large numbers of Kushites were absorbed into the Egyptian army and some probably gained high rank in the pro­vincial administration. Ancient Egypt was probably the first civilization in Africa. It can no longer be automatically assumed that the iron-working which appears in central Africa in the early first millennium A.D. was derived from Meroe, since an alternative source is now known to have existed. But to justify the use of the term ‘market trading’ in qualifying their process of exchange, and why we might even call them market economies, we must first understand both terms in their historic contexts. But the Nubians were formidable enough for the royal author of the inscription to envisage that his troops might fail to resist them: He who shall destroy [the frontier] and fail to fight for it, he is not my son and was not born to me. Trade with the fabled Land of Punt (interactive) Egyptian Trade - Goods Traded. The Egyptian society improved drastically in the last part of the early Neolithic Period—the period before Predynastic Egypt—around 6,000 BCE. In his monumental work, Trade And Market In The Early Empires , Austro‐​Hungarian economic historian, Karl Polanyi, suggested that there were three main types of trade in the ancient world: gift trade, administered trade, and market trade. 2600 B.C.) Hanno was followed by other countrymen, and commercial relations were established with the locals. And he roughly explained how to identify one when he noted: Commercial trade, or, in our terms, market trade, arose as a burning issue out of the circumstances of the ancient world. Foreign cultures in Africa, Europe, and Asia produced a variety of goods that were exchanged along these passages. 10 African Civilizations More Amazing Than Ancient Egypt . Typically a warrior’s funeral equipment includes a formidable metal dagger and he is usually accompanied by two or three sacrificed women. Based on the productive outcomes of Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt, most historians consider Punt the traditional trade partner of ancient Egypt. Works that attempted to study these three civilizations like Charles Freeman’s Egypt, Greece, and Rome, revealed that the social structures were different among these societies—even while they shared similar gods—there was little to no difference between the economic strength of each at its height. Its merchants controlled the supply of goods including ivory, ostrich feathers, and wood to Egypt. when they were decimated, enslaved and expelled by Egyptian troops intent on securing full control of the trade-routes and natural resources of the area. According to some study, early Egyptians also conducted trade by measuring the proportional value of products through the shat system and other forms of proto‐​currencries. The ancient Egyptian civilisation grew for thousands of years intact because the Nile River Valley and Mediterranean and Red Sea border kept foreigners and their ideas away. Trade was very important to the economy of the Ancient African Empires. This, coupled with an open local market system, made poor hard‐​working citizens wealthy. The carving describes trade between Punt and Egypt in detail. By contrast, the wares of contemporary Egypt were sometimes painted but rarely incised, while the commonest fabric was plain red polished, often with an added black top. Although we cannot have a complete knowledge of economic life in these early African civilizations and future archaeological discoveries might even dismiss some arguments made here. Despite the sporadic hostilities, trade con­tinued to flow between Kush and Egypt, although the entry of Kushites into Lower Nubia was carefully regulated. Although, historians believed that Narmer (c. 3150 BCE) unified Upper and Lower Egypt around 3000 BCE and was perhaps the first Pharaoh.They agree that Menes and Narmer was most likely the same individual. Resistance to Egyptian control is indicated by serious revolts throughout Dynasty XVIII (1570­1320 B.C.) Interestingly, this was not reflective of the economic life in ancient Egypt, which was highly decentralized. Another route, the Darb el-Arbain, was used from the time of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. In pre-dynastic era (c6000 – 3150 BC) signs of trade had already begun to appear in material evidence of Egypt. The last effective viceroy of Kush, for example, was called Penehasi, the Nubian” and although this name was also given to Egyptians he may well have been a Sudanese. The great mass of the artifacts from Kerma are of Kushite manufacture; they include excellent pottery, mainly a very fine red polished black-topped ware in beaker and bowl forms, leather garments, and mica and ivory inlays in animal or geometric form. During the second phase of this period (known as Naqada II), the boat became the predominant motif in representational art. An early Phoenician settlement, the ancient city-state of Carthage was located in modern-day Tunisia and covered much of the Mediterranean. 