Homework 04.21.10

Self-righteousness: it's what everyone (including the Romans) lived by. You believe that you are better than everyone else.

In 30 AD (or 3 BC because the time was all messed up), Christ was crucified. The Romans thought it was all over. But 25 years later, when Paul writes about it, there were at least 500 eye witnesses still alive. This was a huge impact for the Christians. People remember Christ. People believed in Christ and what he stood for.

Christians were not afraid to die. This is something that greatly intimidated the Romans. And because they didn't know what to do, they would simply persecute more and more Christians, but this just magnified the converts. Polycarp, Ignatius, Paul, and John were all martyrs and ready to sacrifice their lives if it meant that more people were converted to Christ. They knew the meaning of love, and their love for Christ was so great, so powerful that they would be willing to give up everything earthly in order to see His kingdom furthered.Powerful.


Africa: a pre-Christian civilization

We will start in North Africa and move to Nubia. The people who inhabited Northern Africa were not the black people that we think of now...they were Mediterranean and Greek people. A real study of African civilization has always been difficult and sketchy. The reason behind this is that they tended to have a lot of ruins. They lived by water for the most part, however. Oceans and rivers were where you found them living the majority of the time. Water was essential for this culture. They thrived in commerce. Though many people debate this to this day, the people of northern Africa were a multi-racial society.

The first notable Nubian civilization that we will look at are the Kermas. They flourished during 2500-1500 BC. They began living in the Sahara desert but moved closer to Egypt. Their architecture was very desert-like and this was brought into Egypt and adopted there. In fact, the Egyptians' religions and regular life habits were greatly altered due to the Kermas. These once-desert-dwellers moved closer to water. They were natural traders, and tended to do most of their business between the Egyptians and everybody else.

One great advantage for them is that they were not grounded to any one place. The Kermas had no obligation to stay in any one place; they could just up and move anywhere they wanted. They were our original "brokers" and the official traders of the land. We could contrast them to the highly developed Egyptians who had very refined music and art. The Kermas found themselves getting rich quickly due to being the middle-man. They didn't have a very large army nor any natural architecture. They did, however, build vast and individual villas for the rich Egyptians. They didn't have any great buildings themselves though. They spent a lot of money on their creatures though. The Kermas didn't tend to store up their money, instead they had the concept that since the money came so easily, then it would always do that so what is the use in saving it? They would soon realize that due to economic plunges, their source of money wouldn't always be there. They mainly traded ivory, gold and diorite. They did not trade any grain of any sort. The Kermas were the richest tribe of all the Nubians.

Napatan - This is the second Nubian tribe that we will talk about. They flourished mainly during 860-270 BC near the city of Napata in Nubia. They pushed their influence up north. They, unlike the Kermas, had a large, marauding army. The Napatas began to take over Egypt...they even set up a Nubian ruler over Egypt. Rome wanted to consolidate. And so the Napatas turned to law, politics etc. The Nubians almost took over the whole of Rome.

Mero - another tribe of Nubians who were known mainly during 270 BC - 350 AD. They were mainly diplomats, governors, trading executors, and many with high statuses. They were driven by people like Alexander the Great. This was spread to Egypt and Carthage. Race issues began to subside due to economical and political issues.

Rome was built upon slavery. Slavery is not racial.

In the 8th century AD, Ghana was the greatest "gold coast" in Western Africa. They had city-states and most of this stuff was never documented.