Discuss the role of written and unwritten sources in the reconstruction of African history

Introduction
The task of reconstructing African history has been a challenging one. A major challenge in this endeavour is that many parts of Africa until recently remained pre- literate and therefore lacked records of their past. However, it would be misleading and fallacious to conclude that all parts of the continent suffered from this limitation.
Egypt evolved its hieroglyphics three thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era. In Ethiopia, the Ge’ez language was used in ancient Axum. It had been committed to writing before A.D 400. External contacts also enriched the African continent. Islam religion for example brought Arabic language and a tradition of scholarship and historiography. This remains a vital source of information and inspiration to students of African historiography. The Islamic tradition of scholarship and historiography created learning centres such as Timbuktu, Jenne and Sokoto in the western Sudan .
Contacts between Africa and classical civilizations such as the Greco-Roman civilization helped to introduce their languages and literatures to Mediterranean Africa. Swahili language in East Africa became a language of commerce. In other parts of Africa, the Arabic language was used in writing indigenous languages.
From the 15th c, European explorers, missionaries and colonialists kept the records of their contacts and activities. All these are valuable sources about African historiography. These sources are broadly classified into written and unwritten sources.
WRITTEN SOURCES
Written records are the most common sources of information available. These records stretch as far back as the period of ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and they became more popular with the European penetration of Africa.
Written sources refer to anything drawn or printed in conventional signs on any kind of support for example papyrus, parchment, bone or paper.
These written sources are in two periods, namely; written sources before the fifteenth century and written sources from the fifteenth century. These written sources can be classified as follows;

1. CLASSICAL SOURCES
They are also referred to as ancient evidence.
Classical period is an epoch from the time before Christ to roughly the arrival of the Arabs into Africa in the 7th century of the Christian era. In this era, there was a lot both archeological and literary evidence that can be harnessed in the reconstruction of African history. This classical period is very important because it provides evidence demonstrating the importance of Africa in influencing world civilization. Archeologically, there is proof that the cultures of lower Nile , Egypt proper were initially derived from the Neolithic cultures which first took root in 5000 B.C in the green Sahara. Before coming to the green Sahara, these cultures existed in the land of the great lakes in East Africa. This is where we have evidence of the earliest human beings ever. From the man’s craddleland in East Africa, the global cultures spread to other parts of the world.
The available classical written documents support the antiquity of life in Africa. For example, Diorodus Sikeliotes wrote in 50 BC that the black people were the first of all mankind to exist. He stated that the Egyptians and their cultures came from the south in the land of the Ethiopians. This view is supported by Martin Benal in his book The Black Athena volume 1. He argues that the Afro-asiatic people moved from the Rift valley well equipped with hippopotamus hunting tools that is harpoons. They also possessed domesticated food crops and cattle. Moving through the savannah, the Chadic speakers reached lake chad , the Berbers reached the Maghreb and the proto Egyptians, upper Egypt. Speakers of proto-Semitic settled in Ethiopia and in the Arabian savanna.
Egypt in ancient times stands out as a significant centre of civilization. Actually, it is the origin of all civilizations in the world. Information gathered by Manetho, an Egyptian historian in 3 B.C gives us a solid history of Egypt. Manetho had been appointed by the Ptolemaic kings to be in charge of writing their history. The thirty one Manethonian dynasties remain today the firm foundation of relative chronology of Egypt. Manethonian writing was in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic. These Egyptian literary sources were often prepared to enumerate a Pharaoh’s achievements or ensure eternal worship. There are two existing forms that support the above argument:
i) The Palermo stone – it is a diorite slab carved on both faces. This slab contains names of all the pharaohs who reigned in Egypt from the beginning to the fifth dynasty( around 2400 BC). As from the third dynasty, the Palermo stone lists the names of the rulers in the order of their succession, year by year and the most important events of their reign. This stone is preserved in Palermo city in Sicily.

---

kevoh njau answered the question on March 6, 2019 at 14:18