WEBVTT 00:00:00.475 --> 00:00:28.865 ["Africa" Theme Music and water splashing] 00:00:28.865 --> 00:00:52.103 ["Africa" Theme Music] 00:00:52.103 --> 00:00:55.023 Just over 100 years ago, a wandering prospector, 00:00:55.023 --> 00:00:58.401 a German by origin called Karl Mauch, searching for gold, 00:00:58.401 --> 00:01:03.304 came through these remote hills of a long trail, 00:01:03.304 --> 00:01:07.018 and stumbled on this. 00:01:07.018 --> 00:01:11.078 He was the first white man ever to see it. 00:01:11.078 --> 00:01:14.816 And what he'd found, though he didn't know, 00:01:14.816 --> 00:01:19.185 were the largest man-made structures in any part of old Africa, 00:01:19.185 --> 00:01:23.021 south of the valley of the Nile. 00:01:23.021 --> 00:01:30.021 Narrator: What were these mysterious ruins found so unexpectedly in the far interior of Africa? 00:01:30.021 --> 00:01:32.595 About the ancient history of the black peoples, 00:01:32.595 --> 00:01:37.139 nothing was remembered in the outside world, or even known. 00:01:37.139 --> 00:01:39.741 Today, at last, we're beginning to learn. 00:01:39.741 --> 00:01:46.882 We know now that these great buildings stood at the heart of a powerful black kingdom. 00:01:46.882 --> 00:01:49.747 Within these almost overwhelming walls, 00:01:49.747 --> 00:01:52.251 the kings lived in royal seclusion. 00:01:52.251 --> 00:01:55.771 Adding to their mystery, according to the nature of kings. 00:01:55.771 --> 00:02:00.021 Invested with a religious, as well as a temporal power, 00:02:00.021 --> 00:02:06.465 they were believed to embody the whole welfare of their people. 00:02:06.465 --> 00:02:09.355 Narrator: A stone-built city in the heart of Africa. 00:02:09.355 --> 00:02:14.022 And yet, the white people who first saw it were so blinded by their prejudices 00:02:14.022 --> 00:02:19.315 that they could not believe the evidence of their own eyes. 00:02:19.315 --> 00:02:23.937 Rather than face the possibility that Africans might have a history of their own, 00:02:23.937 --> 00:02:26.987 they fabricated exotic explanations, 00:02:26.987 --> 00:02:31.020 and imagined fantastic rites in honor of far away monarchs 00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:35.795 like King Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba. 00:02:35.795 --> 00:02:45.225 The famous German philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, set the tone. 00:02:45.225 --> 00:02:48.266 Though he'd never been to Africa, and knew nothing of its people, 00:02:48.266 --> 00:02:53.535 this was his publicly expressed opinion in 1831: 00:02:53.535 --> 00:02:56.616 Voiceover: "This is the land where men are children. 00:02:56.616 --> 00:03:00.644 A land lying beyond the daylight of self-conscious history, 00:03:00.644 --> 00:03:04.781 and enveloped in the black cover of night. 00:03:04.781 --> 00:03:07.255 At this point, let us forget Africa. 00:03:07.255 --> 00:03:09.155 Not to mention it again. 00:03:09.155 --> 00:03:13.425 For Africa is no historical part of the world." 00:03:13.425 --> 00:03:19.785 Narrator: Hegel was not alone. 00:03:19.785 --> 00:03:22.168 His views were echoed widely. 00:03:22.168 --> 00:03:27.237 An English explorer who did know Africa, and had studied some of its customs and languages, 00:03:27.237 --> 00:03:30.808 Richard Burton, had this to say: 00:03:30.808 --> 00:03:35.015 Voiceover: "The study of the negro is the study of man's rudimental mind. 00:03:35.015 --> 00:03:38.747 He would appear rather a degeneracy from the civilized man 00:03:38.747 --> 00:03:41.186 than a savage rising to the first step, 00:03:41.186 --> 00:03:44.784 were it not for his total incapacity for improvement. 00:03:44.784 --> 00:03:46.949 He has not the ring of the true mettle. 00:03:46.949 --> 00:03:50.619 There is no rich nature for education to cultivate. 00:03:50.619 --> 00:03:56.200 He seems to belong to one of those childish races, never rising to man's estate, 00:03:56.200 --> 00:04:02.117 who fall like worn-out links from the great chain of animated nature." 00:04:02.117 --> 00:04:04.281 Narrator: Another famous explorer, Samuel Baker, 00:04:04.281 --> 00:04:08.581 who passed through this very district in his search for the source of the Nile, 00:04:08.581 --> 00:04:10.199 wrote in his memoirs: 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:16.990 Voiceover: "Human nature viewed in its crudest state as seen amongst African savages 00:04:16.990 --> 00:04:19.759 is quite on the level of that of the brute, 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.727 and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. 00:04:23.727 --> 00:04:27.870 There is neither gratitude, pity, love, or self-denial. 00:04:27.870 --> 00:04:31.570 No idea of duty, no religion, nothing but covetousness, 00:04:31.570 --> 00:04:40.077 ingratitude, selfishness, and cruelty." 00:04:40.077 --> 00:04:43.198 Narrator: In a manner which seems quite unforgivable today, 00:04:43.198 --> 00:04:48.115 Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries preferred to forget what their forebears 00:04:48.115 --> 00:04:52.824 had known very well: that kingdoms flourished in West Africa, 00:04:52.824 --> 00:05:00.952 which were as sumptuous and well governed as any in medieval Europe itself. 00:05:00.952 --> 00:05:04.782 What is more, the reports of traders and diplomats who visited these kingdoms 00:05:04.782 --> 00:05:09.142 assumed no attitudes of racial superiority. 00:05:09.142 --> 00:05:18.199 Racism, in fact, is a rather modern sickness. 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:21.650 Nothing more clearly illustrates the change that was to come 00:05:21.650 --> 00:05:26.032 than the European art of the renaissance, and earlier still. 00:05:26.032 --> 00:05:32.949 [Music] 00:05:32.949 --> 00:05:40.437 White and black take their place in these paintings with equal dignity. 00:05:40.437 --> 00:05:47.447 There's no hint here of what a later world was to call "human nature in its crudest state". 