African Architecture

Architecture
Laymen often measure a people's intellect by the architecture their ancestors left. Of course architecture is only a small component of a civilization; nevertheless, it is interesting to note that ancient and medieval Arabs and Europeans were often very impressed by the architecture of the black Africans.

El Berki, writing in 1067 about the City of Aoudaghast in Ghana recorded that it is, "A very large city with several markets, many date palms and henna trees as big as olives, filled with fine houses and solid buildings."

Ibn Battuta, who had previously traveled in North Africa, West Africa, China, the Mid-East, India, and even China, wrote that the East African trading city of Kilwa (modern day Tanzania) is, "one of the most beautiful and best-constructed towns, all elegantly built," and recorded that, "The majority of its inhabitants are Zanj, jet black in color, and with tattoo-marks on their faces." ²

In 1502, Gaspar Correa, who was on Vasco da Gama's second voyage to the East African coast recorded:
"The city is large and is of good buildings of stone and mortar with terraces, and the houses have much wood works….The city comes down to the shore, and is entirely surrounded by a wall and towers, within which there may be 12,000 inhabitants….The streets of the city are very narrow, as the houses are very high, of three and four stories, and one can run along he tops of them upon the terraces, as the houses are very close together: and in the port there were many ships."³

After studying the East African archeology Mathew admitted that his original assumptions were false: "I assumed that the ruins of the sites I was investigating were the remains of Arab of Persian colonies along the coast…but gradually I have come to doubt: now I am beginning to think that the history of the coast in the medieval period is more easily intelligible if it is merely the history of Islamic colonies from the Persian Gulf….Sometimes in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the culture of the coast became integrally Islamic. But even if the culture had become Islamic, still it would seem to be Negro."⁴

While visiting the Benametapa kingdom (located west of Old Zimbabwe) in the 16th century, De Goes recorded: "In the middle of this country is a fortress built of large and heavy stones inside and out…a very curious and well-constructed building, as according to report not lime to join the stones can be seen…In other districts of the said plain there are other fortresses built in the same manner, in all of which the king has captains…The king of Benametapa keeps great state, and is served on bended knees with great reverence."⁵

Barbosa wrote, "In this town of Benametapa is the king's most usual abode, in a very large building."⁶ Barbosa also commented that the East Coast city of Mombasa is "a very fari place, with loft stone and mortar houses, well aligned in streets after the fashion of Kilwa. The wood is well fitted with excellent joiner's work.”⁷

The Dutchman Dierick Ruyters, writing about the Kingdom of Benin, made several comparisons between Europe and the black West African kingdom. The houses "stand in good order, one close and even beside the other as the houses in Holland stand. Those belonging to men of quality and others have two or three steps to go up, and along the front of them there is a kind of gallery where you may sit in the dry…. The king's court is very big, having within it many wide squares with galleries round them where watch is always kept. I went so far within these buildings that I passed through four such squares, and wherever I looked I still saw gate after gate which opened into other places."⁸

A Dutchman. Ollfert Dapper observed sixty years later that the king's palace "occupies as much space as the town of Haarlem and is enclosed within walls. There are numerous apartments for the Prince's ministers, and fine galleries most of which are as big as those on the Exchange at Amsterdam. They are supported by wooden pillars encased with bronze, where their victories are depicted, and which are carefully kept clean" ⁹

Visiting the Tigre in Ethiopia in 1893, Bent wrote, "all the surrounding hills have been terraced for cultivation…Nowhere in Greece or Asia Minor have I seen such an enormous extent of terraced mountains as in this Abyssinian valley. Hundreds of thousands of acres must have been under the most careful cultivation, right up almost to the top of the mountains." ¹⁰

In general, V.V. Matvewiv wrote, "The Portuguese were impressed by the towns, the appearance and architecture of which did not fall short of anything they had at home, and by the wealth of the inhabitants who came to meet them."¹¹

As attitudes about black people changed whites refused to grant credit to the black architects. In 1932, for example, Wilson wrote this about the Keynan mines, terraces, and roads he had studied: "The average width of the top of the terraces is about a foot. They were probably about three feet originally, and the depth between terraces three feet." The roads, "as a rule about ten or twelve feet wide," while, "the strata of the hillside are exposed and have been worked with a tool." One of the roads is 500-600 miles long and connects Keyna with Northern Rhodeisa. He was greatly impressed but he concluded that the Kenyans "are too barbarous to have learnt it themselves." When the Keyna's told him that it was they who had mastered these techniques he shrugged it off as, "probably an Anzanina legacy."¹²

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The Stone Structures of Great Zimbabwe:
"Archaeological evidence from Zimbabwe and related sites indicates the existence of considerable technological expertise."¹³
New England Archeologist, Graham Connah

