What is the ancient name of Africa?

The ancient name for Africa was "Akebu-Lan" (mother of mankind) or "Garden of Eden." This name was used by the Moors, Nubians, Numidians, Khart-Hadddans (Carthaginians), and Ethiopians. Africa, the current name adopted by almost everyone today , was given to this continent by a European invader by the name of Louis Africanus. Like all methods of manipulation the Romans sought to completely disconnect the indigenous Africans from their culture, deities, and knowledge.

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32 Comments

Michael H. Calhoun

Thanks for this information--but must disagree about the comments about the Romans. Actually, one of the things that distinguished the Roman conquests is their persistent policy of NOT disturbing the local cultures, deities, etc. Hence Judea remained Jewish, often with local potentates, priests, etc. retaining local power subject only to Roman legislation and taxation. Egypt was a special case, which retained its own ruler until the Civil War between Octavius (Augustus) and Mark Anthony. Even Rome's ancient rival, Carthage, sown under with salt planted in the soil that nothing might there again ever grow, was permitted ultimately to rebuild, and remained Roman until the Muslim conquest. The Numidians of the northwest were allies of Rome, and provided much of the Roman calvary. The Berbers remained semi-autonomous, rarely bothered by the Romans. It was this remarkable tolerance of conquered nations' customs and local elites and religions that helped the Empire grow and remain so stable for so long. Good references for suggested reading on the subject would be all the standard works on Roman culture and government; I believe there are segments of Gibbon's masterpiece, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which speak to this, as well as some early portions perhaps of Finlay, Bury, etc. Best, mc

John Irwin

Yahdiah Yahdiah And? What does white have to do with it?

niytangel

Nice information. Yahdiah it is better to keep your opinion inside when you hAve nothing good to say. Care to explain how skin color has to do with literacy?

Howard Groopman

Easy to rule out the last two, leaving only two to guess on.

Lynne Zeman

I very much enjoyed this Q & A except the description of romans being " manipulative." Grossly biased and certainly not scholarly. Not a good first effort by our new clone. 1 Q. Score 455. Apparently not a player even though you've been a member since 2014? Posh!

John McLardie

Missing reference.

Jacqueline Tattam

Where is the reference that supports this? This should not have passed review.

Julie Allen

That answer /explanation is a bit of a racist rant, nothing to say where it came from.

Special Patrol Group

Akebu-Lan is the correct way of spelling the answer.

Izet Balagić

She probably meant "There are beautiful Countries, people and cultures" My guess since she said Culture(S) Africa is the second largest Continent with 54 different Countries!

Claire Jobe

Man, i respect you but i disagree with you. The fact of the matter is that they raped, plundered and phillpherd. Simple as that.

mssheilaford

Love this knowledge. Keep sending. I'll keep trying.

William Benner

However they are not a country.."they" are a continent.

William Benner

What is amazing is that many people still call Africa a country, even in some of these post!

Ronnie McCullough

Michael is partially right about the Romans, who is main goals were taxation of their conquered, plus wheat from North Africa, which was the bread basket of its day. In short, the Romans were parasites. Also, EgyptIan (Kemet) culture transformed the cultures of its invaders, as it did with the Greeks and Romans because Egyptian culture was far more ancient and superior to the culture of the invaders. Many of the things attributed to the Greeks, the first civilized European was actually learned from the Egyptians, e.g. medicine (Imhotep true father of Medicine), math, science (kemitstry), architecture, etc.