00:05:47.447 --> 00:05:53.531 And this acceptance of equality between black and white had also been a keynote of the middle-ages. 00:05:53.531 --> 00:05:58.686 Among the revered saints of central Europe was the black martyr, St. Maurice. 00:05:58.686 --> 00:06:05.693 As we shall see, he's one of the heroes of this story. 00:06:05.693 --> 00:06:10.701 What then was the cause of this enormous change in white attitudes 00:06:10.701 --> 00:06:12.100 from equality to racist prejudice? 00:06:12.100 --> 00:06:17.676 History gives one dominating reply: the Atlantic trade in slaves. 00:06:17.676 --> 00:06:23.231 Based in strong castles on the West African coast, the nations of Europe vied with each other 00:06:23.231 --> 00:06:30.055 in the massive removal of millions of captured men and women. 00:06:30.055 --> 00:06:31.959 Their guns were not pointed at Africa, 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:36.627 which was seldom regarded as a source of danger, but out to sea. 00:06:36.627 --> 00:06:45.315 Ready to face rival ships, suddenly appearing over the horizon. 00:06:45.315 --> 00:06:50.107 Africans, of course, have not been the only victims of racism and color prejudice. 00:06:50.107 --> 00:06:54.879 But if, as I believe, they suffered more acutely than the other peoples of the world, 00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:57.681 the reason lies here. 00:06:57.681 --> 00:07:05.015 For over 300 years, this magnificent coast was the scene of organized and systematic cruelty. 00:07:11.231 --> 00:07:14.699 Year after year, black people were dragged from their homes 00:07:14.699 --> 00:07:18.871 into the white man's world of misery and degradation. 00:07:18.871 --> 00:07:31.695 [Music] 00:07:31.695 --> 00:07:34.093 They were presented as less than human. 00:07:34.093 --> 00:07:37.167 Objects for buying and selling, like cattle. 00:07:37.167 --> 00:07:41.905 Against whom any act of violence and debasement was justified. 00:07:44.397 --> 00:07:51.704 Wherever the slave trade spread its ruin, the stability and fabric of African life were destroyed. 00:07:51.704 --> 00:07:53.704 But something else was also destroyed. 00:07:53.704 --> 00:08:03.663 And that was the mutual respect, which had previously existed between white and black. 00:08:03.663 --> 00:08:07.907 But after all, the slave trade ended a long time ago. 00:08:07.907 --> 00:08:09.704 Surely it's time to think again. 00:08:09.704 --> 00:08:15.869 Those old ideas about black inferiority were completely wrong, without foundation. 00:08:15.869 --> 00:08:21.872 As it happens, modern science has given us a vast fund of new and reliable knowledge, 00:08:21.872 --> 00:08:26.429 which shows that the black peoples do indeed have a history of their own 00:08:26.429 --> 00:08:35.569 as rich and strange, as long and sometimes surprising as any major branch of the human family. 00:08:35.569 --> 00:08:43.410 00:08:43.410 --> 00:08:47.874 Narrator: On the high plateau of Central Africa, in what is now modern Zimbabwe, 00:08:47.874 --> 00:08:50.236 stand the Matopo hills. 00:08:50.236 --> 00:09:00.513 00:09:00.513 --> 00:09:03.615 Large numbers of leopards inhabit these rock formations, 00:09:03.615 --> 00:09:08.733 which in their strange mystery and shape seem to take us back to the carvings 00:09:08.733 --> 00:09:11.566 of ancient African history. 00:09:11.566 --> 00:09:14.820 00:09:14.820 --> 00:09:19.631 To the people of this region, this unearthly landscape has always been a sacred place, 00:09:19.631 --> 00:09:26.605 and still is to this day. 00:09:26.605 --> 00:09:38.687 Tucked away in this Matopo hills, there are messages from the very dawn of history. 00:09:38.687 --> 00:09:41.234 This is the Inswatugi cave. 00:09:41.234 --> 00:09:46.651 One of the many rock shelters in the Matopos that were decorated by the people who lived here 00:09:46.651 --> 00:09:48.820 in ancient times. 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:57.204 00:09:57.204 --> 00:10:02.538 These truly marvelous rock paintings were inspired by motives that we don't know. 00:10:02.538 --> 00:10:06.566 Probably it was a variety of motives, as with all great art. 00:10:06.566 --> 00:10:11.233 Those distant peoples who faced the wild wilderness of primeval Africa, 00:10:11.233 --> 00:10:17.693 must surely have felt the need for psychological and spiritual reassurance, 00:10:17.693 --> 00:10:21.093 as well as for magic to safeguard their cattle. 00:10:21.093 --> 00:10:28.603 And their artists, so long ago, clearly loved to portray the animals they knew. 00:10:28.603 --> 00:10:33.536 Narrator: The land was ideally suited by its climate for man and beast to prosper. 00:10:33.536 --> 00:10:36.815 And even today, perhaps 3 or 4,000 years later, 00:10:36.815 --> 00:10:47.817 it's easy to recognize diker, kudu, antelope, and giraffe. 00:10:47.817 --> 00:10:52.456 The arid wilderness of the great Sahara, 3,000 miles to the north, 00:10:52.456 --> 00:10:55.697 could hardly be in greater contrast. 00:10:55.697 --> 00:11:02.603 Yet here in the 1950s, even more surprising evidence was found of early African history. 00:11:02.603 --> 00:11:07.603 00:11:07.603 --> 00:11:10.648 Today, the place belongs to the creatures of the desert. 00:11:10.648 --> 00:11:17.067 Lizards, scorpions, and snakes that can survive the searing temperatures of this thirsty land. 00:11:17.067 --> 00:11:23.454 One of the driest and most desolate regions on Earth. 00:11:23.454 --> 00:11:27.526 Water is the rarest and most precious commodity, 00:11:27.526 --> 00:11:31.996 yet even here it must once have flowed in abundance. 00:11:32.027 --> 00:11:38.421 [Music] 00:11:38.421 --> 00:11:43.906 The revelation of these rock paintings in the Tassali mountaints of the Algerian Sahara 00:11:43.906 --> 00:11:47.502 just 30 years ago astonished the world. 00:11:47.502 --> 00:11:59.331 [Music] 00:11:59.331 --> 00:12:03.467 Whole communities of people, who are obviously African in origin, 00:12:03.467 --> 00:12:08.824 had created marvelous galleries of ancient art depicting most vividly 00:12:08.871 --> 00:12:16.072 the life of the Green Sahara, as it was once have been. 00:12:16.072 --> 00:12:20.908 First we see hunting folk, and the animals they lived among. 