Download Achieve By Petra – https://app.theachieveproject.com/PSL0001000 Get the Lynx Octave Speaker – https://lynx-electronics.com/ Download Orbra, the life design app – https://orbralifedesign.com/download Close your eyes and picture the beginning of civilisation. Science, mathematics, medicine, architecture. If the picture in your mind is white marble and white faces, this episode is going to change how you see the whole story. In this solo episode of the Masterminds Podcast, Richie Mensah walks through five civilisations across five different eras and one thread that runs through all of them: the systematic erasure of Africa from the record. Starting from the well documented fact that our species began in Africa, he moves through the first Briton, ancient Greece and its debt to Egypt, the Africans who rose to power in Rome, the Moors who lit up Europe for nearly eight centuries, and the deliberate erasure of the African population of Argentina. This is not about anger. It is about remembering, and the sources are laid out so you can check every claim yourself. A note in the spirit of the show: some of this is settled history and some of it is argued by particular scholars. Where a claim is one interpretation rather than consensus, treat it that way, and do your own reading. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why the oldest Homo sapiens fossils, found in Morocco, place our origin in Africa - The DNA finding that Cheddar Man, the oldest Briton, had dark to black skin and blue eyes - What Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and Plato said about Greek thinkers studying in Egypt - How the ancient model of Egypt civilising Greece was replaced, and the argument Martin Bernal made in Black Athena - The story of Septimius Severus, the African-born Roman emperor, and Pope Victor I - How the Moors ruled the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years and brought universities, libraries and running water to Europe - How Arabic numerals, the decimal system and the astrolabe reached Europe through Africa - How Argentina went from one third African to under one percent, and how it was done Sources and further reading Human origins in Africa: the Jebel Irhoud fossils in Morocco, dated to around 300,000 years, published in Nature, 2017. Cheddar Man: UCL and the Natural History Museum, 2018, DNA analysis indicating dark to black skin pigmentation, dark curly hair and blue eyes. Greece and Egypt: Herodotus, Histories, Book II. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book I. Martin Bernal, Black Athena, 1987, which argues the case for the Egyptian and Semitic roots of Greek civilisation. Note that Bernal's specific claims, including the proportion of Greek vocabulary traced to Egyptian and Semitic sources, are argued by him and contested by other scholars. Africans in Rome: Septimius Severus, Roman emperor from 193 AD, born in Leptis Magna in present day Libya. Pope Victor I, of African origin, late second century. The Moors: Tariq ibn Ziyad and the 711 AD crossing, the rule of the Iberian Peninsula through to 1492, the libraries and universities of Cordoba, and Abbas ibn Firnas and the early flight attempt. The expulsion of the Moriscos under Philip III from 1609. Afro-Argentines: the decline of the African-descended population of Argentina across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its documentation in later censuses. Do not take my word for it. Check the sources and reach your own conclusions. Support the show
