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As the cradle of modern humans, ancient Africa holds a ton of interesting and dark facts:
Ancient Egyptians removed brains during mummification by inserting a hook through the nostrils, discarding the brain, but they preserved the heart as the seat of intelligence.
Archaeological sites in Carthage (modern Tunisia) reveal urns filled with cremated infants. They most likely practiced ritual child sacrifice to gods like Baal Hammon.
Sudan’s Nubian pyramids (circa 300 BCE–300 CE) number over 200. They constructed more pyramids than ancient Egypt, but they are smaller in size.
Great Zimbabwe’s builders perfected a mortarless construction technique where precisely cut granite blocks locked together through expertly balanced weight distribution. This ancient African culture created walls up to 11 meters high that have endured for over 800 years.
The Garamantes was an ancient Libyan kingdom (500 BCE–700 CE) that engineered 600 miles of hand-carved underground tunnels beneath the Sahara Desert to tap hidden aquifers. They transformed barren sand into farmland that fed 50,000 people for over a millennium.
In ancient Africa, the Edo people’s 16,000-km earthwork system (pre-15th century) surpassed the Great Wall of China in length but was largely destroyed by British colonizers.
Ethiopia’s Church of St. Mary of Zion claims to safeguard the biblical Ark, guarded by a monk who never leaves its side.
The Kingdom of Kush (modern Sudan) deployed elephants in battles against Roman legions, but their panicky nature often backfired in battle.
In 1591, Moroccan forces under Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur swept into Timbuktu, burning priceless Islamic manuscripts containing advanced astronomical calculations. They destroyed one text that correctly measured the distance between Earth and Mars centuries before European astronomers.
Around Lake Chad (6th century BCE–16th century CE), the Sao people built massive clay fortifications to repel invaders.
During her reign over ancient Kush in the 1st century BCE, Queen Amanirenas fearlessly led cavalry charges against Roman fortifications in Egypt and lost her eye in combat. However, she successfully negotiated peace terms that secured Kushite independence and eliminated tributary payments to Rome.
After defeating Carthage in the Third Punic War, the Romans methodically destroyed the city over 17 days in 146 BCE, enslaving 50,000 survivors and ordering that salt be poured into the farmland. However, modern historians now believe this infamous “salting” was likely propaganda.
Nigeria’s Nok culture (1500 BCE–500 CE) created striking terracotta sculptures, Africa’s earliest known figurative art.
Cleopatra VII practied incent by marrying both her brothers (Ptolemy XIII and XIV) in order to preserve royal bloodlines.
This Mauritanian site (1600 BCE) features Africa’s oldest surviving stone settlements, built by early agro-pastoralists.
The San people of southern Africa practiced ritualistic trance dancing fueled by the hallucinogenic !Kabi root for over 30,000 years. Rock art from that era shows dancers wearing animal masks and experiencing out-of-body sensations that shamans interpreted as spiritual possession.
The Kanem-Bornu Empire amassed vast wealth through systematic slave raids along Lake Chad. They used mounted cavalry wearing quilted cotton armor that could deflect arrows while capturing up to 3,000 people in a single campaign.
The Berber queen Dihya (7th century CE) led fierce opposition against Arab invasions, allegedly scorching North Africa’s lands to deter enemies.
Between 1181-1221 CE, Ethiopian King Lalibela carved 11 monolithic churches directly from volcanic rock. This Includes the largest monolithic church in the world, Beta Medhane Alem. Local legends claim it was completed in just 24 years with the help of angels working through the night.
The Bantu expansion revolutionized sub-Saharan Africa via iron technology and farming techniques. Their iron-smelting furnaces reached temperatures of 1,800°C (3,272°F) — hot enough to melt modern steel.
European archaeologists once refused to believe Africans created Ife’s remarkably lifelike bronze heads from the 12th century, instead attributing these masterworks to Greeks or the mythical Atlanteans. This was despite the fact that metallurgists in Ife achieved a level of bronze purity that wouldn’t be matched in Europe until the Industrial Revolution.
Some Roman Egyptians worshipped Sobek, the crocodile god, with temples housing live crocodiles adorned with gold and jewels.
Medieval Europeans were captivated by tales of a mythical Christian monarch named Prester John, who supposedly presided over a vast Ethiopian empire filled with unicorns and fountains of youth. They sent numerous expeditions to find this fictional ruler—even Pope Alexander III wrote him a letter in 1177 that never received a reply.
A 29-million-year-old glass field in Egypt, formed by a meteorite impact, was used for Neolithic tools and Tutankhamun’s jewelry.
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