Ancient Africa - A History Denied (Full Documentary)

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So much of Africa's history has been lost.

It is a land of forgotten kingdoms.

Great African empires of the Middle Ages provided
the ivory and gold that fueled the Renaissance

in Europe, yet in later centuries Arabs and
Europeans, the very people who benefited most

from Africa's bounty, conspired to deny the
continent it's great legacy.

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White explorers refused to believe black Africans
were capable of anything more than mud huts

and pagan beliefs.

To justify their exploitation of the Dark
Continent, white colonizers claimed Africa's

lost civilizations for white ancestors.

>> There is definitely a deeply ingrained
idea in the Western World that Africans are

a people without history.

Even a Regius professor of modern history
in my old University Oxford in my own lifetime

could address a mass audience in the United
Kingdom through the media and say, "maybe

in the future there will be African history
but at the moment there is none.

There is only the history of Europeans in
Africa.

The rest is darkness and darkness is not a
subject of history.â

>> The great African civilizations relied
on an oral tradition to pass on their ancient

legends of mighty chiefs and tribal conflicts.

Generation after generation heard these stories
but gradually the memories faded, even the

names of kings were forgotten.

With no written record, the mighty empires
of Africa's past became as vulnerable as their

land.

800 years ago this rugged terrain near the
South African border with Zimbabwe was the

site of one such kingdom.

All outward signs of their civilization have
long vanished yet the local Venda people know

through whispers from their ancestors that
great kings and queens were once buried here,

high above the bush felt on the summit of
a cliff.

A burial ground created with thousands of
tons of soil carried here to cover the bare

rock of the cliff top.

Each body was adorned with gold treasures
before the royal graves were sealed.

Eight centuries later in 1932, an Afrikaner
adventurer with a thirst for gold persuaded

a local villager to take him to the ancestral
burial site of Mapungubwe.

Today Ernst Von Graan, grandson of the explorer,
retraces that journey.

>> Oh, my grandfather, he was a treasure hunt.

He was always interested in finding gold and
he was actually the ***** for this place for

almost five years.

>> Centuries of superstition had protected
this royal burial ground from theft.

Their guide dared not even look at the sacred
hill, fearing he would be struck blind.

>> The local Venda people, they call this
hill Mapungubwe, the Hill of the Jackal, and

they call it the Hill of the Jackal because
they believe there's evil spirits and things

going around here.

When they approached the hill, there was these
vertical cliffs and it seems to be impossible

to get onto the hill, and then they found
this secret passage going up behind me.

>> As Von Graan's team began their climb,
they found holes carved into the rock face,

an ancient stairway to the top of this hidden
chimney.

They feared the climb to the royal burial
site could well be booby-trapped with giant

boulders poised to fall and crush them at
any moment but their ascent was safe.

They were about to uncover some of the last
remaining royal treasure in all of Southern

Africa.

Normally, recovered gold objects were destined
for the melting pot, another important chapter

in African history would have been doomed,
and originally that was their plan.

Luckily, at the last moment Von Graan Jr._suffered
a pang of conscience.

Among the finds were a golden scepter and
a gold rhinoceros, small trinkets compared

to Tutankhamun's treasures.

If they were the few precious remaining links
to a long-forgotten past.

Van Graan had been a history student in Pretoria.

He knew the significance of these artifacts
and decided to donate them to the University.

Though rescued, these treasures remain hidden
from public view, locked away in archaeology

department vaults.

Pottery later excavated at the site proved
there was once an enormous settlement at Mapungubwe

yet to this day the University of Pretoria
has allowed only a few archaeologists access

to these remarkable finds.

These are the most important artifacts in
Sub-Saharan Africa reluctantly brought out

to be photographed on special occasions then
locked away again.

They might as well still be buried.

All this secrecy has its roots in apartheid.

Dutch settlers maintained that blacks and
whites had arrived in the area at roughly

the same time, giving them equal claim to
the territory.

When radiocarbon dating placed Mapungubwe
as early as 1200 A.D., white South Africans

were stunned.

They refused to believe blacks had arrived
in the region more than 400 years earlier

than the first white settlers.

The Afrikaner scientists tested and retested
Mapungubwe making it one of the most radiocarbon

dated sites in all of Southern Africa yet
the result was always the same 1200 A.D.

>> With many white settlers in Southern Africa,
much of the argument had rested on the proposition

much of this land was in any case free of
African people or what you mean it belongs

to Africa.

