Who wuz deez ppl dat built dis shiiiiet, yo?
On a serious note, I came across an article that referenced two cities that I'd never heard of until today. (http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-great-lost-cities-of-africa-1507656099)
Who were the folks who lived in Song Mnara and Kilwa?
>>1292308
Is that ritual grounds?
>>1292326
A pool.
>>1292321
Is it just me or does those look like crosses going along the whatever the fuck that is?
Swahili city states probably
>>1292416
they look like crosses but certainly not crucifixes
>>1292467
They look pretty similar to a crucifix, though. Could have been a symbol they saw elsewhere.
>>1292476
Nah family, they're a bit too tall and they continue into the rest of the structure. The cross bit is something that looks like a stylistic choice not a symbolic representation like you see in crosses say in a church or in jewelry
Why'd they abandon these cities, though?
>>1292535
In the case of Kilwa Kisiwani, anyway, the Portuguese screwed them and then the French screwed them later on.
I guess the meme about Sub-Saharan Africans only having mudhuts is false.
>>1292815
they just claim Kilwa as Arab and call this person an Arab and not black
>>1292815
The cities were built around the slave trade.
The ruling lot were a mixture of Arabs and Africans. The slaves were all Africans.
>>1292302
>>1292311
>>1292313
>>1292316
This is actually an early modern Portuguese/Omani fort. The rest you posted is Swahili though, mostly from around the 14th-16th centuries. Also check out Gedi and Mnarani ruins in Kenya, dating from around the same period.
>>1293611
The idea that the cities were built around slavery is completely false. No record of any significant medieval Swahili slave trade exists. The trade only became significant in the late 18th and 19th century and was centered around Omani/Swahili ports like Zanzibar.
they were arab traders on the east coast not black
>>1295546
>http://gozips.uakron.edu/~amartin/global/Ibn_Battuta.htm
>We stayed one night in this island [Mombasa], and then pursued our journey to Kulwa, which is a large town on the coast. The majority of its inhabitants are Zanj, jet-black in colour, and with tattoo marks on their faces.
Fuck off.
Why are people so determined to try and disprove the idea that black people are capable of building noteworthy structures just like anyone else? Is this a product of the racial bias found in Western education?
>>1296482
The narrative is that black people are subhuman and inferior
This kind of stuff gets in the way
>>1296482
What are memes faggot
>>1295540
>The rest you posted is Swahili though, mostly from around the 14th-16th centuries
>>1294400
>they think these cities started out as major slave hubs rather than take into account the information we had of them before Arabs (which isnt even a racial group)
You do realise that the Arabs kept slaves, and where present in the area from the 8th century onwards? What "information" is there from before the Arabs? That's right, literally nothing.
>in b4 Axum / Kush
>>1296547
The people who built it were Muslims, but they weren't Arab.
>>1296574
>The people who built it were Muslims, but they weren't Arab.
The labourers were natives, the architects were Arabs, and the whole purpose for the cities was purely to feed the Arab hunger for slaves.
>>1296586
>The labourers were natives
Yes.
>the architects were Arabs
If that's the case, why did they build in a distinctly Swahili style, and why does their architecture look nothing like Arabian architecture? And more importantly, where is your proof?
>the whole purpose for the cities was purely to feed the Arab hunger for slaves
The cities were built for the export of ivory from the mainland and gold from Zimbabwe. There is absolutely no evidence that slaves were a significant export before the 18th century.
Fuck off.
>>1296488
I don't get how or why the white supremacist narrative needs to keep blacks as "subhuman beasts" though, even if they did have structures they were few and far between and probably weren't huge advanced empires. They could still fell superior for what a bunch of people who are only tangentially related to them did.
And "worse comes to worse" they still have aboriginals, though I guess they are too contained/uncommon to complain about.
I hate to say it, but these were built by Semites and Hamites, not by negroes :(