00:12:20.908 --> 00:12:30.083 The clearest proof that this region of the Sahara long ago teemed with wild game. 00:12:30.083 --> 00:12:34.751 The earliest paintings may be 7 or 8,000 years old. 00:12:34.751 --> 00:12:41.764 But not all the people who inhabited this huge region were nomadic hunters. 00:12:41.764 --> 00:12:43.898 This horse, complete with saddle and bridal, 00:12:43.898 --> 00:12:50.072 points to the development of transport systems and traders. 00:12:50.072 --> 00:13:03.540 And this ox-drawn plow, to the planting and growing of crops. 00:13:03.540 --> 00:13:08.207 Whether for war or sport, elaborate chariots came into use. 00:13:08.207 --> 00:13:15.094 While the clothing of these people bears a striking resemblance to the tunics of ancient Egypt. 00:13:15.094 --> 00:13:22.860 The evidence of these paintings suggests a continuous community of peoples living right across the Sahara 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:32.178 from the Atlantic to the valley of the Nile. 00:13:32.178 --> 00:13:34.529 Then, some four and a half thousand years ago, 00:13:34.529 --> 00:13:39.990 the climate began to undergo a disastrous change. 00:13:39.990 --> 00:13:44.994 Gradually, the Sahara lost its rainfall, its animal life, 00:13:44.994 --> 00:13:47.598 and finally its people. 00:13:47.598 --> 00:13:55.630 [Singing in a foreign language] 00:13:55.630 --> 00:13:58.902 Abandoning their increasingly arid pastures, 00:13:58.902 --> 00:14:03.258 more and more people from the Sahara had to join their foreigners, 00:14:03.258 --> 00:14:08.278 and follow the trails in search of a secure supply of water. 00:14:08.278 --> 00:14:13.009 Some headed for the tropical rainforests which lay to the south and west. 00:14:13.009 --> 00:14:21.508 Others moved east towards the valley of the river Nile. 00:14:21.508 --> 00:14:23.840 Fed by Africa's greatest lake, 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:30.635 the Nile runs north for over 4,000 miles before reaching its outflow in the Mediterranean sea. 00:14:30.635 --> 00:14:36.542 It's the longest river on Earth, and no river anywhere pushes on so relentlessly through 00:14:36.542 --> 00:14:42.615 mile after mile of vast and rainless desert regions, after it's been joined by the blue Nile 00:14:42.615 --> 00:14:47.120 tumbling down from the mountain plateau of Ethiopia. 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:55.676 [People talking] 00:14:55.676 --> 00:14:58.197 But the Nile is more than a great river. 00:14:58.197 --> 00:15:05.676 It's a whole library of the history we're looking for. 00:15:05.676 --> 00:15:10.843 From the earliest times of human settlement along the river some 10,000 years ago, 00:15:10.843 --> 00:15:15.884 the Nile was the giver of life to ancient communities who came to its banks, 00:15:15.884 --> 00:15:24.225 and found on fertile soil that was enriched unfailingly year by year by the flood of silt. 00:15:24.225 --> 00:15:29.863 Those early people were among the ancestors of the Egyptians and the Sudanese of today. 00:15:29.863 --> 00:15:33.013 Others may have come from the Middle East. 00:15:33.013 --> 00:15:38.869 But the archaeological evidence combines to show that the main lines of incoming migration 00:15:38.869 --> 00:15:41.873 were from the southwest and the west. 00:15:41.873 --> 00:15:47.341 In other words, from the African communities of the Sahara. 00:15:47.341 --> 00:15:54.509 [Music] 00:15:54.509 --> 00:16:00.795 5,000 years ago, this homeland had already become the scene of a civilization 00:16:00.795 --> 00:16:05.065 in many ways unmatched anywhere else in the ancient world. 00:16:05.065 --> 00:16:08.671 [Music] 00:16:08.671 --> 00:16:10.758 This is where we have to begin. 00:16:10.758 --> 00:16:12.709 In the Egypt of the pharaohs. 00:16:12.709 --> 00:16:19.506 In the African land that was the gift of the God of the Nile. 00:16:19.506 --> 00:16:24.557 It's easy enough to believe within these corridors, built to a gigantic scale, 00:16:24.557 --> 00:16:29.341 and yet wonderfully proportioned, that you've entered a world sprung complete from the 00:16:29.341 --> 00:16:32.508 lap of the gods. 00:16:32.508 --> 00:16:37.895 Egypt of the pharaohs was the greatest, and the oldest, and the most inventive of all 00:16:37.895 --> 00:16:40.730 the high civilizations of antiquity. 00:16:40.730 --> 00:16:43.137 And it flourished for 3,000 years. 00:16:43.137 --> 00:16:47.209 It set a pattern and example for people near and far. 00:16:47.209 --> 00:16:52.209 But where were its roots? Its origins? Its starting point? 00:16:52.209 --> 00:16:57.256 Most of us have believed, or have been taught that the glories of the pharaohs 00:16:57.256 --> 00:17:01.952 could never have been created by African people or African ideas, 00:17:01.952 --> 00:17:10.258 because it's been said Africans could never have built a high civilization. 00:17:10.258 --> 00:17:12.395 Narrator: Here reigned, for dynasty after dynasty, 00:17:12.395 --> 00:17:15.426 the kings who wore the double crown. 00:17:15.426 --> 00:17:18.804 The combined crown of Upper-Egypt, and of the Delta. 00:17:18.804 --> 00:17:26.591 But what had they to do with Africa? 00:17:26.591 --> 00:17:30.675 How could this grand hierarchy of gods and spirits have anything in common with 00:17:30.675 --> 00:17:41.924 the superstitious mumblings of the black peoples of Inner-Africa? 00:17:41.924 --> 00:17:50.506 Wandering among the treasures of the Cairo museum, 00:17:50.506 --> 00:17:57.808 it's easy to think of the Egypt of the pharaohs as a civilization complete within itself, 00:17:57.808 --> 00:18:01.716 owing little or nothing to outside influences from whatever source, 00:18:01.716 --> 00:18:10.457 entirely its own creation. 00:18:10.457 --> 00:18:14.426 And I imagine that most visitors conclude as they listen to their guides, 00:18:14.426 --> 00:18:18.700 that a statue such as this of the young king Tutankhamen, 00:18:18.700 --> 00:18:21.924 may have turned very black in the course of centuries, 00:18:21.924 --> 00:18:26.673 but could not have been a black man in the first place. 