We arrived at about the same time as the Africans
so they have no greater claim then we have,

so we have as much right as they have.

So to tell them that, look, but they were
here hundreds of years before you undermines

some of their basic claim to a special status
in Southern Africa.

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This civilization was ancient, it was prosperous,
and it was black but what happened to these

people remains a mystery.

Perhaps they drove their cattle herds further
north to the lusher pastures and cooler climate

of higher ground or perhaps they became the
long-sought ancestors of another African kingdom.

For only 100 years later, 200 miles beyond
the Limpopo River, one of the greatest African

empires would be founded.

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While Europe was in the Middle Ages, Southern
Africa was dominated by the Kingdom of Great

Zimbabwe.

Their kings ruled from a court and closed
by a colossal circular wall over 25 feet high

and 16 feet thick.

Little is known about the empire, even the
names of their kings are now forgotten.

We do know they owned thousands of head of
cattle and provided ivory and gold to Swahili

merchants on the East Coast, the first link
in Africa's trade network with the world.

Today, the country of Zimbabwe takes its name
from this ancient kingdom.

Zimbabwe means great house of stone.

Until recently, it's real history was denied
by white people.

They were convinced that black Africans could
not have created such monumental structures.

For hundreds of years, Europeans dreamed of
finding a lost white civilization of incredible

wealth somewhere in Africa's dark and savage
interior.

Carl Mauch, a German explorer, had heard tales
of ancient stone ruins in unexplored territory

north of the Limpopo River.

He searched for months before finally stumbling
across these magnificent remains.

>> Tuesday, 5 September, 1871, I saw a short
distance of a and apparently round edifice.

It's built without any mortar or hewn granite
slabs.

It's outer wall is about 150 yards in diameter.

The local natives called these ruins Zimbabwe.

>> Mauch was overcome by the splendor and
sophistication of these ruins, but believing

black Africans too primitive to build such
walls he was convinced they were the work

of a lost white tribe.

>> Finally, I stopped in front of a tower-like
structure, it stood quite undamaged.

I learned from some local inhabitants that
say themselves have only been here from about

40 years ago such a region was quite uninhabited
before that time.

All are absolutely convinced that white people
once inhabited the region.

>> He drew African artifacts in his notebook
but refused to believe that the city was built

by blacks.

Finally, he found evidence he believed would
prove his theories.

>> I cut some splinters off the crossbeam.

A comparison with the wood of my pencil shows
that it must be cedar wood and this must have

come from the Lebanon.

Furthermore, only the Phoenicians could have
brought it there.

Solomon used a lot of cedar wood for the building
of his palaces and these ruins are an imitation

of Solomon's buildings in Jerusalem.

It's a great woman who built the enclosure
could have been none other than

the Queen of Sheba.

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This place according to Mauch was biblical
Ophir, the city of gold.

The story of the Queen of Sheba is first told
in the Bible.

Laden with precious gifts of gold and gems,
this mythical white queen visits King Solomon

in Jerusalem.

She is said to be a temptress with a lustful
body beneath her silken robes.

She gives the King everything he desires.

Carl Mauch concluded the Queen of Sheba must
have been the Queen of Great Zimbabwe and

this place her palace.

Mauch's racist theories were quickly seized
upon as valuable propaganda by white settlers

seeking to expand the British Empire.

Any proof that whites had been here in biblical
times would help justify their new exploitation

of the region.

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By the middle of 1890, Cecil Rhodes, a wealthy
British industrialist, had founded Rhodesia,

a country that remained under white role until
1980 when the black majority renamed it Zimbabwe.

Roads carved out for himself thousands of
miles of land, rich in diamonds and gold including

the ruins of Great Zimbabwe.

Claiming it was a Phoenician Palace, he oversaw
an orgy of looting that robbed these ruins

of their most precious artifacts.

>> One of the great tragedies of Great Zimbabwe
is that people were doing intensive excavation

work here in the firm conviction that at
the bottom of all this debris was the key

to the mystery, the Phoenicians whoever it
was who built it.

And of course, once they got down to the bottom
and the clearance was complete, they had destroyed

all the evidence of all the human habitation
that actually went with these walls.

>> This act of historical vandalism still
angers Peter Garlick, once an official in charge

of the site.

So great was the damage that the true history
of this place was almost lost forever.

But in 1929, a large-scale expedition of British
archaeologists attempted to unlock Great Zimbabwe

from the bosom of the Queen of Sheba.

