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Black Africans and astronomy
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Siemowit View Drop Down
Janissary
Janissary


Joined: 06-Nov-2007
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Posts: 28 		  Quote Siemowit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Black Africans and astronomy
    Posted: 12-Dec-2007 at 22:49
Did Black Africans know any kind of astronomy ?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Dec-2007 at 00:21
Of course they had. Particularly the agricultural people do have astronomy by default. Even more, the Khoisan people appear in the TV special Cosmos of Carl Sagan. The astronomer explain the Khoisan knew the Milky Way under the name "The spine of the night", so that shows Khoisans also had a cosmology associated to the stars.
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jdalton View Drop Down
Pretorian
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Joined: 02-Aug-2007
Location: Canada
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Posts: 166 		  Quote jdalton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Dec-2007 at 04:49
Africans from just south of the Sahara, however much about astronomy they knew before, would certainly have been able to learn a great deal about it before the arrival of Europeans. They were fortunate to live near some of the greatest astronomers in history- the Ancient Egyptians and the Arabs. Ancient Nubians knew all about Egyptian mythology and literature and farmed the same crops along the Nile river. I'm sure they knew everything about astronomy that the Egyptians knew.

I wonder if the Arabs ever took advantage of having contact with African Muslims to add to their knowledge of astronomy? Africans would have been able to see parts of the sky that Arab astronomers couldn't because they were so much farther south.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Dec-2007 at 12:54
Rather than astronomy borrowed from Egypt, Ethiopia or other powers that were in contact with the rest of the world, is more important the astronomy that was developed by SS Africans by themselves.
 
All people of the world celebrated the solstices of winter and summer. Africans were not the exception. So, there are sundials in SS Africa as well, developed by themselves.
 
Now for astronomy comming probably from Egyp, just look at this:
 
 
 
 
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