00:18:26.673 --> 00:18:29.339 It's a view which is now increasingly under-challenged, 00:18:29.339 --> 00:18:33.243 not least from African historians and archaeologists. 00:18:33.243 --> 00:18:37.589 One of the more outspoken of these is professor Cheikh Anta Diop of Senegal, 00:18:37.589 --> 00:18:42.789 who has made a special study of the origins of the people of ancient Egypt. 00:18:42.789 --> 00:19:31.974 00:19:31.974 --> 00:19:36.258 Narrator: That particular painting, however, is a rare exception. 00:19:36.258 --> 00:19:42.675 The only one, as far as I know, that so clearly makes the professor's point. 00:19:42.675 --> 00:19:48.618 For the most part, the ancient Egyptians had themselves portrayed as reddish-pink. 00:19:48.618 --> 00:19:52.341 But, of course, they intermarried with Asians, 00:19:52.341 --> 00:19:54.260 and even more with other Africans. 00:19:54.260 --> 00:19:58.996 Many of their noble-ladies were Nubians, and lovingly portrayed as such. 00:19:58.996 --> 00:20:01.567 This painting comes from the tomb of Hemaka, 00:20:01.567 --> 00:20:09.422 clearly a black lady, with a handmaiden behind her, just as surely white. 00:20:09.422 --> 00:20:15.644 00:20:15.644 --> 00:20:19.555 It followed that the royal children were often black as well, 00:20:19.555 --> 00:20:27.060 as was King Senusret, seen here wearing the white crown of Upper-Egypt. 00:20:27.060 --> 00:20:31.839 Or this pharaoh of unknown name, but obviously of high prestige in his time, 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:40.674 and just as clearly African. 00:20:40.674 --> 00:20:45.675 Elephantine island, in the Nile, marked the border between Egypt and Nubia, 00:20:45.675 --> 00:20:50.884 and was a place of great sanctity in ancient times. 00:20:50.884 --> 00:20:56.224 Among the travelers who came here were the earliest European historians, the Greeks. 00:20:56.224 --> 00:21:00.294 Men like Herodotus, brought up as he was in the classical tradition, 00:21:00.294 --> 00:21:14.341 which regarded the various races of the known world as different, but equal. 00:21:14.341 --> 00:21:20.675 The Greeks knew Egypt well, and firmly believed that the original Egyptians were black people, 00:21:20.675 --> 00:21:26.318 who had come from the South to settle the land of the Nile. 00:21:26.318 --> 00:21:29.553 But Herodotus himself got no further than this. 00:21:29.553 --> 00:21:38.174 He was prevented by the first cataract from traveling further South. 00:21:38.174 --> 00:21:45.004 And so he never saw the huge temple, which Ramses II chose to build here at Abu Simbel, 00:21:45.004 --> 00:21:50.079 further south into Inner-Africa than any other great monument built by 00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:53.757 the pharaohs to celebrate their power. 00:21:53.757 --> 00:21:59.118 A few years ago, with immense ingenuity, the entire structure was lifted to a new site, 00:21:59.118 --> 00:22:04.674 above the artificial lake, which has drowned all the sites of the most ancient kingdoms that 00:22:04.674 --> 00:22:11.464 flourished here in Nubia, even before the first of the pharaohs. 00:22:11.464 --> 00:22:15.535 But why should he have built this great temple so far to the South? 00:22:15.535 --> 00:22:19.738 Perhaps because his queen, Nefertari, was herself a Nubian. 00:22:19.738 --> 00:22:23.641 And also because these were the people, the people of the south, 00:22:23.641 --> 00:22:28.949 whom he wanted to impress with evidence of the prisoners he had taken in far-away Seria 00:22:28.949 --> 00:22:31.818 and Asia Minor. 00:22:31.818 --> 00:22:38.655 00:22:38.655 --> 00:22:43.796 Even mighty temples, like this one, have to be seen against the background origins of 00:22:43.796 --> 00:22:46.361 ancient Egyptian civilization. 00:22:46.361 --> 00:22:49.033 And those origins, in the light of modern science, 00:22:49.033 --> 00:22:51.741 were above all African. 00:22:51.741 --> 00:22:58.006 No matter what ideas or customs the pharaohs may have found in the Asian lands they conquered, 00:22:58.006 --> 00:23:00.943 Egypt's beginnings were in the South. 00:23:00.943 --> 00:23:05.887 In this Inner-Africa, which the ancient Egyptians called the land of the Gods, 00:23:05.887 --> 00:23:10.654 of the African Gods whom they revered as their guardian spirits. 00:23:10.654 --> 00:23:22.035 Narrator: The time came when Egyptian conquests ended. 00:23:22.035 --> 00:23:26.308 400 years later, it was the turn of the kings of the South, of Nubia, 00:23:26.308 --> 00:23:36.506 who now marched North to subdue the power of Egypt itself. 00:23:36.506 --> 00:23:41.555 And here is the most famous of those mighty kings of the South, 00:23:41.555 --> 00:23:48.341 recognized by the peoples of that time, the 7th century BC, as among the masters of the world. 00:23:48.341 --> 00:23:52.756 This one, as it happens, received a favorable mention in the bible, 00:23:52.756 --> 00:23:55.672 in the book of kings, as the emperor of Kush, 00:23:55.672 --> 00:24:04.923 and of all Egypt, whose name was Taharqa. 00:24:04.923 --> 00:24:18.957 ["Africa" Theme Music] 00:24:18.957 --> 00:24:23.180 Narrator: By 650 BC, the Nubian kings who had subdued Egypt, 00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:26.924 were ready to withdraw to the South, to Napata, 00:24:26.924 --> 00:24:36.042 and then to a new capital in their kingdom of Kush at Meroe. 00:24:36.042 --> 00:24:40.781 And there we must follow them if we are to understand the history of this Inner-Africa, 00:24:40.781 --> 00:24:46.053 which exercised so strong an early influence on ancient Egyptian civilization, 00:24:46.053 --> 00:24:49.588 and which later was to reflect that influence. 00:24:49.588 --> 00:24:56.339 00:24:56.339 --> 00:25:04.469 The city of Meroe was situated 1,000 miles south of the old Egyptian frontier, far into Inner-Africa. 00:25:04.469 --> 00:25:12.147 00:25:12.147 --> 00:25:14.672 I never come here without a sense of wonder, 00:25:14.672 --> 00:25:17.983 for right ahead and in the midst of this pitiless desert, 00:25:17.983 --> 00:25:22.893 there stands one of Africa's great historical surprises. 