Gertrude Caton Thompson, the leader of the
group, was determined to solve the riddle

of Great Zimbabwe once and for all.

>> Gertrude Caton Thompson was a formidable
woman.

Her archaeological standards are of the highest.

It was an all-woman team.

I think very deliberately she always worked
with women and was one of the first feminists

in archaeology.

>> After weeks of digging, her team still
hadn't found enough material to date the site.

Demoralized, they sought another area worth
exploring.

Caton Thompson needed to locate unpillaged
ruins.

A determined explorer, she persuaded a friend
to loan her an airplane.

As she swept past the back of the Acropolis,
she noticed an uncharted path to the top.

It was obscured by vegetation and led to a
new set of wall enclosures.

At last, she had found a place untouched by
white hands.

The work began the following day.

They would eventually collect all the proof
she needed.

Her conclusion, ancient Bantu people had built
Great Zimbabwe in medieval times starting

around the 11th century but her report was
not popular among white Rhodesians.

>> Gertrude Caton Thompson's work gave her
the highest reputation among academics and

scientists.

It did nothing to persuade the settler to
overcome his prejudices.

The settler, like all colonial settlers, knew
his native.

He knew that the native could not do this.

He knew that the native was a savage, and
nothing that anyone could do either Caton

Thomson or in the 50 years subsequent to her,
we're going to convince people with such strong

racial prejudices that Great Zimbabwe was
not exotic.

>> There are unenlightened persons who assert
complacently but these unexampled structures

are of Bantu artistry.

Bantu people are unchanging, they are as they
used to be, farmers, herdsmen of small brain

capacity.

>> She had a special file for such poisonous
propaganda.

Many years later, a black servant was still
shown bowed before a white queen of Sheba

in an official Rhodesian travel poster.

Great Zimbabwe was being used as a symbol
of white racial superiority.

Today, the same image is the icon of the new
nation of Zimbabwe.

>> The attempt was to undermine the legitimacy
of the claims of African nationalists and

to say this land is as much ours if not more
so than yours.

If you suddenly demonstrate, but look these
walls testify against you because these have

been here for hundreds of years and they were
erected by Africans, silent witnesses that

Africans were here centuries before you .
They can't take it so they say the witness

is lying.

It wasn't built by Africans.

>> For centuries, Great Zimbabwe has suffered
an entirely fictitious history but, what was

this great African kingdom really like?

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In its heyday during the 14th century, Great
Zimbabwe was a thriving metropolis unique

in all of Africa.

It was as big as London at the time with a
population as large as 18,000 crammed into

just a few square miles.

Inside it's great stone walls was sub-Saharan
Africa's oldest known urban culture.

The noise must have been overwhelming.

Smoke from hundreds of cooking fires would
have darkened the sky.

It was the capital of an empire that stretched
for thousands of miles and contained hundreds

of mini Zimbabwes, each with its own ruler.

In Great Zimbabwe, a king's influence carried
on long after he died.

Spirits of ancestors remained an ongoing presence
both as powerful rulers and spiritual advisers.

Today, the local Shona people are thought
to be descendants of the people that built

Great Zimbabwe.

In modern Shona culture, the spirits of ancestors
are still regularly contacted through a ceremony

performed by a medium in a cave below the
Acropolis ruins.

>> The Shona are very religious people, they
believe strongly that their ancestors are

not dead and gone forever, that they are live,
they through their mediums, they can punish

them, they can bless them, they can pray for
them, and therefore if you don't follow what

they say you are likely to come into misfortune.

>> Stan Mudenge, a Zimbabwean government minister,
has studied the ancestors of the Shona people.

>> Usually the spirits of the ruler, the dead
rulers, were the most powerful spirits on

matters of state and these spirits possess
mediums and they become in every respect the

Emperor but in human form.

>> High on the Acropolis overlooking the kingdom
is a sacred enclosure where we can imagine

what used to happen.

During times of trouble, the King would come
here to pay tribute to his ancestors and ask

for guidance from his spirit medium.

The medium would work himself into a trance
and be taken over by the spirit of a long-dead

ruler.

This supernatural link between the king and
the nation's founding fathers was fundamental

to the culture.

Through his medium, the King exerted influence
over the spirit mediums of lesser rulers.

In addition to military might, he wielded
a powerful spiritual control over any who

would challenge him.

>> You didn't need a huge army to control,
you had control psychologically, you could

make people pissed, you could make the pronouncements
which people follow and obey.

