Scroll down to European contact. Not a word about bloodthirsty goy running inland throwing nets over cherubic black angels teaching their infants trigonometry and how to evangelize the white cave beast to teach us how to bathe…
Barely a thriving city state, and human sacrifice was state sanctioned into the 1800s. Not capital punishment…. But human sacrifice.
[ - ] HughBriss 1 point 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 09:18:56 ago (+1/-0)
I read that article, but as usual, wikijewdia left a lot out. For one thing, Africans in that region were living in the stone age until Islam swept down from northwest Africa and asserted the cultural influence of various Muslims from different parts of Arabia and north Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries. Africans were little more than hunter-gatherers until Islam brought them some amount of technology and engineering.
That is how Benin rose to become an "empire". They didn't do it on their own. As it always happens, someone else better educated and more advanced, with high civilization, brought things to Africans they didn't have.
Did they have metallurgy before the Portuguese arrived? Probably very little, and not until the Muslims arrived. This image from the corresponding Infogalactic article (not in the wikijewdia article) shows a high level of technical competence that they did not have until European contact. I doubt the Muslim invaders had anything like this.
Figures. I’ve never deep dove on Africa before other then asking random web dindu’s to prove they had any civilization at all. And it took a white guy to provide me this, their civilizational crown jewel.
Isn’t this the general area the Bantus gathered and came from when they moved east and followed the Boer down to SA?
Ditto. I never paid much attention to African history and its inhabitants, and when I realized that they never invented or discovered ANYTHING before Europeans arrived, I lost interest. But this article caught my interest because it seemed like such an anomaly.
But looking a bit deeper only confirmed what I suspected: The only reason they were able to do or build anything was because of outside contact. First Islam entered the region and the Muslims shared the little bit of knowledge they had so that Africans could build walls and structures, and then Europeans entered, enabling the area to become somewhat civilized. Of course, when Europeans left, it gradually decayed, like every colony did in Africa.
Have you ever seen the documentary "Empire of Dust"? It's famous for the meme "It's all so tiresome", spoken by a Chinese engineer about the stupidity of the natives. He laments the way the Congolese allowed the infrastructure left by the Belgians decay and become unusable. Well worth a watch.
[ + ] HughBriss
[ - ] HughBriss 1 point 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 09:18:56 ago (+1/-0)
That is how Benin rose to become an "empire". They didn't do it on their own. As it always happens, someone else better educated and more advanced, with high civilization, brought things to Africans they didn't have.
Did they have metallurgy before the Portuguese arrived? Probably very little, and not until the Muslims arrived. This image from the corresponding Infogalactic article (not in the wikijewdia article) shows a high level of technical competence that they did not have until European contact. I doubt the Muslim invaders had anything like this.
https://infogalactic.com/info/File:Benin_kingdom_Louvre_A97-4-1.jpg
[ + ] 3Whuurs
[ - ] 3Whuurs [op] 0 points 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 13:18:51 ago (+0/-0)
And it took a white guy to provide me this, their civilizational crown jewel.
Isn’t this the general area the Bantus gathered and came from when they moved east and followed the Boer down to SA?
[ + ] HughBriss
[ - ] HughBriss 0 points 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 13:45:29 ago (+0/-0)
Ditto. I never paid much attention to African history and its inhabitants, and when I realized that they never invented or discovered ANYTHING before Europeans arrived, I lost interest. But this article caught my interest because it seemed like such an anomaly.
But looking a bit deeper only confirmed what I suspected: The only reason they were able to do or build anything was because of outside contact. First Islam entered the region and the Muslims shared the little bit of knowledge they had so that Africans could build walls and structures, and then Europeans entered, enabling the area to become somewhat civilized. Of course, when Europeans left, it gradually decayed, like every colony did in Africa.
Have you ever seen the documentary "Empire of Dust"? It's famous for the meme "It's all so tiresome", spoken by a Chinese engineer about the stupidity of the natives. He laments the way the Congolese allowed the infrastructure left by the Belgians decay and become unusable. Well worth a watch.
[ + ] fightknightHERO
[ - ] fightknightHERO 0 points 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 09:41:13 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] 3Whuurs
[ - ] 3Whuurs [op] 1 point 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 13:13:27 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] natehiggers
[ - ] natehiggers 0 points 3.4 yearsDec 28, 2021 00:41:22 ago (+0/-0)