00:25:22.893 --> 00:25:30.258 [Music] 00:25:30.258 --> 00:25:34.504 The remnants of a lost civilization, standing across the skyline 00:25:34.504 --> 00:25:38.425 as though shipwrecked on the sands of time. 00:25:38.425 --> 00:25:44.589 [Music] 00:25:44.589 --> 00:25:48.448 These are the pyramid tombs of the kings and queens of Meroe, 00:25:48.448 --> 00:25:53.254 who reigned and were buried here through more than 6 centuries. 00:25:53.254 --> 00:26:01.339 [Music] 00:26:01.339 --> 00:26:04.395 Long ruined by tomb robbers and by time, 00:26:04.395 --> 00:26:09.703 the pyramids are being restored, and even reconstructed. 00:26:09.703 --> 00:26:24.317 [Talking in a foreign language] 00:26:24.317 --> 00:26:27.919 Meroitic civilization still presents many puzzles. 00:26:27.919 --> 00:26:30.924 One is that the monarchs of Kush built their pyramid tombs 00:26:30.924 --> 00:26:37.861 long after such monuments had ceased to be raised in Egypt. 00:26:37.861 --> 00:26:44.170 Partly because the pyramids of Meroe are neither as old, nor as massive as those of Egypt, 00:26:44.170 --> 00:26:54.812 it's been assumed that all this was a mere provincial copy of that greater civilization. 00:26:54.812 --> 00:26:57.196 In fact, it was far more than a copy. 00:26:57.196 --> 00:27:06.490 The similarities are there, but other aspects of Meroitic culture are found nowhere else. 00:27:06.490 --> 00:27:11.663 Another intriguing question is the relationship between the ancient people of Meroe, 00:27:11.663 --> 00:27:23.365 kings, queens and citizens, and the modern Nubians who live in this region today. 00:27:23.365 --> 00:27:27.579 We can still see their stylized portraits in stone, 00:27:27.579 --> 00:27:30.315 but what did they really look like? 00:27:30.315 --> 00:27:34.652 I asked Dr. Ali Osmon of the University of Khartoum. 00:27:34.652 --> 00:27:36.220 Obviously they look like me, of course. 00:27:36.220 --> 00:27:37.423 I'm a Nubian. 00:27:37.423 --> 00:27:42.946 Um, very much the Nubians of today are the Nubians of yesterday. 00:27:42.946 --> 00:27:45.866 We've got to understand that rather carefully, 00:27:45.866 --> 00:27:53.236 because the Nubian culture actually have not yet been very much explored, the Nubians from within. 00:27:53.236 --> 00:27:58.614 I, the Nubian, what I do and how I behave, won't have changed that much from what 00:27:58.614 --> 00:28:03.280 the individual Nubians would have done. 00:28:03.280 --> 00:28:10.781 But the influence that were common on us as Nubiens started as early as we could 00:28:10.781 --> 00:28:15.759 the Egyptian coming down to the Muslim had an influence. 00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:17.530 Have been changing. 00:28:17.530 --> 00:28:19.232 That does not mean that the Nubien have changed. 00:28:19.232 --> 00:28:27.196 Narrator: But this identity has had to survive many foreign incursions, 00:28:27.196 --> 00:28:29.445 and even conquests. 00:28:29.445 --> 00:28:35.864 At one time, Meroe fell before the invading armies of Axum, 00:28:35.864 --> 00:28:42.321 another ancient kingdom, high in the mountains of what is now Ethiopia. 00:28:42.321 --> 00:28:47.281 In more recent times, the Turks and the British have sent in their armies of occupation. 00:28:47.281 --> 00:28:53.064 Most lasting of all has been the influence of Islam. 00:28:53.064 --> 00:28:58.446 But through all these changes, the Nubians have done more than retain their identity. 00:28:58.446 --> 00:29:01.174 Just as they absolved influences from elsewhere, 00:29:01.174 --> 00:29:13.252 so they too have had a deep cultural impact on their neighbors. 00:29:13.252 --> 00:29:15.719 They build now as they've always built. 00:29:15.719 --> 00:29:18.615 In all probability, just as the people of Meroe built, 00:29:18.615 --> 00:29:21.728 with an old, effort saving rhythm. 00:29:21.728 --> 00:29:28.946 Constructing mud walls to defy the scorching heat of the Nubian summer. 00:29:28.946 --> 00:29:35.575 00:29:35.575 --> 00:29:39.147 Their beds are no different from those of their ancient ancestors, 00:29:39.147 --> 00:29:43.530 like this one in Khartoum museum, with a pattern of headrest, 00:29:43.530 --> 00:29:50.945 which is much the same here, and right across Africa, as those of 5,000 years ago. 00:29:50.945 --> 00:29:56.229 [Speaking in a foreign language] 00:29:56.229 --> 00:29:59.663 And the traditional clan marks, cut into this Nubian's face, 00:29:59.663 --> 00:30:06.199 can be seen exactly reproduced on a stone relief, which decorates one of the pyramids, 00:30:06.199 --> 00:30:16.149 just a couple of miles away. 00:30:16.149 --> 00:30:21.350 It's been said that Meroe was the Birmingham of ancient Africa. 00:30:21.350 --> 00:30:24.280 And that wasn't altogether a flight of fancy. 00:30:24.280 --> 00:30:29.161 For the people of Meroe had a very extensive iron making industry. 00:30:29.161 --> 00:30:32.899 Just consider this enormous pile of industrial waste--of slag. 00:30:32.899 --> 00:30:40.741 It proves that among the major activities of the people of this flourishing city was to smelt iron. 00:30:40.741 --> 00:30:46.030 And here is a bit of the residue. 00:30:46.030 --> 00:30:49.742 Narrator: A few yards away stood the great temple of Amon, Meroitic, 00:30:49.742 --> 00:30:55.513 although dedicated to a very Egyptian God. 00:30:55.513 --> 00:30:57.849 And somewhere in the sand, if I can find it, 00:30:57.849 --> 00:31:03.767 there's another remarkable fragment of Inner-African originality. 00:31:03.767 --> 00:31:06.905 Here it is. A stone inscribed with a fully-operative script 00:31:06.905 --> 00:31:13.934 that was invented for the African language of Meroe in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. 00:31:13.934 --> 00:31:18.648 23 signs for letters, and a word divider. 00:31:18.648 --> 00:31:24.285 One of the earliest alphabetical ways of writing invented anywhere in the world. 00:31:24.285 --> 00:31:27.517 And still a puzzle for modern scholarship. 