The True Size of Africa

Well, this is very interesting!  And a great reminder that what we see when we're looking at maps isn't necessarily reality.

At Global Post
Baindu Kallon
October 28, 2013 13:25

Most maps are lying to you about how big Africa really is (it's really big)

The US, China, India and most of Europe could fit inside Africa and there'd still be room.

Ever notice how huge Greenland looks on a map? It's because most maps use the Mercator Projection. On it, Greenland looks to be the same size as Africa. In reality, Africa is actually 14 times larger. Replicating the globe onto a flat surface distorts the sizes of the countries yet many have no idea.

Computer graphics designer Kai Krause created the illustration above showing the true size of Africa. Yes, we know Africa is a continent being compared to countries but it's fascinating to see its sheer size next to common references.

Writers at The Economist created a similar map below using Gall's Stereographic Cylindrical Projection. Even though the result is different, they still draw a similar conclusion. Africa is much bigger than we thought:

Or as the West Wing so aptly explains, "Nothing is where you think it is":

Ancient Chinese Coin Found on Manda Island, Kenya

To quote Mr. Spock: Fascinating.  Now, I'm not sure exactly what this may mean; it could be evidence of ancient trade, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Admiral Zheng He or any of his vast armada actually landed on and/or traded with the natives of Manda when he was on his journey in the 1400s that eventually led to his circumnavigating the world  (well before any European did it); it could mean that someone with a penchant for old coins visited Manda at some time a hundred or more years after Zheng He came and went, and that someone might not necessarily have been Chinese.  Or perhaps the coin was a family piece, handed down on a sea-faring family from generation to generation, and some WWI or post-WWII visitor lost it (quel horreur!)  But when viewed as a whole along with other evidence of trade and contact between Africa and China, the discovery of this 600-some year old coin sure is interesting.

Public release date: 13-Mar-2013
Contact: Nancy O'Shea
media@fieldmuseum.org
312-665-7100
Field Museum

Ancient Chinese coin found on Kenyan island by Field Museum expedition

A joint expedition of scientists led by Chapurukha M. Kusimba of The Field Museum and Sloan R. Williams of the University of Illinois at Chicago has unearthed a 600-year-old Chinese coin on the Kenyan island of Manda that shows trade existed between China and east Africa decades before European explorers set sail and changed the map of the world.

The coin, a small disk of copper and silver with a square hole in the center so it could be worn on a belt, is called "Yongle Tongbao" and was issued by Emperor Yongle who reigned from 1403-1425AD during the Ming Dynasty. The emperor's name is written on the coin, making it easy to date. Emperor Yongle, who started construction of China's Forbidden City, was interested in political and trade missions to the lands that ring the Indian Ocean and sent Admiral Zheng He, also known as Cheng Ho, to explore those shores.

"Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of China," said Dr. Kusimba, curator of African Anthropology at The Field Museum. "It's wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately prove he came to Kenya," he added.

Dr. Kusimba continued, "This finding is significant. We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations."

That relationship stopped soon after Emperor Yongle's death when later Chinese rulers banned foreign expeditions, allowing European explorers to dominate the Age of Discovery and expand their countries' empires.

The island of Manda, off the northern coast of Kenya, was home to an advanced civilization from about 200AD to 1430AD, when it was abandoned and never inhabited again. Trade played an important role in the development of Manda, and this coin may show trade's importance on the island dating back to much earlier than previously thought.

 "We hope this and future expeditions to Manda will play a crucial role in showing how market-based exchange and urban-centered political economies arise and how they can be studied through biological, linguistic, and historical methodologies," Dr. Kusimba said.

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Other researchers who participated in the expedition to Manda include Dr. Janet Monge from the University of Pennsylvania, Mohammed Mchulla, staff scientist at Fort Jesus National Museums of Kenya and Dr. Amelia Hubbard from Wright State University. Also involved was Professor Tiequan Zhu of Sun Yat-Sen University, who identified the coin. The researchers also found human remains and other artifacts that predate the coin.

Photos available upon request.

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I noted the description of the coin (photo from article at smithsonian.com) -- it had the square opening in the center, which I believe in ancient Chinese iconography represented the four "corners" of the square plane of the earth in its earliest representations, and also the four directions and the four winds, all contained within the circle of the coin, which represented the great expanse of the heavens encircling the Earth (whether the Earth was perceived as a flat plane or a sphere, or something in-between). 

So, did Zheng He imagine that he was traveling in a large circle around the outer-most edges of the plane of the Earth when he embarked on his travels, and if he veered too far off course his ship and those of his fleet would fall off the Earth?  That seems to fly in the face of China's very early discovery of the properties of magnetism and its early use by their navigators to point ships in a certain direction.  Indeed, herstory shows us that the Chinese, like the ancient Egyptians (pre-Muslim invasion), were not ones to throw out old knowledge and "dictum" when new knowledge and "dictum" came along.  They just kept using the same symbols and incorporated the old into new concepts with a gloss of new intepretation, blending all that came before and all that was known now into a (more or less) harmonious whole.  These were people who did not suffer from cognitive dissonance :) 

One final note, sometimes, it is very difficult to tell ancient Chinese gaming pieces from ancient Chinese coins, and I believe there have been instances where the two have been mistaken for each other. 

