one architectural history course felt African architecture (excluding the pyramids) even worthy of a passing mention.

In order to celebrate Black History month, I'd like to do my part to fill the void of ignorance. It's a history that I hope appeals to everyone, since the principals of good building are not culturally or ethnically exclusive. And as the saying goes, those that do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

It therefore seems appropriate to start with the City of Timbuktu. It's the story of the world's first university. It's a story that runs juxtaposed to the problems of almost every urban school district, where schools are being closed due to attrition, where schools are chronically plagued with low state test scores and graduation rates. Could revealing the intellectual power of Timbuktu motivate young African-Americans to demand more from our broken public school systems? One can only hope.

Below is our itinerary. We will disembark at Timbuktu, weave our way along the Nile river, through the Sudan, along the east African coast passing through Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. We'll pick up again along the west African coast to find the Great Mosque of Djenne in Mali and the Ashante architecture of Ghana. We'll visit South Africa and one of the worlds most unique resorts, Sun City. And we'll end our trip in Ghana, the first African nation to declare its independance from colonial power.  I hope you enjoy the journey.

From Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
1. Timbuktu and the Detroit Public Schools
2. From Meroe to the Senilac Petroglyphs
3. From Abu Simbel to Brewster-Douglass Homes
4. The Queen of Sheba and Prince Hall
5. From Aksum to Hart Plaza
6. From Lalibela to Sacred Heart
7. From Zanzibar to the Shrine of the Black Madanna
8. From Kilwa Kisiwani to Highland Park
9. The Spirit of the Great Zimbabwe and the Memorial to Joe Louis
10. From the Detroit Bungalow to the Ashanti Traditional Home
11. From The Great Mosque of Djenne to Muhammad’s Temple No. 1
12. From Sun City to Motor City
13. From Accra to Kalamazoo

For a comprehensive list of African heritage sites as determined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) go to: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list