Sandstone Art - Algeria

When South Sudan gained its independence from the Sudan in 2011, Algeria became the largest territorial country in Africa and 10th largest in the world. With four-fifths of Algeria consisting of arid deserts, it is easy to understand why over 90% of the country’s population lives in the cities fronting the cool Mediterranean coast.

- - - - -

Sandstone Art - A rock painting of a cattle herding scene found in the Tassili n’Ajjer area of southeastern Algeria provides ample evidence of the northern area of the Sahara Desert once having sufficient rainfall to support a wide variety of wild animals: hippopotamus, giraffe, and buffalo. This environment also allowed the establishment of thriving communities able to raise domesticated animals and crops. The desertification of Africa is a continuing process stemming from mismanagement of land and global climate change.

The Toubou - Chad

Found primarily in Chad, Libya, Niger, and Sudan, the Toubou consist of two smaller ethnic groups, the Teda and Dazagra people. The Toubou are semi-nomadic herders traveling between scattered oasis, wadis, and wells within the territories of each clan. Animal husbandry includes tending cattle and sheep, but focuses on raising camels; a family’s wealth and status is dependent on how many camels they own. Fitted with saddles, Toubou camels provide recreational and practical uses; they are trained for ceremonial racing or used for traveling between settlements. Adapt as camel riders, the Toubou had a long history of being fierce warriors patrolling the trade routes across the Northern Sahara. The Toubou speak Tebu, part of the western branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages. The Toubou population is estimated at less than one million with more than half residing in Chad.

Anthromorphic Harp - Congo (Kinshasa)

Anthromorphic harps are stringed instruments associated with the Mangbetu people. The resonator was either in an hour glass or oval form and covered with exotic animal skins. These harps were elegantly carved and usually featured a summit with an elongated head. An elongated head was highly regarded as a physical feature on humans as well. The Mangbetu would apply various methods of sustained, but gentle pressure on the skulls of their infants to change the shape of their head. 

- - - - -

Belgium lagged far behind the other European powers in colonial possessions; it had none. There was growing tensions amongst the countries vying to establish or extend their colonial claims in Africa. The Berlin Conference of 1884 pulled the leading countries of Europe together with the goal of peacefully dividing Africa. King Leopold II of Belgium walked away from the conference with a substantial concession; he won control of the Congo through his privately held Association Internationale Africaine.

African Ceremonial Masks

African masks served an important role in a wide range of tribal ceremonies and allowed the user to take on the persona represented by the mask for enhanced expression. Human features were most often incorporated, but sometimes the masks took on the appearance of animals. Masks were primarily made from wood, but light weight stone, copper, pottery, and fabric were also used. Items such as straw, animal teeth, sea shells, hair, seeds, and feathers helped in fashioning the mask to each specific event.

Dahabeah - Egypt

The Nile River is the longest river in the world. From its remotest head stream, the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, the Nile flows for 6,500 kilometers to reach the Mediterranean Sea. The river basin has a drainage area of 3,350,000 square kilometers. The water resources provided by the Nile are shared by 11 African countries.

- - - - -

A dahabeah is a type of boat used primarily on the Nile River to transport cargo and passengers. These shallow bottomed boats have been in use for thousands of years and continue to sail the Nile River. The earlier vessels carried two lateen-rigged masts. The forward sail, also known as the trinkeet, was three times the size of the aft sail, the ballakoon. Aside from sails, the crew used punting poles, tow ropes, and oars when the wind was lacking. The modern version has kept to the basic design, but has incorporated engines.

The Egyptians

The history of ancient Egypt spans three millennium. It began in 3200 BC when Lower and Upper Egypt were unified during the Early Dynastic Period and ended with the conquest of Egypt by Macedonia under Alexander the Great in 332 BC. This immense time span recorded the rise and fall of 30 dynasties ruling over one of the most enduring and powerful empires the world had ever seen. The Egyptians took pyramid building to new heights, were able to make paper from papyrus, created a system of hieroglyphics, used alphabetic, syllabic symbols, and ideograms to record their history, and they were able to design a remarkably accurate calendar. The Egyptians were the first to harness oxen to plow their fields and the first to rig their boats with sails for traveling up and down the Nile River. Their accomplishments are impressive and set standards for further innovations..

Lucy and Turkana Boy

The fossilized bones of an Australopithecus afarensis was discovered near the village of Hadar, Ethiopia in 1974. The specimen, named Lucy, was about 3.2 million years old. Almost 40 percent of the skeleton was recovered, top image. Lucy was an adult female, stood 1.1 meters, and weighed 29 kilos. In appearance, she resembled a chimpanzee, but her pelvis and leg bones functioned in the same manner as those of modern humans and provided strong evidence of Lucy standing and walking in an upright position. In 1984, a total of 108 bones of an early Homo erectus skeleton was uncovered near Kenya’s Lake Turkana, bottom image. The skeleton was of an adolescent boy and dated to being 1.5 million years old. He stood at 163 centimeters and weighed 68 kilos. Turkana Boy lived during the early Pleistocene, an epoch when anatomically modern humans evolved.