15. and even now the earliest script, Meroitic, remains untranslatable. that some have suggested that the creative inspiration came from the already developed cultures of Mesopotamia. O'Connor, .David"Ancient Egypt and Black Africa" Expedition Magazine 14.1 (1971): n. pag. Egypt by now was divided between an Asiatic dynasty in the north and an Egyptian dynasty in the south, and the Kushite and Asiatic rulers entered into an alliance against the Egyptian king. 1 This is perhaps the reason why there is much outdated knowledge about how the early Africans engaged in trade and the characteristics of their economic cultures. 11. This led many economic historians to believe that the ancient Egyptian society was most likely communist. The importance of Ancient Egypt in the development of the rest of Africa has been debated. Some commodities were artworks and treasures used to beautify tombs and temples, and a rare but expensive commodity, myrrh. In time, the Nile became an aquatic highway, hastening trade throughout the country and the world at large. Kushite political organ­ization had reached the point where a single king, called by the Egyptians the “ruler of Kush,” controlled not only Lower Nubia but probably Upper Nubia, the Kushite home-land, as well. 5. The earliest known contact between Greece and Africa occurred in the Bronze Age, during the fourteenth century BCE, when the Minoans began to trade with Egypt. Myrrh can be compared to gold in the ancient world based on its rarity. For nearly 1500 years (3000-1570 B.C.) It was probably the second earliest African civilization after ancient Egypt with which it shared some cultural and commercial similarities. Although the Egyptians could not always control trade, they certainly tried. The importance of Ancient Egypt in the development of the rest of Africa has been debated. 2590 to 2420 B.C. The creation of granaries and mitigation of river water around the territories eased cultivation. Traders used it to bring goods from farther south in Africa, as well as upriver from the Mediterranean. From ca. From early historical times it is true that a steady though proportionately small stream of Nubians entered Egypt as slaves or mercenaries; however, even when immigrants settled down as a community they rapidly absorbed Egyptian culture and within a few gen­erations are virtually indistinguishable from Egyptians in the textual and archaeological record. On the other hand. A statuette of Osiris from 7 BCE was discovered in Zaire (modern‐​day Congo) on the banks of the River Lualaba. These were obtained as a result of A-group control over the trade in luxury items, such as ebony and ivory, from further south. The latter probably did not exercise as much power, since the Kushites we know were originally divided into a number of tribes and the consolidation of control must have been gradual. The kingdom of Punt is described in great detail in ancient Egyptian texts as the “Land of the Gods” – Ta Netjer. 3050 B.C. Ancient Egypt is left out of the history of Africa, due to the racist hierarchies of the nineteenth century who defended it by saying the Egyptians of the Pharaonic Age were not Negroes and therefore they were not Africans; and so their civilization, no matter how firmly and enduringly planted on the soil of Africa should be left outside the African context. Penn Museum, 1971 Web. Jean Yoyote, “Pharaonic Egypt Society, Economy and Culture,” General History of Africa Volume II ed. He is an expert in the African political economy with deep interest in African philosophy and history. The region first entered the Iron Agein roughly 1200 BCE, probably learning the processes through its contact with Egypt at that time. 136, 17. 6. The trade routes remained an important part of the African economy throughout the Middle Ages until the 1500s. Before going further, there was no Sahara Desert when ancient Egypt, Kemet, was created 8 000 years ago, at least. Narmer has also been considered to be either the King Scorpion or his son. Egyptian civilization was in fact peculiarly resistant to outside influence, but many ancient people, including Africans, borrowed from it. As we will see, all three early African civilizations considered in this series exhibited these features, albeit the justification for a market economy is even more straightforward. Anyone with the capacity to buy or exchange by barter was free to engage in such markets without control from the Pharaoh or local administrators (except when necessary to maintain peaceful order). Trade in Ancient West Africa. Economic history is an interesting if undervalued field often avoided for its dependence on interdisciplinary analysis. To understand human behavior, economics often depends on history, and history is sometimes a product of archaeology. The Nile