TRADE ROUTES OF THE ANCIENT BLACKS During the years of migrations of Africans to all parts of the world, those who crossed the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific also used the seas to make trips to the northern parts of Africa. They may have avoided the northern routes across the deserts at particular times of the year and sailed northward by sailing parallel to the coastslines on their way northward or southward, just as the Phoenicians, Nubians and Egyptians had done.Boats made of skin, logs, hollowed ttee trunk, lashed canoes and skin could have been used for trading and commerce.The reed boat is a common type of watercraft used in West Africa and other parts of the world, yet there were other boats and ships to add to those already mentioned above. Boats similar to those of Nubia and Egypt were being used in the Sahara just as long or even longer than they were being used in Egypt. In fact, civilization in the Sahara and Sudan existed before Egypt was settled by Blacks from the South and the Sahara.The vessels which crossed the Atlantic about 1500 B.C. (during the early Afro-Olmec period) were most likely the same types of ships shown in the sahara cave paintings of ships dating to about 7,000 B.C. or similar ships from Nubian rock carvings of 3000 B.C..Egyptologists such as Sir Flinders Petrie believed that the ancient African drawings of ships represent papyrus boats similar to the one built by the Bambara People for Thor Hayerdhal on the shores of Lake Chad. This boat made it to Barbadose, however they did not reinforce the hull with rope as the ancient Egyptians and Nubians did with their ancient ships. That lack of reinforcement made the Bambara ship weak, however another papyrus ship built by Ayamara Indians in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia was reinforced and it made it to the West Indies without difficulty.Naval historian Bjorn Landstrom believes that some of the curved hulls shown on rock art and pottery from the Nubian civilization (circa 3000 B.C.) point to a basic three-plank idea. The planks would have been sewn together with rope. The larer version must have had some interior framing to hold them together. The hulls of some ot these boats show the vertical extension of the bow and stern which may have been to keep them bouyant.These types of boats are stilll in use in one of the most unlikely places. The Djuka and Saramaka Tribes of Surinam, known also as Bush Negroes,build a style of ship and boat similar to that of the Ancient Egyptians and Nubians, with their bows and sterns curving upward and pointing vertically.This style of boat is also a common design in parts of West Africa, particularly along the Niger River where extensive river trading occurs. They are usually carved from a single tree trunk which is used as the backbone. Planks are then fitted alongside to enlarge them. In all cases, cabins are built on top of the interior out of woven mat or other strong fiberous material. These boats are usually six to eight feet across and about fifty feet long. There is evidence that one African Emperor Abubakari of Mali used these almadias or longboats to make a trip to the Americas during the 1300s.(see, They Came Before Columbus, Ivan Van Sertima; Random House: 1975)Apart from the vessels used by the West Africans and south western Sahara Black Africans to sail across the Atlantic to the Americas, Nubians, Kushites, Egyptians and Ethiopians were known traders in the Mediterranean. The Canaanites, the Negroid inhabitants of the Levant who later became the Phoenicians also were master seafarers. This has caused some to speculate that the heads of the Afro-Olmecs represent the heads of servants of the Phoenicians, yet no dominant people would build such massive and collosol monuments to their servants and not to themselves.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:46:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015