Burchell Wagon

Taking his exploration of South Africa seriously, William Burchell relied on two custom built wagons for his journey through Africa. The basic design of the ox wagon, known in Afrikaans as kakebeenwa, was modified to carry the various scientific instruments necessary for Burchell’s intended work. Burchell, a botanist and naturalist, with secondary talents as an artist, geographer, cartographer, linguist, and ecologist, began his four-year adventure in 1811. The trek took him north from Cape Town to Kuruman then south to Algoa Bay and back to Cape Town. Burchell collected 50,000 specimens of plants and 10,000 specimens of animals. His botanical collection was donated to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and his entomological samples were donated to the University Museum at Oxford. Several species are named in his honor: a zebra, a cuckoo, a sand grouse, a lizard, a wader, a fish, and a species of ant.

The Inuit

The Inuit people migrated and inhabited the various regions of the Arctic circle extending from Alaska to Greenland. They are the most recent arrivals in the Americas prior to the European crossing of the Atlantic. Scientific evidence points to an arrival time from Siberia and their expansion out of Western Alaska at about 1000 AD. The Inuit have adapted themselves well to their harsh and isolated environment, a factor in helping them to remain somewhat intact as a cultural group. Inuit society was based strictly on hunting and was highly mobile as the nomadic communities followed the seasonal migration of the seals, whales, and caribou. They were able to build comfortable living quarters made of snow and ice. These igloos were constructed in various sizes to serve as either temporary hunting shelters, family quarters or as community dwellings able to accommodate twenty people.

The Kwakwaka'wakw

The Kwakwaka'wakw of the Pacific Northwest were the first people to inhabit Northern Vancouver Island and the coastal areas of present day British Columbia. They are noted for their exceptional skills in carving intricate totem poles for the purpose of tracing and recording relationships with their ancestors. Animal bone, sea shells, and wood were primarily used by the Kwakwaka'wakw to carve items for personal and ceremonial functions or as a commodity to be traded with other clans. The western red cedar was a preferred tree used in fashioning totem poles. The tree was abundant and the red wood was soft with few knots. For smaller carvings, the Kwakwaka'wakw used yellow cedar,  a hard wood, but still easy to be worked over by hand. The current population consists of approximately 6,000 people of whom less than 5% continue to speak their native language.

Easter Island Moai - Easter Island

Jacob Roggeveen, sailing for the Dutch West India Company, set out on a voyage to find Terra Australis in August 1721. On April 5th, 1722, he made landfall on an isolated Pacific island populated by about 2,000 inhabitants of Polynesian descent. In honor of the day, Roggeveen named the island “Paasch-Eyland,” Easter Island.

- - - -

The Rapa Nui people on Isla de Pascua carved hundreds of human shaped monoliths and placed them, facing inland, along the island’s perimeter. With some exceptions, the moai were carved from tuff, a type of soft malleable rock created from compressed volcanic ash. Most of the moai were never completed and still lie unfinished on the slopes of Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano. The statues feature the complete human form, but the emphasis is directed onto the head; the ratio between head and torso is three to five.

The Maya

 

 

Mayan Glyphs - The classic period of Maya history was a period of spectacular achievements in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, architectural design, agricultural planning, and urban development. The Maya built cities larger than those of Europe and elegant pyramids rivaling those of Egypt. The Maya codices were folding books inscribed with colorful glyphs. The books, made from the bark of fig trees, recorded various aspects important to Maya civilization: astronomical tables, divination, almanacs, and other issues. In an attempt to subdue the Maya culture, the Spanish suppressed or destroyed the books; a few have survived. Maya writing is based on logograms, a written character is used to represent a word or morpheme. There are other Mesoamerican scripts, but the Mayan style, dating from 2,200 years ago, is the most highly developed.

United Sates of America - Introduction

Before the railroads established a full connection between the cities and towns of the Eastern United States, the Conestoga wagon served the needs of the farmers and merchants in hauling their goods to market. The wagon originated in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and was built by German settlers from the area. It was 5.4 meters long, 3.3 meters high, and 1.2 meters wide. The body curved up on both ends to help stabilize heavy loads when passing over rough roads. The wagon had a cargo capacity of almost 6 tons. A heavy canvas cover, coated with linseed oil, protected the cargo from bad weather and the seams were caulked with tar to prevent water from leaking into the body during river crossings. The wagon was usually pulled by a team of up to eight horses or twelve oxen. A strong draft animal, the Conestoga horse, was bred purposely to pull the heavy wagon.

