The Lost Kingdoms of Africa
BBC Four’s “The Lost Kingdoms of Africa” is a series presented by Dr Gus Casely-Hayford a student of African culture and history and an art historian. The four episodes that make up the series start with this refrain;
The African continent is home to nearly a billion people. It has an incredible diversity of communities and cultures, yet we know less of its history than almost anywhere else on earth.
But that is beginning to change. In the last few decades, researchers and archaeologists have begun to uncover a range of histories as impressive and extraordinary as anywhere else in the world.
The series reveals that Africa’s stories are preserved for us in its treasures, statues and ancient buildings – in the culture, art and legends of the people.
This sets the stage for fascinating and eye-opening insights into the histories of some of Africa’s “forgotten” kingdoms. Dr Hayford travels through several countries including Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali and Zimbabwe in search of amazing information on four prominent African kingdoms of Nubia, Ethiopia, Benin and Great Zimbabwe.
Presenter Gus Casely-Hayford is shown at the Church of Gabriel-Raphael, Lalibela, Ethiopia - formerly a pre-Christian palace/fort.
Each series starts with Dr Hayford posting a couple of questions which he has answers to by the end. So far I’ve seen the episodes on Nubia and Ethiopia both of which are really stunning and full of information. The one on Nubia, I really enjoyed because it reveals the reasons behind the Nubian empire’s fall something that has been on my mind for a long time. The Ethiopian focus is equally marvelous because of its glimpses into Ethiopian Christianity and architecture. Those
***
Eccentric Yoruba is a really not that strange regardless of what her alias may suggest. She spends her days writing and blogging at Curiosity Killed The Eccentric Yoruba and Dreamwidth