There were undoubtedly many more than that, but it is an unfortunate accident of history that Africa came into regular contact with European civilization at a time that would be best compared to Europe’s Dark Ages.
The Kingdoms to the south of Egypt were regular trade and cultural partners with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the early Indian kingdoms - Punt is known to have been in contact with all of those as early as 2300BC. The Kushites were arguably responsible for the preservation of Egyptian civilization after the Late Bronze Age collapse.
In Central Africa, something caused the Sao civilization to collapse almost completely around 1600. It went from a 2000 year old civilization, likely of allied city states, to nothing in less then a century - as great a mystery as the Maya collapse. This closely parallels the disappearance of Zimbabwe, but we know even less about it.
Thanks. Yeah, Africa had many ancient civilizations. I remember watching a documentary on one civilization that thrived on salt trade from an enormous salt lake/pan. I don’t remember exactly, but it was possibly somewhere in southern/South Sudan or Ethiopia. Then there was another one in the present day Mali or Mauritania.
especially with the Maya collapse. makes you wonder about disease like the plague which was circulating the the 17th century, if spanish sailors introducted a disease to the Mayans which they had sufficient immunity to. capable of wiping out a majority of their population and culture.
It’s fascinating to me that different cultures have a lot of similarities while being isolated by continents,eg Egypt and Mayan structures. Not sure if this has been explained yet.
I agree, but probably for a different reason. I think the explanation is fairly straight forward…an extension of parallel evolution where similar solutions to the same basic “problem” are found independently in different places. What I find fascinating about it is what says about the human condition that the same idea can be reached by different groups independently.
I think in the case of pyramids, we start with a fairly universal human idea of god/s being responsible for phenomena you cannot explain, then it makes sense that lots of cultures would independently look to the sky for where those gods are, and build structures that have some religious component be built in a way that gets them close to those gods.
i dont think the concept of building a pyramid (if that is what you are refering to?) is unique.
ive seen a few documentries (narated by americans, sorry guys, but you do know how to make a documentry sensationalised) bring together paralells, with the driver being having two civilisations never in contact building similar structures… but to me the structure itself is a simple way of building a massive structure.
amazing buildings, im all on board with that…but the fact they both had pyramids…nah…its not evidence of flying green men or anything
It’s not just the structure itself, it’s also the size. It’s an impractical structural phenomenon that has similarities in scale and shape. I can understand the reasoning behind unconnected cultures using a similar building process, however I find it hard to understand why there was a similar decision on scale.
fixed it for you. Mayans still exist in the Yucatan. I spend a lot of vacation time near the Tulum ruins, it’s a beautiful area of the world and I hope that they are able to maintain some of the natural beauty as the construction expands south down the peninsula
Oh, definitely - collapse is probably not the right word There was a revival around 1300, a fragmented period of restoring some of the cities, and building new ones. Tulum was likely built after the end of the Classical Maya period, during that revival phase. It and other cities were in existence right up to contact with Spain.
But the significance of the Collapse that ended the Classical Maya period (catastrophic decline in population, increase in wars, etc) should not be dismissed just because there were survivors - it may be one of the most powerful examples we have of the impact of climate change.
nobody knows why the Mayan civilization died off. Could have been disease or drought or warfare, nobody can be sure as there are no records from 1000 years ago.
throwing blame at climate change can be misconstrued as humans affecting the planet in a way degrading to their existance. if you’ve ever seen the temples at Chichen Itza or Tulum or Coba, you’d see two things
1 - Mayans lived with the land.
2 - their locations were chosen for accessibility to trade routes and climates.
Specifically to part 2 - the Tulum area has its own microclimate, very similar to areas like Cannon Beach on the Oregon coastline.
Probably not global climate change, but the most likely explanation for the ‘Southern Collapse’ is environmental degradation. There aren’t documents, but archaeology and soil analysis both point to drought and deforestation occurring at the same time as the lower Yucatan cities were abandoned. Those same micro-climates that allowed the cities to thrive made them much easier to alter rainfall patterns in particular.
fortunately, mother nature has the ability to regrow and quickly. whilst Tulum is a coastal site with very little for trees (read: hurricane belt), the inland sections where Coba and Chichen Itza are located are in dense vegetation, tropical mangrove swamps and such.
One of the possible reasons that the Indus Valley Civilization died out was because the Yamuna’s flow was diverted into Ganga (with a probable earthquake or a similar environment degradation) instead of it feeding the Indus River or the Ghaggar - Hakra river
The other reason is the drying up of the Ghaggar - Hakra (Saraswati River) which also fed the Indus Valley basin.
There ofcourse is the Aryan invasion theory.
So something similar happening to the Mayans isn’t to be unexpected.
Again , It’s two cultures which have evolved separately having kings with a lot of manpower. Any similarities in terms of building styles is purely coincidence
Also , I daresay you can still find the after effects of the change of course of Yamuna and the drying of the Ghaggar - Hakra river in the ecosystem of Pakistan today.
For one, It’s either drought or floods. Floods where the existing river systems are unable to deal with the increased flow and drought when the rainfall isn’t enough to sustain the land.
I just became one of those people.