is the biggest river in Africa. For the next 400 years Wawat (Lower Nubia) and Kush were colonial possessions, governed by an Egyptian bureaucracy and send­ing an annual tribute, primarily of gold, to Egypt. The Kushites were dark-skinned people with their own language or languages, and their burial structures and customs were, for the most part, unparalleled in contemporary Egypt. the indigenous cultures of Lower Nubia were markedly different from those of historical Egypt, and in Upper Nubia the distinctions carried on into the Meroitic period. Unlike the shat, Deben was made of copper and it was for the most part of ancient Egypt’s history, the primary unit of measurement, not the shat—the reason might be because of its portability. Oftentimes, peasant families worked extra hard on their farms during the good seasons and saved most of their grains for the bad seasons. In this new series on Market Economies in Ancient Africa, we will look at the earliest known African civilizations: ancient Egypt, Kush, and Aksum, how they practiced international trade, and their economic cultures. Faience (a powdered stone composition covered with a glassy glaze) occurs frequently but an un-Egyptian glazing of stone objects is also not uncommon, and some of the material produced, such as lions in blue faience or blue-glazed stone, are of Egyptian form but are not paralleled easily in Egypt itself. in the Hellenistic city of Alexandria. It is generally agreed that in late pre­historic times, between 5000 and 3000 B.C., the chances for contact between the Egyptian Nile valley, the Sahara and Africa south of the Sahara and along the upper reaches of the Nile, were better than in later periods. How did the ancient Egyptians pay for the goods they traded? 10 Axum Empire. The improvements in the means of food production and storage meant that less labor was needed on the farms. Quoted in Jean Leclant, “The Empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe,” General History of Africa Volume II ed. 9 The White Land in the south and the Red Land in the north both existed as separate entities. Ancient Egypt reached its height economically and territorially in the New Kingdom period (1567- 1085 BC). Egyptians would trade things such as gold, papyrus, linen and grain and occasionally, they even traded decorative artefacts. Choose 4. a). The history of Punt is connected intimately with the ancient Egyptian kingdoms and was a valuable trading partner of the kingdoms.. In the case of Africa, if there are no consistent economic interpretations of new archaeological discoveries to update our knowledge of the past, our mere theorizing will not do justice to the true economic foundations of the continent and its people. The trade of gold in West Africa goes back to antiquity with one of the earliest examples being the voyage of the Carthaginian explorer Hanno in the 5th century BCE. The Penn Museum respectfully acknowledges that it is situated on Lenapehoking, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Unami Lenape. Trade relations between the two kingdoms benefited each party and Egypt especially. Also, contrary to misconceptions that Africa has always had a backward role in the international trading system, these early African civilizations shaped global trade. This civilization was strikingly similar to Egypt and once ruled like Egyptian pharaohs. It is in fact a not uncommon belief that Egypt was part of Black Africa, but as far as physical appearance goes this is not true. The differences are most easily to be seen in the pottery, in which the varied and inventive traditions of the ancient Sudan contrast strikingly with the unimaginative wares of his­torical Egypt, but are to be found also in most other aspects of material culture, in language, and surely, in social and political organizations and in religious beliefs. To understand human behavior, economics often depends on history, and history is sometimes a product of archaeology. Starting with Egypt, the economic prosperity of each of the three civilizations considered in this series was triggered by the fall of the other. Even if the ancient Egyptians were not as involved in trade with inner African kingdoms as they were with those across the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, their domestic economy was impressive. 