Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Africa

Please post at least two questions you have about Africa that show that you have read and thought about the material on the assigned web pages. Please post by 6 p.m. Sunday (or email me to let me know why that's not possible, and post as soon as you can).

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

if the conditions in the Sahara were so terrible then how did the few Sahara tribes survive?
Is the story of Mansa Musa true? Where he gave away so much gold that he affected the economy for 20 years afterwards.

Anonymous said...

1) What/where is the village of Juffure?
2)Who had salt first? Europe or West Africa?
3) Was there a name for the trade routes in Africa? Like the Silk Road?

Anonymous said...

Why did Rome salt the farmland around Carthage instead of using it for themselves?

Were camels the most common way to travel with or without goods in Africa?

Anonymous said...

1. Why was Samanguru killing the sons of a warrior? Was he scared that they would take over?
2. What exactly did Robert Hall do to make it seem as if it was built by a foreign civilization? What foreign civilizations was he trying to convince had built Zimbabwe?

Anonymous said...

1. If the Sahara Desert separated the Muslim world of North Africa from places like Ghana and Mali, why were some inhabitants of these places Muslims (like Mansa Musa)? It seems strange that a rich king would convert to Islam when there was so little contact with the Muslim world.

2. Why were many of the European colonists so determined to believe that the ruins of Zimbabwe had been built by a foreign culture, and not by native Africans (even going so far as to destroy portions of the ruin)?

Anonymous said...

1. Could anyone who wanted to be a griot or were there certain people who had to?

How did the economy of Cairo recover after Mansa Musa gave away so much gold?

Harry said...

1) Why hasn't West African History been written down? It seems that these were very learned people and so it would be easy for them to write down their history instead of keeping it oral.

2)What happened to all the gold that Mansa Musa gave away?

Anonymous said...

1) Did the traders get mad when they were taxed, when passing through the kingdom of Ghana? And was this common for civilization to tax people ?

2) The Nok went from the stone age to the iron age, when other civilizations went from the iron age to the stone age. Why was the Nok opposite of other cultures? Were they more technologically advanced?

Anonymous said...

Where the griots seen as mystical beings(like native American storytellers)or are they just normal storytellers.

Was Timbuktu one of the bigger of the trading cities in the world? and was their trading any different from any where else.

Anonymous said...

1. Does the terra cotta from The Nok have any connection to the terra cotta warriors?

2. Ghana was named after the war chief, does this mean that war was extremely important in Ghana?

Anonymous said...

Where did Mansa Musa get all of his gold? if the economy for gold was affected by his travel, what was the gold economy like where he lived?

for the civilizations that traded salt and gold equally, i understand why the civilization needed salt but what did the other one use gold for if they were a salt mining community? it couldn't have been used for gold

Anonymous said...

1) How2 did a griot lwarn the history of families in the village? Did all the individual families have to know their history?

2) Why did Sundiata pick islam to convert to? why not another popular religion?

i want to apologize for this being late... the clock in my room is an hour slow so i though it was just a little past 6 not past 7, my apology!!

Anonymous said...

Why do people not believe that the Karanga's were capable of building a city this amazing?

Though Timbuktu began as a trading city, what made it become more of a religious city?

Anonymous said...

1) How did the Europeans discover the vast stone ruins of the Karanga?

2) What were some of the trade routes from the Iron Age culture in Africa?

Anonymous said...

1. Why were the colonists so desperate to convince people that forigners built timbuctu?
2. Was Mansa Musa's tendancy to give away gold part of the downfall of that empire?
3. Did any major phonecian colonies survive?

Anonymous said...

if the sahara was so harsh why did they live there?
The gold that was given away, where did it go and what were the circumstances?

Anonymous said...

A Great Oral Tradition, could things be mixed up or twisted, similarly to telephone?

Trade, how long did it take for Arabic to become the common language?

Ghana, what lasting impact did the chef Ghana accomplish?

Ghana, why were people afraid of "venturing to the ocean"?