Early African Societies and the Bantu Migrations: CHAPTER 3: TRADITIONS AND ENCOUNTERS 6TH EDITION - AP World History

Early Agricultural Society in Africa

• Egypt most prominent of African societies
• Emerged alongside Nubia/other agricultural societies
• Sahara region used to be grassy steppe lands with water (10,000 BCE)
• Nile river - the principle source of water flowing through North Africa

Climate Change/Development of Agriculture in Africa

• Grass/cattle flourished
• Lived by hunting wild cattle/collecting wild grain (9,000 BCE)

Early Sudanic Agriculture

• Domesticated cattle/became nomadic herders
  • Cultivated sorghum/yams
  • Had permanent settlements (5,000 BCE)
• Cornered small monarchies
  • Developed religious beliefs based on agricultural society

Climatic Change

• The northern half of Africa experienced long-term climatic change
  • Influenced social organization/agriculture
• The climate became hotter/drier after 5,000 BCE
  • People driven to river regions (Nile)
  • Annual flooding makes rich soil for agriculture

Early Agriculture in Nile Valley

• Egypt/Nubia: "gifts of the Nile"
  • Agriculture transformed entire Nile River Valley
  • Egypt - Lower third of Nile River
  • Nubia - Middle third 
  • After 5,000 BCE, people cultivate gourds/watermelons, domesticate donkeys/cattle, wheat/barley
  • Agriculture easy in Egypt (flooding), more work in Nubia
  • States emerge by 4,000 BCE, small kingdoms by 3,300 BCE
• Introduced ancient language to Coptic (language of ancient Egypt) to lower reaches of Nile Valley
• High agricultural activity led to a rapid increase in population 
• Rise of agricultural villages

Political Organization/Unification of Egypt

• Unified rule came to Egypt around 3,100 BCE with Menes
• Built centralized state around a pharaoh
• Founded Memphis

Archaic Period/Old Kingdom

• Pharaoh power greatest during 1st Millenium of Egyptian history
  • (Archaic Period/Old Kingdom)
• Great pyramids built during this period (Khufu the largest)

Relations Between Egypt/Nubia/Early Kush

• Strong interest in each other
• Egypt interested for political/commercial reasons
• Nubia interested in wanting to protect their independence, sought to control trade down the Nile
• Violence between Egypt/Nubia
  • Egypt dominates from 3,000-2,400 BCE
• Nubia later develops into Kingdom of Kush
• Interaction through diplomacy Nubian mercenaries/intermarriage

Turmoil & Empire

• Period of upheaval after Old Kingdom (2,160-2,040 BCE)
• Middle Kingdom (2,040-1,640 BCE)
• Nomadic horsemen, Hyksos, invade Egypt
  • Used bronze weapons/chariots (Egypt doesn't have)
  • Captured Memphis 1,674 BCE
  • Caused revolt in Upper Egypt

New Kingdom

• Pharaoh gains power, huge army, large bureaucracy
• Building projects, temples, palaces, statues
• Egypt falls into long period of decline
• Assyrians invaded Egypt, campaigned very far, drove out Kushites, subjected Egypt to Assyrian rule

*NOTES

Archaic Period: 3,100-2,660 BCE

Old Kingdom: 2,660-2,160 BCE

New Kingdom: 1,550-1,070 BCE

Hyksos - "foreign rulers", horse riding nomads that captured Memphis

Tuthmosis III: (reign. 1,479-1,425 BCE), dominated coastal regions of the eastern Mediterranean, built empire including Palestine, Syria, Nubia

King Kashta: Conquered Thebes around 760 BCE, founded Kushite Dynasty

The Formation of Complex Societies/Sophisticated Cultural Traditions...

• Encouraged specialized labor, was prominent
• Defined social classes
• Productive economy

Emergence of Cities/Stratified Societies

• Cities not as prominent
• (3,100 BCE) Memphis - Head of Delta
• Thebes - Administrative center of Upper Egypt
• (2,900 BCE) Heliopolis - Center of sun god cult
• Tanis - Important sea on Mediterranean

Nubian Cities

• Kerma - dominates trade routes
• Napata - Was the most prosperous after Nubian conquest of Egypt
• Meroë - Most influential city after Assyrian invasion because it's farther south 

Social Classes

• Egypt: Peasants/slaves (agriculture), professional military, and administrators
• Nubia:  Complex/hierarchal society (can tell from tombs)
• Patriarchy in both but women have more influence 
  • Women act as regents in Egypt
  • Nubia: Women serve as queens 

Economic Specialization/Trade

• Bronze metallurgy
• Sudanic people developed tech for iron production
• Pottery, textile making, leather production, stone cutting
• Transportation: sailboats, carts, and donkey caravans 

Trade Networks

• Egypt/Nubia: Exotic goods from Nubia (ebony, gold, gems, slaves)
• Pottery, wine, linen, decorative items from Egypt
• Egypt/North: wood (ex. cedar) from Lebanon 
• Egypt/Africa: Punt (East Africa)

Early Writing in the Nile Valley

• Hieroglyphs found on monuments/papyrus by 3,200 BCE
  • Symbols were particularly prominent on temples
• Hieratic script, everyday writing 2,600-600 BCE
• Demotic/Coptic scripts adapt Greek writing
• Scribes live privileged lives
• Nubia adapts Egyptian writing until Meroitic in 5th century BCE (not been deciphered) 

Development of Organized Traditions

• Principal gods' sun gods Amon and Re
• Brief period of monotheism: Aten
• Pharaoh Akhenaten's idea of a new capital at Akhetaten 
  • Orders all gods names chiseled out; their names die with him 
• Mummification
  • (Old Kingdom) At first only pharaohs mummified
  • Later ruling classes/wealthy can afford it
  • (Middle/New Kingdom) Commoners can afford mummies too
• Cult of Osiris
  • Brother Seth murders Osiris/scatters his body
  • Wife Isis gathers him up/gods restore his life in Underworld
  • Becomes associated with Nile, crops, life/death, immortality 
  • Osiris judges the heart of the dead against feather of truth 
  • Nubians combine Egyptian religions with their own

**NOTES

Hatsheput: reign. 1473-1458 BCE

Meroitic - borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphics but used them to represent sounds rather than ideas

Amon was originally a local Theban deity

Re: sun-god worshipped at Heliopolis 

Akhenaten: (1,353 - 1,335 BCE) 

Osiris: Honored through a cult 

• Attracted strong popular interest
• Interest god of the underworld

Bantu - language group from west-central Africa meaning "persons" 

Bantu Migrations/Early Agricultural Societies of Sub-Saharan Africa

• The dynamics of Bantu expansion
  • Live along banks of rivers; use canoes
  • Cultivating yarns/oil palms
  • Clan based villages
  • Trade with hunter-gathering forest people 
  • By 1,000 BCE, occupied most of Africa south of the equator

Features of the Bantu

• Use canoes and settle along banks of rivers; spread from there
• Agricultural surplus causes them to move inland from rivers
• Involved with trade

Early Agricultural Societies of Sub-Saharan Africa

• Other societies besides Bantu migrate
• Spread of agriculture to most of Sub-Saharan Africa by 1,000 BCE
  • Mostly small communities led by chiefs with "age sets" and initiation rites
• Religious differences by area
  • Some worship single, impersonal divine force representing good/bad
  • Many individuals pray to ancestors/local gods for intervention
• Mixing/intermingling of cultures

SUMMARY

• More complex economic and social systems
• Agriculture HUGE
• Bantu migrations led to intermixing populations, establishing Bantu languages