>> These great stone birds were symbols of
that power and are among a few icons to be

salvaged from this sacred place.

>> This was a civilization which represented
the highest achievement of the Bantu-speaking

people of this part of Africa.

The wealth which they accumulated enabled
them to build such massive structures as they

have built here Great Zimbabwe, especially
down there in the valley.

I think the sheer arrogance, pomposity, the
great madness which sees Louis XIV to build

the great Versailles Palace, that was not
a place for one man to live in, that was making

a statement of his wealth, the significance
of his country, what he thought of himself,

and same madness is the people here build
these huge magnificent state stone structures

which we now admire.

>> Great Zimbabwe was constructed over several
centuries by a devoted people.

One million stone blocks were shaped just
to build the outer wall.

Each subject paid tribute to the chief with
seven days of labor each month, not slave

labor.

They built this monument to honor their king
and provider.

The original builders of these walls came
to granite outcrops like this one.

Today, they still quarry blocks as they have
for centuries to repair the broken walls of

their ancestors.

By heating the granite with fire and throwing
water along the fault lines, the rock shatters

into thick slabs.

Then begins the slow process of breaking and
shaping the rocks for the dry stone walls.

Although it's easy to understand how they
built these walls, why they built them is

the subject of fierce debate.

Was the great enclosure a fortress or a palace?

The narrow passage between these towering
walls has generated lurid theories.

Many believe it stopped men from spying during
female initiation ceremonies.

Most likely though, it was simply to maintain
absolute privacy for the royal household.

That still leaves the enigma of the giant
cone-shaped tower.

>> The first Victorian investigators are focused
in on it as a sexual symbol, as a male penis

in stone.

This is being resurrected on several occasions
subsequently, but there is no evidence either

in its form, it's decoration to suggest it.

There are fragmentary traditions that suggest
that it represents in stone the great clay

grain bins in which the staple food was stored
and this makes some sort of sense of the monarch

or King as provider of his people's food.

>> Funding this vast construction in the 1300s
required a booming economy and the source

of that wealth was cattle.

A chief's status was based on the number of
cattle he owned, a rich man would have many

cattle so he could afford many wives who would
bear him many children, who would provide

more labor to cultivate more land.

During the dry season when there was little
work, farmers became gold miners.

Digging for gold in these narrow mine shafts
was so dangerous, laborers had to be bribed

to go underground.

Most preferred panning in the riverbeds.

Gold was the monopoly of the king, he paid
his miners in cattle reserving the gold for

himself for exchange and barter with the Swahili
merchants of the East African coast.

At the height of their power, the great Zimbabwe
rulers controlled the flow of gold and ivory

to the trading ports of East Africa and this
trade would fuel construction of some of

the most magnificent cities in the ancient world.

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In the 14th century, Africa's Swahili coast
was an exotic place described by Arab sailors

as vibrant and affluent with the most beautiful
and well-constructed towns in the world.

This was the setting for the legendary adventures
of Sinbad and the Arabian Nights.

Persian carpets were exchanged for African
ivory, porcelain was traded for gold.

Merchants who came from India and Arabia even
from the Far East had to deal with Swahili

brokers, medieval middlemen who were their
only link to goods from Africa's interior.

The Swahili built and sailed the dhows and
navigated the treacherous channels to the

many trading ports.

By controlling the sea, they maintained firm
control over all commerce in the region.

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Every year, hundreds of boats awaited the
monsoon winds to carry their goods back to

the Middle East.

By the 10th century, gold, ivory, and quartz
were pouring into the Mediterranean, commerce

on a scale not seen since Greek and Roman
times.

This prosperous coastline had ports and cities
that stretched 1800 miles from present-day

Somalia to Mozambique.

Their trade networks extended from Arabia
to India and onto China.

In the 15th century, the Swahili even exported
a giraffe to China causing a sensation at

the imperial court.

This extensive contact with other cultures
produced a cosmopolitan society influenced

by both Arab and Indian traditions.

Yet despite their widespread success, this
region of Africa has also suffered a history

denied.

The confusion can be traced back to the first
Arab traders and the introduction of Islam.

The Swahili adopted Islam a thousand years
ago and this shared religious code helped

create mutual trust in business deals.

The call to prayer would have brought together
the Arab traders and the African merchants.

They would have washed in cisterns like these,
then entered mosques as grand as the medieval

cathedrals of Europe.

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But the mystery is, who built these once-great
cities?

Arabs or Africans?

Archaeologist Marc Horton is studying the
ghost towns of Africa's coast.

