So, Black Panther was pretty incredible, right?
It looked spectacular, the performances were superb, and the casting was just perfect. Impressively, the film manages to touch on some important (not to mention divisive) themes, all while staying within the limitations of the genre and the Disney brand.
But it’s Wakanda itself that’s the real highlight.
Wakanda is easily the most beautiful location we’ve seen in the MCU, beating out the shiny but sterile Asgard and the mind-bending dimensional hijinks in Dr Strange. The open markets, vibrant colours, and celebration of long-held traditions scream “AFRICA”, and exist in easy harmony with the striking science-fiction visuals.
Far from just delivering aesthetic value, Wakanda actually feels like a living, breathing location that supports a diverse population – as shown by the five tribes living there. This incredibly advanced African nation prospering without the destructive influence of colonisation never feels out of place or at odds with the rest of the MCU.
Black Panther hasn’t pleased everyone though. In fact, some people are angry, like angry enough to lie in pathetic attempts to sabotage the film and challenge the MRA-edit of Last Jedi for the “Most Tragic Response to a Film” award.
Unable to let anybody enjoy something that isn’t about them (*cough* “an all-female Ghostbusters will ruin my childhood” *cough*), hordes of white people have taken to social media to remind black movie-goers that Wakanda isn’t real. The predictable incredulity that an Afrofuturist film has entered the mainstream is eerily reminiscent of how Everett K. Ross describes Wakanda in the film:
“It’s a third world country: textiles, shepherds, cool outfits”
Ideas of a prosperous and advance uncolonised Africa have almost always been scoffed at by white people, who truly believe in the white supremacist view that Europeans introduced the “savage” Africans to culture and technology. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, we’re taught this lie in school and see it repeated in mainstream media, but it’s important to recognise it for what it is – an attempt to push the narrative of white supremacy and justify the colonisation of Africa.
In reality, Africa was rich in resources before colonisation and society actually advanced far quicker, with sprawling African empires holding influence across the globe whilst Europeans were still charging after local wildlife with clubs.
To celebrate Black Panther, and help unravel false white supremacist narratives, here are five things you might not know about pre-colonial Africa:
1. Africa is UNDENIABLY the Birthplace of the Human Race
There’s literally no rational way to argue against this, you may as well refuse to believe in evolution or gravity. Fossil records and DNA analysis both support the fact that the first humans were from Africa and all other races of humankind evolved from Black Africans.
The oldest known remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens sapiens) were excavated at Omo in Ethiopia and were dated at 195,000 years old. Even older skeletons of pre-humans that lived at least 4.4 million years ago have also been found in Africa.
2. They Were Far from One Homogenous “Savage” Tribe
Too often Africa is discussed as if it’s a single country, culture, and population that lives a simple but poverty-filled life in mud huts. And this patronising view of Africa gets worse when the subject switches to pre-colonial times.
It’s like people forget Africa is, and always has been, far more culturally, socially and religiously diverse than most of the planet. After all, it spans 11.5 million square miles and over the last 200,000ish years has been the backdrop to the rise and fall of countless different cultures.
Yes, there are the ritual chieftaincies people commonly associate with indigenous people but evidence shows the existence of a diverse range of political and social structures – including, sprawling empires, regional aristocracies, matrilineal clans and stateless societies.
3. They Were Not Poverty-Stricken or Uneducated
One of the most offensive misconceptions about Africans is they needed help from the colonising forces to break free from illiteracy. It only takes one word to bust this myth – hieroglyphics.
The Egyptians were the only African people who had similar languages made of symbols though, ancient written languages like Tifinagh and Ge’ez script. Evidence from Ethiopia has shown that not only were African’s literate, they even had poetic forms as early as 1 BC – predating both Christianity and Islam.
The idea that Africa has always suffered from poverty is just as laughable, you only need to consider its rich gold deposits. Mansa Masu, the 14th-century ruler of the Empire of Mali, is still considered the richest man who ever lived and was worth a ridiculous $400bn in today’s money.
4. African Societies Pioneered the Advances that Allowed Humanity to Thrive
Although many depictions in mainstream media suggest ancient African’s were much less advanced than their European counterparts, they actually developed and perfected many of the technologies we use variations of in modern times.
The first known advances in agriculture were discovered by Professor Fred Wendorg in Egypt’s Western Desert, with evidence that as far back as 12,000 years ago Africans cultivated crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, dates, legumes, lentils and wheat.
When exquisitely carved stone tools were discovered at Katanda and dated at around 90,000 years old, many researchers were incredulous – bone tools only appeared in Eurasia 14,000 years ago. But the science said otherwise! Not only were ancient Africans using bone tools long before the rest of the world, but the barbed hooks and harpoons clearly showed they were the first people to master fishing.
Perhaps most impressive is the discovery of a hematite mine in Swaziland, at which over 300,000 stone-made mining tools were recovered and dated at 43,200 years old. That’s nearly 40,000 years before the earliest-known mines in Central Europe.
And, although it’s not commonly acknowledged, East Africans have been making steel for more than 2,000 years. The ancient Haya people were actually using preheated forced draft furnaces, a method more advanced than any developed in Europe until the mid-nineteenth century.
5. Africa is Home to Many of the Earliest Cities
You could travel back in time 4000 years and still find meticulously planned cities in Africa, one of the earliest being the Egyptian city of El Lahun, located 800 metres from the Pyramid of Lahun. High walls surround the housing and guttered streets, which are carefully laid out on a grid at right-angles. It’s thought the workers who built the pyramid lived here, with bigger houses for the foremen and king, leading to comparisons to Welsh mining villages.
First settled around 500 BC, Timbuktu is now more often used as metaphor for exotic and mystical places, yet during the 14th-century was known as the richest city in the world. It was five-times bigger than medieval London and considered an important economic hub – trading in manuscripts, salt, gold, cattle, and grain. It was also home to one of the world’s first universities, attracting 25,000 students from across the world to study Islam.
The houses themselves were impressive in themselves, at Koumbi Salah, the capital city of Ancient Ghana, there were houses that were several stories high, with underground basements, staircases and connecting halls – with many important buildings like the Emperor’s palace described as having glass windows.
The ancient city of Akhetaten, now known as Armana, had functioning toilets and a sewerage system, with evidence of trade in soaps and perfumes – all of which was common in Ancient Egypt. As early as the 9th-century, Sudan was home to functioning bathhouses with heated water and mural-decorated interiors.
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