Some more coverage (lots of repeat articles out there!) on the discovery of this coin:

Science Daily, March 13, 2013
Smithsonian, March 15, 2013
The Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2013

Way to go, Gavin Menzies :)  It's only a matter of time, methinks, before his theory is accepted seriously by a majority of historians and archaeologists. 

Pre-Islamic Discoveries in Ghana

When all is said and done, we know so little about ancient civlizations in Africa, other than what we know about Egypt, which I believe is usually classified as belonging to the Middle Eastern civilizations and/or the Mediterranean civlizations. Why is archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa so neglected?  If mankind arose out of Africa, then is it not likely that there were ancient centers where people amassed and created civilizations?  And yet, in my visits to the museums I have been able to get to through my travels, African exhibits mostly feature 19th and 20th century objects.  Does this mean that before this time African cultures produced nothing?  I don't believe that for a second!  So - where is the stuff?  Where is the history?

From BBC News
Page last updated at 13:12 GMT, Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Ghana dig reveals ancient society

Archaeologists have unearthed dozens of clay figures in Ghana, shedding light on a sophisticated society which existed before the arrival of Islam.

Experts from the University of Ghana found 80 sculptures believed to be between 800 and 1,400 years old.

They believe the figures, depicting animal and human forms, are part of a burial ground or shrine.

Archaeologists say the societies that constructed the figures simply disappeared when Islam arrived.

"What is interesting is that the people now living in this area seem to have no connection with the makers of the figurines," said the university's Benjamin Kankpeyeng.

"That would suggest that that they have more in common with peoples living in other parts of West Africa - but we need to do more work before we can be certain."

Arab slave theory

The statues were found amid hundreds of mounds in a densely packed 30km-square area. [Surely this is evidence of a major settlement!]  Mr Kankpeyeng intends to analyse the position and arrangement of the statues with Tim Insoll from the UK's Manchester University.

Mr Insoll told the BBC very little was known about civilisations in the area between 600 and 1200 AD because no written history was kept and the societies ceased to exist when Islam arrived.

He said experts still did not know why the civilisations came to an end - whether the people converted en masse to Islam, or were captured by Arab slave traders.

The statues, he said, could tell historians what kind of people inhabited West Africa in that time.

"Figures have been found in this area before, but what we can do with the latest find is map their arrangement to find out what their purpose was - whether for sacrifice or some other ritual," he said.

The northern Ghana site, near the village of Yikpabongo, was first excavated in 1985, and the dig was restarted in 2007.

The latest batch of figures was discovered in January.

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Even more fascinating details in this article from The Independent:

Figurines provide clues to lost African civilisation
By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent
Thursday, 18 February 2010

The round clay outline of a human body decorated with necklace, belt and bracelets has provided archaeologists with the first glimpse in possibly 1,400 years of a lost West African civilisation.

The discovery of 80 clay figurines from burial mounds in a remote area of northern Ghana is being hailed as evidence of the existence of a hitherto unknown but sophisticated society. It is hoped that the find will provide information about the region's pre-Islamic history.

A combined research team from the universities of Ghana and Manchester believe that the hundreds of mounds in the 20 square mile area of the dig were ancient shrines.

"These finds will help to fill a significant gap in our scant knowledge of this period before the Islamic empires developed in West Africa," said Professor Tim Insoll of Manchester University. "They were a sophisticated and technically advanced society: for example, some of the figurines were built in sections."

However, so far the find has thrown up more questions than answers as scientists puzzle over what appears to be a deliberate practice of breaking the figures into sections and placing them beside human skulls. Ghana's Dr Benjamin Kankpeyeng said: "The relative position of the figurines surrounded by human skulls means the mounds were the location of an ancient shrine. The skulls had their jawbones removed with teeth placed nearby – an act of religious significance."

The figures, including beautifully carved human and animal sculptures, are believed to be between 800 and 1,400 years old. The next step for the research team will be to carry out analysis of the residues of material which were packed into holes within the figurines to provide more clues about the society.

"We are certain that these people filled the holes with something, but the question is: was it a medicinal substance, or blood, or other material from a sacrifice?" Professor Insoll asked.

The scientists face a race against time to safely remove the current batch of figurines they have found – the first of which were located in 2007 – as illegal excavations are already encroaching on the site.

Looters have carried out hundreds of illegal digs nearby in search of Komaland terracottas, which were first unearthed in 1987. In the year following that official find, so-called Komaland figures started appearing in ever-increasing quantities in the art markets of Dakar, Paris and New York.