He has revolutionary ideas about their origin.

>> When archaeologists first came here in
the 1920s and found these ruins covered by

jungle, they naturally assumed they must be
the work of Arabs.

You've got here stone tombs made of coal from
the sea, decorated in porcelain bowls.

You've got houses and palaces with elaborate
niches and toilets.

You've got mosques with their minarets and
with their ******* and this surely must be

the work of Arabs, but I now believe that
the fact this interpretation is wrong that

these are an African society.

>> The raw material for these towns was mined
from coral deposits.

Until recently, it was assumed Arab settlers
used African slaves to build their mosques

and palaces.

Once again, many found it hard to imagine
Africans constructing permanent buildings.

Now it is thought the Swahili played a much
more active role in creating this trading

empire and that the wealthy merchants who
built these coral towns were African, not

Arab.

It's a complicated story to untangle.

By the 18th century long after many of these
coastal cities had gone into decline, the

east coast of Africa was actually ruled by
Arabs sultans from the island of Zanzibar.

To support their territorial claims, they
insisted Africans were mere bystanders in

the development of Swahili civilization.

For 10 years, Mark Horton has been helping
the Swahili rewrite their history and lay

claim to their rightful legacy.

For Horton, this derelict building is a testament
to the betrayal of the Swahili people.

It's called the House of Wonders.

>> This vast building represents the final
humiliation of the Swahili to the presence

by the British to the Arab Sultan of Zanzibar
in the 1880s.

British wanted to carve up large tracts at
East Africa but unfortunately the Swahili

were in the way.

They were the people who lived there for thousands
of years.

And so they pretended that the Swahili had
no history, there was simply Arab history

and by giving this building to the Arab sultan
of Zanzibar, it was possible to create a whole

new myth about the history of East Africa,
and that is why we no longer have an idea

of who the Swahili were.

>> Okay, ...
>> Horton believes the only way to find out

who they were is by digging.

His goal to find evidence of an early African
settlement on the Island of Pemba off the

Tanzanian coast.

He leads his team of workers to a site where
he thinks he has found the legendary City

of Kanbalu.

According to Arab records from the 10th century,
Kanbalu was the first Muslim city on the Swahili

coast so it is of crucial importance.

In the best African tradition, Horton issues
orders from his perch while his wife Kate

digs below.

They are starting to uncover the floor of
a mosque that has completely collapsed.

Horton hopes it will reveal how Islam came
to East Africa.

An old Arab legend offers one explanation.

Abdul Juma, Zanzibar's chief archaeologist,
turns it into a campfire story for the weary

workforce.

It comes from the journal of an Arab explorer.

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>> Back in 922 A.D., he wrote that a ship
of Arab sailors set sail from Oman to an African

trading post called Kanbalu but a storm drove
him much further south along the coast.

Now the people of this coast were reputed
to be cannibals so the sailors feared for

their lives.

The frightened Arab merchants were brought
ashore and dragged before the king.

Luckily, he seemed more interested in trading
than eating.

He was dazzled by the Arabian jewels so they
exchanged the presents.

The sailors had good reason to praise Allah.

When it was time to go, they invited the King
onto the ship to say farewell.

The Arab captain had a wicked thought.

In the Oman slave market, this African king
could fetch 30 *****.

He gave the order to sail and when they reached
Oman, the king was sold into slavery.

Over the next year, the king learned Arabic
and studied the Quran and eventually became

a devout Muslim.

Then one day he escaped from his master and
walked back thousands of miles to his village.

Several years later the Arab captain who had
betrayed the king set sail on another voyage

to Kanbalu.

Once again, their ship was blown south, once
again they found themselves off the land of

[Zion].
The Arab merchants were stunned to see the

king they had sold years before and begged
for mercy.

>> "Go you traitors," he said.

"if I have forgiven you it is because through
me you have introduced my people to Islam.

So in the future when Muslims come here, we
will treat each other like brothers.â

>> This time the king did not see them off.

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>> The moral of the tale is that the Swahili
might have become Muslim to avoid being sold

into slavery.

Horton thinks the spread of Islam along the
Swahili corridor was a kind of insurance policy

against the Arab slave trade.

Kanbalu, the Arab captain's destination in
the tale, was a thriving trading port along

the east coast of Africa.

If this is Kanbalu, Horton has found then
beneath the floor of this stone mosque there

could well be earlier mosques built in a more
traditional African style.