The first stonewalls were built in the 13th century. Today over 300 stone walls from medieval Zimbabwe and its neighbors remain. The most impressive of the ruins are located in "Great Zimbabwe." Great Zimbabwe is a sixty-acre site encircled by two massive and complex buildings. One, the "Acropolis," is a succession of stone buildings located on a high hill that overlooks a much bigger enclosure. The walls of the larger enclosure, called "The Elliptical Building" or "Great Enclosure," are 10 meters high and up to 5 meters thick, containing a diameter of 89 meters, and a length of 244 metres.¹⁴ Within the enclosure stands a circular tower. The large enclosure was probably a royal palace and fort. In all it has 5151 cubic meters of stonework. Parts of the wall, Connah observed, have, "exceptionally sophisticated dry stone masonry."¹⁵

Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence showing that black natives built the stone structures, childish myths were dreamed up to steal credit away from the native architects. White supremacists did not want blacks credited with the, "considerable technological expertise," of the stone structures. Some of the myths included stories about the Queen of Sheba, King Solomon's mines, Phoenicians, and even the Garden of Eden. Not knowing any better, or not wanting to know any better, laymen accepted these stories!

Despite the best efforts among the white supremacists, there is now a complete consensus that the Africans of the region were entirely responsible for the structures. The techniques used to build the stone structures have been easily traced to earlier African architecture; "The architecture of Great Zimbabwe," B.M. Fagan, an archeologist from the University of California observed, "is a logical extension of the large enclosures and chiefs' quarters which were built of grass, mud and poles in other African states, but merely constructed here in stone."¹⁶ Even as far back as 1905, Egyptologist David Randall MacIver, on behalf of the British Association, examined the structures and reported: "whether military or domestic, there is not a trace of Oriental or European style of any period whatever (while) the character of the dwellings contained within the stone ruins, and forming an integral part of them, is unmistakably African…the arts and manufactures exemplified by objects found within the dwellings are typically African, except when the objects are imports of well-known medieval or post-medieval date."¹⁷

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Nubians and Ethiopians:
The Africans in Ethiopia and the Sudan left behind great works of architecture. The pyramids, for instance, were first built in Nubia under the Nubian Pharaoh, Piye. Although inspired by Egypt, the Nubian pyramids were designed distinctly in their own style; They had singular celled chapels, rectangular enclosures, were designed to allow more sunlight inside than Egypt's pyramids, the interior was the same as ingenious Nubian temples, and they were on the average just 13.5 meters in diameter.¹⁸ The Egyptians had actually stopped using pyramids for a burial tomb centuries earlier, so the design was purely Nubian. The Nubians never made it a priority to build on the fanatic scale of Egypt--that would have been economically inefficient--but they did build many more pyramids. The Nubian's built Pyramids not only for kings, but queens, princes, nobles, and elite commoners as well. The pyramids of Nubia were made from stone masonry before AD50 and brick or rumble covered with white plaster after that time.

Enormous irrigation basins were dug in and around Meroe (Ethiopia), much larger than those found at Napatan (Nubia). The Napatan-Meroitic kingdom used an animal powered water wheel to increase production.¹⁹

Ancient Ethiopia can also take credit for, "probably the largest single block of stone (33metres high) ever quarried, carved and set up in the ancient world."²⁰

Medieval Ethiopia carved magnificent churches out of large rocks; Connah wrote that, "These skills had a long history, from the cutting of pre-Axuminte subterranean tombs to the quarrying of the medieval rock-hewn churches and it seems reasonable to claim for them an indigenous origin. It should be no surprise that the inhabitants of an area as rocky as the Ethiopian Highlands should become expert in handling stone."²¹

The original castle may even be the Enda Mika'el castle in Axum, in Ethiopia. It was the center of the palace, had four square towers, and stood four stories high.²² Top

¹Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 84

²Ibid, 209

³Connah, 150

⁴Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 210

⁵Ibid, 244

⁶Ibid, 243

⁷Davidson, Basil. The African Past; Chronicles from antiquity to modern times, 1st ed. Boston, Little Brown, 1964, 132

⁸Davidson, Basil. African Kingdoms. New York: Time, inc., 1966, 104

⁹Ibid, 104

¹⁰Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 220

¹¹Africa from the twelfth to the sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 472

¹²Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 228

¹³Connah 201

¹⁴Connah, 193

¹⁵Connah, 193

¹⁶Africa from the twelfth to the sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 540

¹⁷Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 255

¹⁸O'Connor, David. Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1993, 69

¹⁹O'Connor, David. Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1993, 73

²⁰Connah, 78

²¹Connah, 86

²²Ancient civilizations of Africa/ UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa; editor, G. Mokhtar (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 395

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