00:31:27.517 --> 00:31:33.897 [Music] 00:31:33.897 --> 00:31:36.162 In wealthy houses surrounding the temple were found 00:31:36.162 --> 00:31:40.300 some of the comforts and enjoyments of Meroitic life. 00:31:40.300 --> 00:31:54.599 The style of these pots is uniquely Nubian, and repeated nowhere else in the Nile valley. 00:31:54.599 --> 00:31:57.822 Half a day's journey from Meroe by modern transport, 00:31:57.822 --> 00:32:01.430 a little further into the sand and rock of the Butana desert, 00:32:01.430 --> 00:32:05.430 there stands another complex of stone buildings. 00:32:05.430 --> 00:32:12.181 This time dedicated to the Gods of Kush, and not to the Gods of Egypt. 00:32:12.181 --> 00:32:14.920 Nowadays, this place is called Musawarat. 00:32:14.920 --> 00:32:22.045 [Music] 00:32:22.045 --> 00:32:26.865 Strange hints remain among the ruins, like this old lion in the sand. 00:32:26.865 --> 00:32:29.698 But what were these buildings for? 00:32:29.698 --> 00:32:34.373 Perhaps the kings of ancient Kush strolled beneath these colonnades. 00:32:34.373 --> 00:32:38.807 Historians have offered this or that explanation. 00:32:38.807 --> 00:32:44.006 My own is that the principle function of this unexampled and powerful building, 00:32:44.006 --> 00:32:46.339 made it unique in the ancient world. 00:32:46.339 --> 00:32:52.224 This function, I think, was for the taming and training of the great African elephant. 00:32:52.224 --> 00:32:59.225 That seems to be the best explanation of the remarkable stone ramps, which occur here, like this one, 00:32:59.225 --> 00:33:04.903 and that one over there, and another long one going over there. 00:33:04.903 --> 00:33:08.088 Narrator: We can accept that the taming of the African elephant, 00:33:08.088 --> 00:33:11.255 bigger and more difficult to handle than its Indian cousin, 00:33:11.255 --> 00:33:15.981 had become a speciality of the Kushites of Meroe. 00:33:15.981 --> 00:33:20.147 With their skills, they converted this, the greatest of Africa's wild animals, 00:33:20.147 --> 00:33:26.622 into the military tank of the ancient world. 00:33:26.622 --> 00:33:30.506 When Hannibal of Carthage invaded Roman Italy across the Alps, 00:33:30.506 --> 00:33:34.296 he had 38 war elephants in his army. 00:33:34.296 --> 00:33:43.257 The skills of the elephant trainers of Musawarat may well have contributed to that legendary feat. 00:33:43.257 --> 00:33:48.673 These temple walls provide a surprising reminder of much greener times, 00:33:48.673 --> 00:33:52.004 with abundant pastures for domestic grazing. 00:33:52.004 --> 00:33:56.118 All that has vanished, as the desert advanced from the Sahara, 00:33:56.118 --> 00:33:59.790 the civilization of Meroe disappeared. 00:33:59.790 --> 00:34:08.425 Today, away from the banks of the Nile, only nomads can survive. 00:34:08.425 --> 00:34:11.964 This well has never been known to run dry. 00:34:11.964 --> 00:34:16.137 The scene is exactly as it was when I first came here some 30 years ago, 00:34:16.137 --> 00:34:29.674 and I doubt if it's changed very much in a thousand years. 00:34:29.674 --> 00:34:34.058 Proud and self-sufficient, these people seem untouched by the modern world. 00:34:34.058 --> 00:34:38.696 It's rare to see a single mass-produced item among their belongings, 00:34:38.696 --> 00:34:41.631 or anything made of plastic. 00:34:41.631 --> 00:34:49.003 It's as if they share a determination to rely on nothing but themselves and their animals. 00:34:49.003 --> 00:34:54.242 Visiting Europeans have usually made the mistake of judging the degree of civilization 00:34:54.242 --> 00:34:58.547 among different peoples by the number of their possessions. 00:34:58.547 --> 00:35:16.215 [Talking in a foreign language] 00:35:16.215 --> 00:35:22.457 The ancient traditions of these nomads reach back to the very beginnings of history. 00:35:22.457 --> 00:35:32.264 [Talking in a foreign language] 00:35:32.264 --> 00:35:34.728 And should they still remember their ancient Gods, 00:35:34.728 --> 00:35:40.135 those too are still here, not yet swallowed up by the encroaching sand. 00:35:40.135 --> 00:35:46.108 Here at Naga, there's an even more remarkable mixture of local and imported influences. 00:35:46.108 --> 00:35:55.520 King Natakamani triumphs over his prisoners in a very Egyptian style. 00:35:55.520 --> 00:35:58.817 The python, on the other hand, was an Inner-African religious symbol, 00:35:58.817 --> 00:36:08.397 regarded in many lands down to this day as a figure of spiritual power. 00:36:08.397 --> 00:36:12.646 And this representation of the lion God looks quite Indian, 00:36:12.646 --> 00:36:20.710 with his 3 heads and 4 arms, but he too is uniquely Meroitic. 00:36:20.710 --> 00:36:24.345 The kingdom of Kush collapsed in the 4th century AD. 00:36:24.345 --> 00:36:30.397 But evidence has recently come to light that some of its people migrated across the planes of Kordofan 00:36:30.397 --> 00:36:33.192 towards the Nuba Hills. 00:36:33.192 --> 00:37:03.189 [Music] 00:37:03.189 --> 00:37:07.287 Less influenced by Islam than the Nubians along the Nile, 00:37:07.287 --> 00:37:11.599 the people of this region have become of considerable interest to historians, 00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:16.321 because they may be closer in their way of life to the Nubians of old. 00:37:16.413 --> 00:37:30.653 [Whistle blowing and chattering] 00:37:30.653 --> 00:37:36.892 As it happened, we chanced on a special day among these Nuba people, a bit like a cup final. 00:37:36.892 --> 00:37:42.199 This is Africa as it can still be found away from tourists, motor cars, and big cities, 00:37:42.199 --> 00:37:51.055 celebrating in its own fashion. 00:37:51.055 --> 00:37:54.679 A number of cultural links have been found to suggest that these people 00:37:54.679 --> 00:38:00.517 may well share a common heritage with distant ancestors who lived in the time of the 00:38:00.517 --> 00:38:05.220 kings and queens of Kush. 00:38:05.220 --> 00:38:10.802 Village teams, each wearing its own distinctive color, have gathered from a wide area 00:38:10.802 --> 00:38:14.470 to take part in one of the oldest of all sporting events, 00:38:14.470 --> 00:38:22.305 but also a passion among the Nuba, wrestling. 