The Diné

The Navajo, also known as the Diné, are the largest remaining group of Native Americans in the United States; there are over 300,000 individuals counting themselves as Navajo. Arizona and New Mexico are hosts to the largest population centers. They are noted for their remarkable adaption to the desert regions of the American southwest and their skills in silver-smithing and weaving. Incorporating turquoise with silver-smithing in fashioning jewelry has become iconic of Diné culture. The Diné refined their weaving skills when they adapted themselves to the upright looms used by the Pueblo people. The finely woven blankets of the Diné have three basic design patterns referred to as phases. Blankets woven in first phase patterns are limited to horizontal stripes, second phase patterns use red rectangular designs, and the third phase patterns make use of red diamond shapes.

Junk - Hong Kong

Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain following China’s defeat in the First Opium War, 1839 to 1842. The tiny hamlet had less than 10,000 inhabitants when handed over to the British, but has since grown into a thriving metropolis. Hong Kong ranks as the fourth most densely populated area in the world; Macau is first.

- - - -

The junk, a sailing vessel found throughout Asia, came into widespread use during the Song Dynasty, 960 to 1279. Junks vary in size and purpose, but the one shared feature is their use of a batten sail fastened to a mast lacking shrouds or stays. The sail is held rigid through the use of battens, light weight wood, passing horizontally along the vertical length of the sail. Large junks capable of traveling the open seas were used in Asia during the 16th and 17th century; some were three-masted and required crews of more than 100 sailors.

The Han

Most people in China refer to themselves ethnically as Han, the largest of several ethnic groups making up the country’s population. The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China and flourished, with a brief interruption, from 206 BC to 220 AD. This time span is often referred to as the “Golden Age” for China. The Han Dynasty ushered in a period of renaissance in promoting innovations such as a new method of producing better paper, the wheelbarrow, glazed pottery, hot air balloons, and an early version of a seismograph. Zhang Heng, a court astronomer, had devised the first known seismograph. When an earthquake occurred, the bronze jar would shake open the dragon’s mouth and cause a ball to fall into the toad’s mouth directly beneath it. This device had a limited range in detecting distant earthquakes, but it worked well enough on a local level.

Abacus - Iraq

The Tigris and Euphrates River pass through Iraq in close proximity before emptying into the Persian Gulf. The fertile soils of the Mesopotamia region provided the early inhabitants of Iraq with conditions similar to those of the Egyptians in regards to the Nile River. These rivers helped to build and sustain powerful empires.

- - - - -

There was a time when written numbers did not exist. As trade and commerce grew, a need for adding and subtracting numbers became evident. The Sumerians were the first to use counting boards, the forerunner of the abacus. The first abacus, developed in 2300 to 2700 BC, was a complex device. As it spread and evolved from nation to nation, each contributed changes to improve the device. It is now possible to perform complex calculations on a modern abacus, allowing it to go far beyond adding and subtracting.

Dhow - Kuwait

Fragments of the world’s earliest sailing craft, a reed boat, were found along the coastal area near the Kuwaiti city of Subiya. It is estimated to be 7,000 years old. The boat was made of reeds held together by rope and made water resistant through the application of a coating of bitumen, a substance derived from petroleum tar.

- - - - -

The origin of the dhow stems from India and China, but it was used extensively throughout history as a means of transporting heavy loads along the trade routes of the Persian Gulf and the East African coast. The size of the dhow varied according to use, but they each had lateen sails, a triangular sail arrangement. They also differed from most other vessels by featuring a method of stitched construction. The hull boards were laced together with rope fiber as opposed to being fastened by nails, dowels or pegs.

Europe - Introduction

The Age of Discovery began in the early 15th century. European adventurers and entrepreneurs became increasingly curious as to what lay beyond the horizon. The intense curiosity brought on enough courage to allow them sail across uncharted oceans and to endure the discomfort and danger of venturing into strange lands inhabited by strange people. Their epic journeys of discovery were driven by more than wind. The conquers pursued their course with the deliberate intent to enhance, to empower, and to enrich themselves and their supporters. They deserve credit for their bravery and skills as sailors, but they must also bear the responsibility for the unimaginable suffering and despair caused by their efforts to carve out colonies, expand their empires, and preach salvation and redemption to the unfortunate native people they dismissed as savages.

"Woman of Willendorf" - Austria

The “Woman of Willendorf” is a figurine recovered in 1908 from an archeological site near Willendorf, Austria. The design and crafting technique stems from the Gravettian period; it is about 25,000 years old. Sculpted in limestone and tinted with red ochre, the figurine has no facial details. The emphasis is placed on the breasts, buttocks, and abdomen while minimizing the head and lower limbs. This type of statuette is referred to as a “Venus” and it may have been used as a fertility icon.

- - - - -

Historically, the German states had been a loose collection of independent fiefdoms. This became more obvious with the 1806 collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. The two most powerful states to emerge from the rubble were Prussia, under the Hohenzollern dynasty and Austria, under the Habsburg dynasty. Both struggled to assert their authority over the other German states in an attempt to resurrect a new unified Germany. Prussia eventually succeeded and excluded Austria from the new nation.