On this beach, the temporary fishing village
has a wooden mosque.

Swahili only live here during the fishing
season as they have for a thousand years but

they always build a mosque, one probably similar
to the very first Swahili mosques.

>> So Mark, this is a timber built mosque
with *****, typical of early mosques on these

villages.

>> And when they abandon these they graduate
to one made of mud?

>> Yes, mud and timber mosques.

And usually it becomes lighter than this timber
mosque.

>> And then again one then has a stone one
so it's...

>> Yes, they build a stone on the same spot
on top of another.

>> Heavy rainfall brings a halt to the digging,
the downpour softens the soil just enough

to quicken Mark Horton's pulse.

Beneath the stone mosque, they begin to find
remnants of two wooden mosques, one on top

of the other.

The earliest dating back to the 8th century.

>> This place is probably the site of Kanbalu.

We know from historical evidence that Kanbalu
is the first place on the Saffron Coast with

Muslims.

Perhaps, this is the first structure because
I'm kneeling on the very place that the Muslims

came to East Africa.

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>> A Muslim festival honors the birth of Muhammad
but on the Kenyan Island of Lamu, the celebration

pulses to a uniquely African rhythm.

The clans race dhows around the archipelago
and surge along the harbor front.

Islam may have come from Arabia but this is
a Swahili celebration in a Swahili town.

And even many Swahili continue to believe
the foundations of their civilization are

Arab.

>> Some of the confusion was self-perpetrated
in the sense that many Muslims among the Swahili

people preferred to identify themselves in
Arab terms.

So they added to their racist tendencies of
outsiders who wanted to deny Africans and

credit anyhow.

So these Muslims had quasi-religious reasons
for self-Arabization and Western observers

had racist reasons for crediting the Arabs
with Swahili civilization.

And the true forms of reasons converged to
create the confusion.

>> There can be no denying the external forces
that molded towns like Lamu.

The intricate wooden carving on doorways is
a typical Swahili feature.

Perhaps several centuries ago, Indian craftsmen
visited and taught Africans how to carve elaborate

designs into wood but then the Swahili absorbed
and adapted these lessons to fit their own

culture.

Perhaps, Persians introduced the ornate designs
carved into the walls of houses but today

Swahili craftsmen practice the art of molding
wet plaster.

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Six centuries ago, rich African merchants
built villas decorated by the finest craftsmen.

Lamu was as sophisticated as medieval Venice.

These opulent houses were built on the foundations
of the Arabian and Indian trade.

Today most of that trade is gone and the economy
depends on a trickle of tourism.

But the town probably looks much as it always
did.

The streets bustle with donkey traffic, they're
too narrow for cars and the original open

sewer meanders through the alleys.

Lamu's labyrinthine streets are mirrored in
those of many ghost towns along Africa's east

coast.

During the 16th century, hundreds of these
towns fell into ruin.

It's not obvious why the flourishing commerce
came to an end.

Everyone benefited from the trade, the gold
diggers of the interior, the Swahili middlemen,

the sailors, the merchants, and even consumers
around the Medieval World from Europe to China.

Perhaps, the fortunes of rival merchant families
ebbed from generation to generation much as

corporate dynasties rise and fall today.

Perhaps, the Bubonic plague brought worldwide
recession and the demand for African commodities

fell.

It was the end of a glorious era for the kingdoms
of Great Zimbabwe and the Swahili coast.

By the end of the 1500s, the buildings would
lie forgotten but their cultural legacy would

suffer an even worse fate.

>> All societies select what they want to
remember but only Africans have been totally

denied a history of their own for so long.

But remember, this is where our species began
on present evidence.

This is where the first humans walked on earth.

So the first habitat of the human species
seems to be the last to be properly understood.

We are paying a price for not understanding
it.

>> When European settlers first came to Africa,
they dreamed of discovering a lost white civilization

of fantastic wealth and beauty.

Surprisingly, even today the myth lives on.

This is South Africa's lost city, a living
monument to an imaginary lost white tribe.

It's part of the Sun City Resort, one of the
most luxurious theme parks in the world.

The artificial beach is packed with white
South Africans on vacation.

A labor force of several thousand black South
Africans keeps the dream of the Lost white

tribe alive.

Each night they return to their shanty towns
discreetly hidden behind the hills.

Perhaps in centuries to come when future archaeologists
uncover these ruins, they'll identify them

as the remnants of a lost white tribe of Africa.

Only perhaps this time they'll be right.

[ MUSIC ]