1670-1570 B.C. 1. However, there was no comparable spread of Egyptian cultural influence. Ancient Egypt reached its height economically and territorially in the New Kingdom period (1567- 1085 BC). These latter aspects are poorly documented, since the Sudan did not become literate in its own language until ca. 278–297, 16. Hundreds of objects, mostly fragmentary but certainly of Egyptian origin, were found at Kerma, consisting of statues and statuettes of Egyptian kings and officials, faience and stone vessels, metal and wood objects, jewelry, and pottery. The Nubians of Wawat now became Egyptianized and their chieftains, absorbed into the administrative system, are found depicted and buried in completely Egyptian style. and may have persisted into later periods. Succeeding pharaohs followed his path, especially during the reign of Hatshepsut. There is evidence that in the New King­dom especially individual Nubians were appointed to important posts at the royal court in Egypt and, in view of the fact that the pharaohs maintained harems which included Nubian women, it is not unlikely that a few of the Egyptian kings may have been at least partly Nubian. The first narratives mentioning Greek contact with Africa are in the Homeric poems, which date to the eighth century BCE. Even the chief remaining corridor for human movement, the Nile valley, was to a large extent blocked in the south by a vast swamp, the Sudd. As the Egyptian society developed, its social system became class‐​based with a central administration which did not control the barter trade. Meroë traded its iron in central and east Africa, and in Arabia. Since the rise of major civilizations in Africa, international trade was part of life. South Africa b). Predynastic Egypt was the time that preceded Pharaonic Egypt (before the unification in 3000 BCE or 3100 BCE). This commercial culture was sustained far after the decline of ancient Egypt by other civilizations like the New Kingdom of Egypt. Nevertheless, the indigenous population of this region (which, certainly by 2200 B.C., consisted of a mixture of brown and black-skinned peoples, according to Egyptian depictions) was remarkably resistant to Egyptian cultural influence in spite of close and sometimes oppressive contact with the Egyptians. Money was now being earned by respectable citizens through the simple device of buying and selling. In any case, Penehasi remained in Kush, presum­ably as its independent ruler, when the Egyptians abandoned the province in ca. Thousands of sculpted and painted representations from Egypt and hundreds of well preserved bodies from its cemeteries show that the typical physical type was neither Negroid nor Negro. Otherwise, borrowing was restricted to a simple tool, the “gouge” found in fact throughout the Sahara as well as along the Nile. George B. N Ayittey, Indigenous African Institutions (New York: Transnational Publishers, 1991) pg. These people, who may well have been related to the A-group. 5. Trade in Ancient West Africa The civilizations that flourished in ancient West Africa were mainly based on trade, so successful West African leaders tended to be peacemakers rather than warriors. Yet developed Greek art and thought cannot be mis­taken for Egyptian. In the case of Africa, if there are no consistent economic interpretations of new archaeological discoveries to update our knowledge of the past, our mere theorizing will not do justice to the true economic foundations of the continent and its people. This is not true of prehistorians and historians of Africa today; the old habit of attributing any unusually sophisticated idea or technique appearing amongst Black Africans to the influ­ence or the presence of a racially “superior” Hamite or other non-Negro has rightly been abandoned. 11. G. Mokhtar (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1990) pg. Lower Nubia, the area between the First and Second Cataracts (now shared between Egypt and the Sudan), has been thoroughly explored; since 1900 it has served as an ever-growing reservoir to the Aswan Dam, a fact which has stimulated periodic bursts of salvage archae­ology, culminating in an extraordinary inter­national effort in 1961-1964. Hatshepsut initiated trade relations with Punt during the nineteenth year of her reign. Ancient Egypt sat at an important crossroads of trading routes. Alfred Lucas and J. R Harris, Ancient Egyptian Building Materials and Industries (Massachusetts: Courier Corporation, 1999) pg. The civilization of Ancient Egypt, in the Nile Valley, is now in decline; farming is spreading in western and central Africa. One deben was worth 20 shat and 90 grams of gold. Ancient Carthage. Thereafter it is true that certain Egyptian cultural forms in art and religion become evident, but the many differences in detail and emphasis, and the eventually exclusive use of the native Meroitic language and script emphasize once again the individuality of these early Sudanese civilizations. Caravans of camel riding merchants from North Africa crossed the Sahara beginning in the seventh century of the Common Era. and while its retreating population introduced agri­culture and domesticated animals into western and central Africa, the desert routes to Egypt became more difficult to traverse. This is more significant because of the innovation of the first occupants of the Nile River—ancestors of the ancient Egyptians—that changed the cultures of farming and hunting. 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