00:38:22.305 --> 00:38:26.308 So intricate are the rules governing not only the contest itself, 00:38:26.308 --> 00:38:31.338 but also exactly who may wrestle with whom on the basis of family relationships, 00:38:31.338 --> 00:38:37.553 that it's almost impossible for a visitor to follow all the moves. 00:38:37.553 --> 00:38:43.292 But for the historian, there's another close relationship between the Nuba wrestling of today, 00:38:43.292 --> 00:38:47.462 and that of ancient times. 00:38:47.462 --> 00:38:54.203 Dating from around 2,500 BC, these vivid paintings have been copied from an Egyptian tomb 00:38:54.203 --> 00:38:57.508 at Beni Hasan. 00:38:57.508 --> 00:39:11.454 [Clapping and whistles blowing] 00:39:11.454 --> 00:39:25.968 [Chanting] 00:39:25.968 --> 00:39:30.173 Narrator: Increasingly, it seems that these people can indeed trace their past 00:39:30.173 --> 00:39:34.923 back to civilizations in antiquity. 00:39:34.923 --> 00:39:38.839 And their ancient sport provides one more small piece of evidence of a continuous 00:39:38.839 --> 00:39:48.123 social tradition that's lasted for centuries. 00:39:48.123 --> 00:39:52.172 Yet these are the very people whom the 19th century explorer, Samuel Baker, 00:39:52.172 --> 00:40:00.739 described as human nature in its crudest state, not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. 00:40:00.739 --> 00:40:21.339 [Cheering and clapping] 00:40:21.339 --> 00:40:23.923 After the contest comes the celebration. 00:40:23.923 --> 00:40:30.996 [Clapping and singing] 00:40:30.996 --> 00:40:33.173 Some of these Nuba girls may well be Muslim, 00:40:33.173 --> 00:40:38.921 but it's no part of their tradition to hide their faces behind veils. 00:40:38.921 --> 00:40:41.375 They have a pride and place within society, 00:40:41.375 --> 00:40:43.377 in line with the customs of old Nubia, 00:40:43.377 --> 00:41:03.233 and even of Meroe itself, whose rulers were often women. 00:41:03.233 --> 00:41:07.735 In another part of the Nuba hills, just a few miles to the southeast, 00:41:07.735 --> 00:41:13.206 the teachings of Islam have made no headway at all. 00:41:13.206 --> 00:41:21.919 The people of these villages have quite consciously chosen to reject either Western or Islamic dress. 00:41:21.919 --> 00:41:26.639 Free spirits under an African sky, young girls dance as much for their own pleasure 00:41:26.639 --> 00:41:33.975 as for the spectators, breathing life into these astonishingly similar images of Nubian dancing girls, 00:41:33.975 --> 00:41:43.638 performing for the pharaohs 5,000 years ago. 00:41:43.638 --> 00:41:48.973 Famed for their grace and beauty, they had an honored place in the life of ancient Egypt. 00:41:48.973 --> 00:42:13.500 [Music and chanting] 00:42:13.500 --> 00:42:16.139 That the one should still be regarded as primitive, 00:42:16.139 --> 00:42:19.009 and the other as part of the world's cultural heritage, 00:42:19.009 --> 00:42:25.681 reflects on the ignorance and prejudice of the modern world. 00:42:25.681 --> 00:42:27.722 And not at all on them. 00:42:34.305 --> 00:42:42.476 [Shouting in unison] 00:42:42.476 --> 00:42:46.599 On the day that i visited Meroe, a pyramid was being rebuilt. 00:42:46.599 --> 00:42:49.033 Not to the aid of bulldozers and cranes, 00:42:49.033 --> 00:43:05.716 but by the traditional techniques used in their original construction. 00:43:05.716 --> 00:43:11.125 As each great shaft of masonry was hauled up the ramp and pushed into place, 00:43:11.125 --> 00:43:18.498 for me, the continuity of African history was brought directly alive. 00:43:18.498 --> 00:43:23.940 The Egypt of the pharaohs did not spring whole and complete from its own local genius. 00:43:23.940 --> 00:43:35.559 It owed much to Inner-Africa. 00:43:35.559 --> 00:43:38.670 In the years ahead, more evidence will surely come to light, 00:43:38.670 --> 00:43:42.866 which would emphasize that it's to the whole of the Nile that we must look, 00:43:42.866 --> 00:43:48.564 and to lands lying far in the interior, for the source and origin of these great civilizations 00:43:48.564 --> 00:43:52.804 that have flourished along its banks. 00:43:52.804 --> 00:43:59.410 The last of these pyramid tombs was completed around AD 340. 00:43:59.410 --> 00:44:01.246 Then came a time of change. 00:44:01.246 --> 00:44:04.714 Meroe disappeared, and after the middle of the 6th century, 00:44:04.714 --> 00:44:08.717 this old civilization underwent another transformation, 00:44:08.717 --> 00:44:12.722 and one that brings us closer to our own world. 00:44:12.722 --> 00:44:17.523 From the north, Christianity spread south into the lands of Nubia. 00:44:17.523 --> 00:44:27.969 This was once the far famed monastery of St. Simeon, near Aswan. 00:44:27.969 --> 00:44:37.513 The faded frescos on the chapel roof can only hint at its past magnificence. 00:44:37.513 --> 00:44:41.097 But in the 1960s, by a stroke of great good fortune, 00:44:41.097 --> 00:44:51.345 the full glory of medieval Nubian painting was suddenly revealed. 00:44:51.345 --> 00:44:59.014 The story behind the finding, and the saving, of these wonderful mural paintings is almost a miracle. 00:44:59.014 --> 00:45:04.596 As the waters of Lake Nasser rose to engulf the old Christian Nubian city of Faras, 00:45:04.596 --> 00:45:10.883 archaeologists managed to dig down to the level of the long-buried walls of its cathedral, 00:45:10.883 --> 00:45:13.717 founded in AD 707. 00:45:13.717 --> 00:45:19.554 And pulling away the dry sand, they saw what nobody had seen for centuries, 00:45:19.554 --> 00:45:23.347 these paintings, and removed them in the nick of time. 00:45:23.347 --> 00:45:32.933 Now safely in Khartoum museum, they glow once again with their distant message of art and piety. 00:45:32.933 --> 00:45:44.936 [Chanting] 00:45:44.936 --> 00:45:50.083 Narrator: The Christian civilization of Nubia was one of wealth and comfort. 