Session 4

CHAPTER FOUR: WEST AFRICA IN CONTACT WITH OLDER CIVILIZATIONS

West Africa had had contact with other civilizations before the Europeans arrived on the continent.
This took place mainly through trade and migrations. Notable among the Ancient civilizations with
which West Africa got into contact were the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the Mesopotamians. From the
above civilizations, new ideas were imported and exported.

4.1 Egyptians

Ancient Egyptian civilization was believed to have reached an advanced stage when Europe was still
barbarous with crude. practices. Ancient Egypt was said. to possess masterful performance in .their
monumental architecture, mathematics, calendar-making and in their elaborate machinery of government.
Ancient Egypt was so prosperous that its collection of wealth was so spectacular. In the fifth century
BC, they were thought. in the words of Herodotus, “the best historian of any nation of which I have
had experience”. He pointed out also that at Memphis they had given a written record of the names of not
fewer than 330 monarchs who succeeded Min, the first king of Egypt. This demonstrates that the
way they conserved their history reveals their masterful grip on the categories of time and space.
Despite Ancient Egypt's achievements in time and space, until lately,it has figured little in the thought of
scholars who have studied African history. This attitude of leaving Ancient Egypt out of the history

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of Africa was due to the racial hierarchies of nineteenth century thought. Racial analyses
defended that the Egyptians of the pharaonic Age were not Negroes and therefore they were not Africans. So
their civilisations, no matter how firmly and enduringly planted on the soil of Africa, should be
left outside the context of Africa. This view is erroneous, for today, it is perfectly clear that the vast
majority of pre-dynastic Egyptians were of continental African stock, and even of Central-west
Saharan origins. However, there is serious dispute among scholars as to whether ·the hypothetical
"dynastic race" associated with the foundation of pharaonic Egypt had come from outside Africa.
But surely, the early populations of Egypt included the descendants of in coming migrants from the
Near East. However, to argue that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt were
not ''Negro”, and therefore were' not Africans is little convincing.

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· Early Egyptian civilization developed around the Nile Valley, the Nile being a gift as
Herodotus called it ''gift of the Nile". It was mainly agro pastoral civilization which sprang in the
Nile Valley, which contained rich sediments that attracted adventurers from all over the world.

Notably, the Nile valley engendered farming peoples of the lower Nile and Delta who evolved out of
their obscurity, and, across a few brief centuries, built an urban civilization that had all the
essential characteristics and acquirements of Egypt's later glory. Undoubtedly, farmers who were
previously primitive have acquired the arts o writing' calendars, calculation, spectacular ambitious
building in stone, and the capacity to make and accumulate wealth in such a way as to yield, and
therefore use this wealth for ruling the various groups, and governing their families.

Certainly, there had been the intrusion of some polity in the Nile valley because of the arrival of new
rulers, presumably from the urban civilizations of Mesopotamia.. it was said that new ethnic
elements from outside the valley may have helped to unify Egypt after 3400 BC.. However they
did not introduce a ready-made culture superior to the native predynasty. There was certainly
stimulus from the Near East but there is no question of civilization being introduced into Ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians rapidly expanded agriculture through the use of new agricultural techniques.
They used iron tools, including iron• headed hoes, paintings on walls of temples and tombs. They
wrote and painted on papyrus paper, and made fine pottery, sculptures and and gold ornaments.
 Politically, Ancient Egypt was a kingdom ruled by a succession of kings called pharaohs, who, after
their deaths were buried in tombs called pyramids. Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death and thus
embalmed and wrapped their dead bodies to protect them from decaying. Dead bodies so treated
are called mummies.
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Pyramid building required masterful thought and skill. This needed good knowledge at
mathematics and geometry, as to mean that Ancient Egyptians were artistically endowed with great
talents and imagination. They were good mathematicians.

Ancient Egypt was said to have -copied little or nothing from foreign contemporaries, but
continued to evolve new ideas and fashions of its own. After the emergence of two States in Ancient
Egypt, one along the Nile and the other in the Delta, both having enjoyed the wealth of the Nile, they
were brought together about 3200 BC under a king who wore the double crown. Thus, the United Kingdom drew its
governing power and revenue from taxation of landowners and peasant, and from other forms of tribute, including
military service.

Truly, the impact of Ancient Egypt's grand and long enduring ·civilization. on the .rest of Africa,
especially on West Africa was powerful. There were expeditions sent here and there. Such travels and
expeditions were little more than exchanges within the Saharan Sudanese community of peoples.

The Egyptian, civilization aroused both admiration and envy. Thus, the peoples’ intention to conquer the South
and the East brought about upheavals. Ancient Egypt therefore underwent a series of attacks by the Greeks,
followed by the Romans and finally by the Muslims Pharaonic Egypt could no longer resist. It disappeared
completely from sight. Many of its monuments were buried under sands, and the rich tombs robbed of their
precious furniture.
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Fortunately; the achievements and the inheritance of this grand civilization had still given and fed vigor in
countless ways to the onward movement of other civilizations in many lands.

4.2. Mesopotamians

Mesopotamia was known to have been one of the early homes of early civilization. Just like the Egyptian
civilization, this one emerged in an area of fertile soil which aroused admiration, Thus, energetic
people settled there to practice agriculture. They were said to be the first people to use copper and
bronze for tools.· ·.

Mesopotamia means the country between rivers. It was an ancient region in west Asia between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. It lay in what is now called Irak.

Mesopotamians were skilled in agriculture. They practiced drainage and irrigation, and
developed an early form of writing called “cuneiform”.

4.3. Phoenicians

Phoenicia was an Ancient kingdom on the Mediterranean, in the region of modern Syria,
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Lebanon, and Israel. Its people are designed as Phoenicians, Phoenicians were great sailors and
traders. It is said that by the fourth century, many Phoenician ports had sprung into being along the
North African littoral ports such as Leptis and Sabratha which were prosperous. Their principal
raison d'être was ·to act as intermediaries in the trade between the African interior and the rest
of the ancient world. Their civilization flourish between 1200 and 800BC. They founded trading stations
along their sailing routes. for trade with the local people. They bought gold, ivory, and other African
goods from Berber neighbors, who in turn had carried these things across the Sahara from West

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Arica, linking North and West Africa.