00:45:50.083 --> 00:45:53.691 A visitor in the 10th century, Ibn Selim Al-Aswani, 00:45:53.691 --> 00:45:57.769 described the city of Soba, one of Christian Nubia's three capitals, 00:45:57.769 --> 00:46:03.189 as having fine buildings, spacious houses, churches with much gold, 00:46:03.189 --> 00:46:07.004 and cool, delightful gardens. 00:46:07.004 --> 00:46:15.144 He might well have added priceless works of ecclesiastical art. 00:46:15.144 --> 00:46:17.715 Splendidly preserved by the dry sand, 00:46:17.715 --> 00:46:22.604 these figures take us directly to the heart of Nubian Christianity. 00:46:22.604 --> 00:46:28.187 Here is the nativity scene, with the virgin and the archangel Gabriel, 00:46:28.187 --> 00:46:32.258 portrayed in the conventional style, and unnatural skin color, 00:46:32.258 --> 00:46:36.830 of the Byzantine church, from which, of course, the Nubians took their beliefs. 00:46:36.830 --> 00:46:43.639 Over here are the three kings of orient, riding to Bethlehem, one of them clearly an African, 00:46:43.639 --> 00:46:59.187 and down here is a Nubian princess looking, I must say, very much like the Nubians look today. 00:46:59.187 --> 00:47:01.989 Narrator: These are portraits of Nubian bishops. 00:47:01.989 --> 00:47:06.630 25 of them were listed in Fara's cathedral as having succeeded one another 00:47:06.630 --> 00:47:12.016 from the 8th to the 11th centuries. 00:47:12.016 --> 00:47:14.571 The line might have stretched right up to the present day, 00:47:14.571 --> 00:47:20.102 so settled and secure did Christian Nubia appear. 00:47:20.102 --> 00:47:31.290 But it was not to be. 00:47:31.290 --> 00:47:34.182 This monastery did not simply fall into decay, 00:47:34.182 --> 00:47:38.997 it was sacked by the Saracens in the year 1172. 00:47:38.997 --> 00:47:44.350 The origins of that disaster lay not with the Christian Nubians, who'd been at peace for centuries 00:47:44.350 --> 00:47:47.183 with their Muslim neighbors to the north. 00:47:47.183 --> 00:47:54.478 The origins lay in Europe. 00:47:54.478 --> 00:47:59.602 The first of the great crusades whose purpose was to recapture the holy places from the Muslims 00:47:59.602 --> 00:48:04.221 set out in the year 1096. 00:48:04.221 --> 00:48:06.154 Many knights fought for God's purposes. 00:48:06.154 --> 00:48:13.765 Many others fought for those of Mormon. 00:48:13.765 --> 00:48:19.517 As one crusade followed another, those first high purposes became corrupt. 00:48:19.517 --> 00:48:30.348 The holy cause turned into a reckless rush for loot. 00:48:30.348 --> 00:48:33.716 Very soon they provoked a massive reaction. 00:48:33.716 --> 00:48:41.791 The holy war of Islam was launched under a brilliant Saracen general, Saladin. 00:48:41.791 --> 00:48:46.765 From his great citadel in Cairo, Saladin set out to crush not only the European invaders, 00:48:46.765 --> 00:48:54.934 but also, and this is something that a later world forgot, their African allies in the south. 00:48:54.934 --> 00:49:00.176 Historians have moments of bubbling excitement when they find proofs of something 00:49:00.176 --> 00:49:01.935 they'd only guessed to be true. 00:49:01.935 --> 00:49:08.664 I almost jumped for joy when I first saw this small wooden plaque from Nubia. 00:49:08.664 --> 00:49:11.686 For it's a unique proof of something that I'd guessed 00:49:11.686 --> 00:49:18.229 that the Christian Nubians of 7 or 8 centuries ago also took part in the old wars of religion, 00:49:18.229 --> 00:49:21.332 the crusades against conquering Islam. 00:49:21.332 --> 00:49:28.440 And here you see a crusader from Nubia with his cross wearing chainmail and his sturdy steed, 00:49:28.440 --> 00:49:38.607 just as we in Europe can still see portrayals of our own crusaders. 00:49:38.607 --> 00:49:41.272 Narrator: In this old film taken half a century ago, 00:49:41.272 --> 00:49:47.156 Nubian horsemen can still be seen in their chainmail. 00:49:47.156 --> 00:49:50.858 The black crusaders of 800 years ago must have looked very similar 00:49:50.858 --> 00:49:58.067 as they gathered at fortified monasteries before setting out on that disastrous venture. 00:49:58.067 --> 00:50:06.021 Safe within his mighty Cairo citadel, Saladin was waiting to annihilate them. 00:50:06.021 --> 00:50:09.027 And there came an end to Christianity in these lands. 00:50:09.027 --> 00:50:13.250 An eclipse, so final and complete, that the world forgot, almost 'til now, 00:50:13.250 --> 00:50:16.519 that Christian Nubia had ever existed. 00:50:16.519 --> 00:50:22.593 Yet, distant echoes of that long lost epic can still be caught on the winds of history, 00:50:22.593 --> 00:50:27.190 and in unexpected places. 00:50:27.190 --> 00:50:32.835 [Bells tolling] 00:50:32.835 --> 00:50:37.442 Narrator: The cathedral of Magdeburg, a famous capital of medieval Germany. 00:50:37.442 --> 00:50:45.315 From here, in the year 1228, the German emperor Frederich led out his knights on the 6th crusade. 00:50:45.315 --> 00:50:52.920 And a few years later, a new statue was raised to the patron saint of Magdeburg, St. Maurice. 00:50:52.920 --> 00:51:03.965 Astonishingly, but beyond question, an entirely black St. Maurice. 00:51:03.965 --> 00:51:07.137 Until then, the many statues of St. Maurice around western Europe 00:51:07.137 --> 00:51:15.079 had invariably shown this military saint as white. 00:51:15.079 --> 00:51:19.551 But here at Magdeburg, St. Maurice suddenly became black. 00:51:19.551 --> 00:51:23.520 Unmistakably to my mind, the black knight of Christian Nubia, 00:51:23.520 --> 00:51:27.391 Christ's warrior from the distant south. 00:51:27.391 --> 00:51:30.426 So here his noble figure stands to this day. 00:51:30.426 --> 00:51:35.066 Certainly the most important, perhaps the most moving sculpture 00:51:35.066 --> 00:51:38.633 of an African in all the history of European art. 00:51:38.633 --> 00:51:43.189 It was created and set up in this great German cathedral 00:51:43.189 --> 00:51:48.690 to honor the fame and virtue of an African friend and ally, 00:51:48.690 --> 00:52:04.727 different in face and form, but just as surely equal in dignity and human worth. 00:52:04.727 --> 00:52:08.727 ["Africa" Theme Music]